It never ceases to amaze me just how much people spend on this current generation of video games. With 360 games starting at $60, even a casual gamer buying 2 games a month is spending $120. That's not including the cost of Live services. Many people I know trade in their games once they are done playing. If they do so quickly, the best return they get for their games is $35. They still spend $25 to play a game for a week or so, and then move on to the next. In this case, they don't even get to keep the games to enjoy later.

In a few months, titles drop in price, sometimes substantially. $60 games then sell for $30 new. This is the price point I buy the majority of my games at. I have no burning desire to play most games the day they are released, which is an affliction I see running rampant among gamers. Is it because they don't want to be left off the leading edge of current games? Does playing a game 2 months after release make someone less of a gamer? Or do they just want to play all the new games their friends are playing, and will pay anything to do so? The funny thing is that this fervor dies off quickly as soon as the next big title comes out. The total amount of money being flushed down the toilet, in my view, is absurd! This is even more ghastly when you consider that some games last only 8 hours of game time, with little to no replayability at all. Consider that playing games a few months after release (and you will still have a constant stream of games to play) is effectively half the cost, and would allow for twice the games to be played... and kept forever. It also helps to ensure that I don't get burned paying for an over-hyped game that ends up mediocre at best once it hits players' hands.

Are these games truly worth the $60 price tag? PS2 and XBox games were about $40 new. Is developing for next-gen consoles that much more cost intensive for the companies? I don't think so. In fact, they now have many limitations removed. I suppose this implies they must use that extra power to provide more gaming pleasure, but that's not the case. The big step up was obviously graphics and memory capacities, among others. However, we are still subjected to 6 hour games rife with the same staple gameplay of older generations, only with a $60 price. The current generation of consoles have been out long enough that I believe the cost of titles could easily be brought down to the $40 level.

I don't know about the rest of the gamers out there, but I don't have endless funds and I have far more pressing things clamoring for my money. I need to spend wisely. On occasion, I support the new games I love by buying them at full price. I try to limit this kind of splurging to once every two months. With all the awesome looking games coming out this winter, I'm going to be hard pressed to not spend more than I wanted to.