I Got Halo Reach For $35! You Don't Have To Pay Full Price For Video Games!

I'm sure the words "Halo Reach" in the title are what drew you to this article, so let's start with how I got it for $35. Back in March, I actually bought a couple of games from Amazon. Each of those two games came with a $10 discount on a future video game purchase, but those discounts were set to expire in just a couple of months.... unless I applied them to a preorder. By opening a preorder for Halo Reach, those coupons were locked in to that purchase, even though I wasn't billed until the game came out. That brought me down to $39.99, which is a good price, but I was still able to knock five more dollars off with the help of Swagbucks. I'm not going to go into great detail about Swagbucks here, but I did write an extensive Squidoo lens about it, which you can check out here. The short version is that I signed up for Swagbucks, and started using them as my default search engine. After a couple of weeks, I had earned enough Swagbucks to get a $5 Amazon gift card, which they delivered in about a week and a half via email. All I had to do then was apply that gift card to my Halo Reach preorder. Reach arrived on my doorstep the same day it hit store shelves (Tuesday September 14th) thanks to Amazon's release date delivery. When all was said and done, I paid exactly $34.99 for it, and I got it the day it came out.

So now that you know how I got Halo Reach for $35, you're probably wondering what games you can get for that price, and how you can make it happen. Well, you can get a discount on any video game you want if you have the right tools. You'll need three things: An Amazon account, a Gamefly account, and a Swagbucks account. Knowing how to use those three sites effectively is the secret to getting great prices on any video game you'd like. Let's take a look at each, and see how you can use it to expand your video game library.

Gamefly is an online video game rental service, similar to Netflix. You sign up, queue up some games you'd like to play, and Gamefly sends them out to you. Each time you send a game back, they'll get another one on it's way to you. They have plans that allow you to keep anywhere from 1 to 4 games out at a time, and the one-out-at-a-time plan only costs $15.95 a month. In addition to rentals, they also offer games up for sale, and you can choose to keep any game you rent at a well discounted price. They'll also give you a $5 coupon every three months, and after you've been a member for six months, you'll get a 5% discount on everything they have to offer. After your first year, you'll get a 10% discount on every game they offer.

Managing Your Queue
This lens is all about getting new games at bargain prices, and in order to do that with Gamefly, you need to know how to manage your queue. Gamefly will only send you a new game on it's release date if you have an open spot in your queue, and that new game is first in line in your queue. It's a good idea to fill your queue entirely with upcoming releases, and sort them by release date. That way, you can be sure that the newest new release is always in the top spot in your queue. If you have as many games out as you're allowed to, be sure to send one of them back at least a week and a half before the next new release you're interesed in comes out. If you follow those simple rules, Gamefly will always send out a brand new copy of each new release you're interested in within a few days of it's release.

Keep It
You can keep any game Gamefly sends you. In fact, they even offer some great prices on the games you have rented. So, let's say you rent Fallout New Vegas from them. The day it shows up you'll have the chance to keep it for $49.99 if you're a brand new member. If you've been with them for six months, or a year, it'll be even cheaper than that. As long as you've been with them for at least three months, you should have a $5 coupon in hand, making the price just $44.99. If you've been with them a year, and you're getting the 10% discount, you'll get Fallout New Vegas for just $39.99. They'll even ship you the case, manual, and any DLC inserts that might have come with the game once you choose to keep it, and they'll ship that stuff out for free.

Amazon is the single best place to buy video games. For starters, you don't have to go to Gamestop, and deal with the pushy sales people there. You also don't have to pay tax, and for just 99 cents, you can get games shipped to you on the day they come out via Release Date Delivery. If that's not enough, they also offer some great prices, and coupons on games.

Pre-Order Price Guarantee
Amazon likes to put pre-order games on sale from time to time. Most of the time, they only go down to $56.99, but hey, $3 is better than no discount at all. By placing your pre-order as early as possible, you're sure to get the lowest sale price they offer between when you place the order, and when the game ships to you. If you pre-order a game when it costs $59.99, and the price drops to $56.99 before it comes out, you'll get that three dollar discount. That discount is nice, but it's not the real star of the show.

Coupons
Amazon offers some great coupons with the purchase (or pre-order) of certain games. For example, if you pre-order Fable III you'll get a $20 credit toward a future video game purchase. You could use that credit to get Call of Duty: Black Ops for $39.99, and hey, Black Ops comes with another $20 credit that you can apply to another video game purchase! If you plan out your purchases carefully, you'll never pay more than $49.99 to buy a game from Amazon. If a game doesn't offer a $20 credit for pre-ordering, there's a good chance it offers a $10 credit.

Amazon is great for getting bargains on video games on it's own, but when you bring Swagbucks into the mix, you can save even more money.

Swagbucks gives you points (aka "swag bucks") for performing various tasks on their site, like searching, and taking polls. If you sign up with th em, and start using them as your default search engine, you should be able to get a $5 Amazon gift card roughly every two weeks. Take the time to refer some of your friends, and do some of the other things you can do to earn swag bucks, and you'll get gift cards even quicker. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail about Swagbucks in this lens, but if you want to know more, you can check out this lens.

When you combine the Amazon gift cards you get from Swagbucks with the discounts Amazon offers on games, you can walk away with some extremely low prices on brand new games.

Now you know how to get some great prices on new games.With all the money you save on games, you can afford to get your friends and family nice presents this holiday season.... who am I kidding? You're just going to buy more games with the money you save.