Should we rob this stagecoach or trade in our old games?

As I sat in pain from a possible broken small toe my mind started to wonder. Financially, what’s the best way to go about getting new games? Buy new, play the trading in game or renting? So in my agony induced haze I took a quick look at the three options.

Buying new, of course, is the most reliable way to get your hands on a fully working mint game.  No sticky jelly caked kid hands on the disc, no scratches, no dog devoured instruction manual. Oh the smell of a new game, but let’s take a look at the yearly cost for that smell. To cover everyone I’ll split the price between a new Xbox360/PS3 game at $60 and a Wii game at $50 and say a new game will run you $55. If you buy only one game a month at $55 at the end of a year you will have spent $660 on games. Good times.

Let’s look at trading in next. Years ago I was an assistant manager at Funcoland (now a GameStop) and saw kids get pulled into the trade in game like some kind of drug addiction but what was the price for those kids. For my example I’m going to start with a person buying one new game ($55) and then trading that in every month for store credit (let’s say half the original price though good luck getting that) and then buying another new game. The first month will be a new game at $55 and the remaining months of the year the person will end up paying $27.50 per new game. The person is getting new games every month but at half price. Final tally is $357.50 for the 12 months. Sounds sweet doesn’t it?

Finally there’s renting. I love Gamefly so I’ll take a look at that. Currently, at Gamefly, to start up a 1 game out membership it’s $8.95 the first month and $15.95 per month after. The math puts as at $184.40 for a year and for the sake of keeping things equal I’ll go with the idea that the person only rents one game a month. Renting looks great doesn’t it? $184.40 for 12 games versus $357.50 versus $660. Of course you might run into the occasional sticky jelly caked kid hands on the disc and scratches but it’s rare enough to not worry that much about it.

Renting sure looks like the way to go. The person played 12 games and spent $184.40 for the year but let’s look at this a different way. Three friends get together at the end of the year each one representing buying new, trading in, and renting. The person that bought all new has a stack of 12 games that they paid $55 each. The person that traded in has 1 game that cost them $357.50. I’ll say that again, the trading in person owns a $357.50 game. It’s still better then the person that rented which has a pile of nothing that he spent $184.40 on.

Now, of course, this is an extreme example. Most people do a combination of all three and then you have to factor in buying used. However, even being an extreme example, it’s something to think about.