Why Investing in the Past Will Only Help Your Wallet in the Future

(Note, sorry if this is a bit long winded... early morning writing was never my strong suit)

Those of you who I speak regularly to on Twitter or Steam will know I don't shy away from buying games on day one in stupid crazy collectors editions such as my super shiny Uncharted 3: Drakes Deception Explorers Edition.

I made a promise after that particular collectors edition to stop doing it. stop buying crazy £100+ collectors because of some crazy piece of plastic that comes with it and since then I've only bought standard editions of titles... for the most part.

You see, after looking down my pre-order list and cancelling 35 or so titles off the list leaving just above 10 games, I decided to work on my backlog of titles (something I know a lot of us put off) and I discovered some things that I should have put together a while back

1. there are some titles I've paid a fair chunk of money for which I just don't enjoy playing
2. I should have been doing this a long time ago.
3. Old games on PS1 are still fantastic if they were fantastic then.

So, some of you might be sitting there saying 'well those are 3 obviously things you nob'. True enough for the most part and trust me when I say I'll be a lot more picky when it comes to JRPG's in future but now lets get on to the subject of this post.

Old games cost less and play just as good as £40/50 new releases.

Now, this isn't new vs pre-owned, this is just a way to say stop paying so much for your hobby. Videogames are one of the more expensive types of new media and this is only because companies can get away with it. Recently Currys/PC World had a clearance sale where titles like Rage, Dead Space 2, Assassins Creed Brotherhood, Fear 3 and Mortal Kombat were the overdraft killing price of 97p. I paid between £30 to £40 for each of those titles close to release and while I had enjoyed them all if I had spent time on my backlog rather than go and grab them and ignore the pile of games on my desk then I would have saved around £145 quid.

I know this is a special case, it's not like game is going to have a closing down sale soon (I hope) and not everyone has insane pre-order lists or a huge stack of unplayed/unfinished games but if you spent a little more time on the titles you already own then you'll only save cash on the ones you want in the future.