I use this trick to save money on video games

Except you’ve been residing underneath a rock, you’ll little doubt have seen the continuing discourse about growing online game costs. Nintendo has been on the coronary heart of this dialogue with the disclosing of the Switch 2. The $80 price ticket for Mario Kart World marks a brand new excessive for the standard version recreation from Nintendo, after The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom raised the bar to $70 in 2023. Fears are additionally rising that 2025’s most anticipated title, Grand Theft Auto 6, may go even additional and break the $100 barrier.

With out stepping into whether or not or not these costs are justified, it’s clear that many customers are feeling the ache. With nearly the whole lot getting costlier as of late, video video games are beginning to really feel like a luxurious buy that many individuals are at risk of being priced out of. Fortunately, all isn’t misplaced, as there are nonetheless methods for savvy players to save lots of a bit of money.

Enter Deku Offers

This publish is one thing of a PSA for anybody who’s not but heard of Deku Deals, a web site/app that’s been round since 2018. It’s a worth tracker designed completely for video video games — you merely discover the sport you need, add it to your wishlist, and also you’ll get an e mail or push notification when it goes on sale. Because the Zelda-inspired identify suggests, it solely lined Nintendo Swap video games at first, however the builders expanded so as to add PlayStation and Xbox video games in 2021. That was adopted extra not too long ago by Steam help, which is at the moment accessible in beta. You possibly can even sync your Steam wishlist with the press of a button.

The no-nonsense design of Deku Offers permits you to get straight to the duty of including video games to your wishlist and discovering nice offers. Except for the worth at varied retailers in your nation, every recreation web page has tons of different helpful info. There’s a worth historical past graph so you may see if there’s been an even bigger low cost beforehand. There are screenshots and movies for many titles, so you may see what a recreation appears like with out leaving the web page. It exhibits you every recreation’s Metacritic and OpenCritic scores, and consists of details about recreation size from HowLongToBeat. It additionally tells you if there’s a demo accessible so you may attempt before you purchase.

One other well-implemented characteristic is the advice system that means comparable video games based mostly on what different individuals have wishlisted or performed. When you’ve purchased a recreation, you may transfer it out of your wishlist to your assortment and provides it a ranking out of 5 stars. You may also create customized lists if you wish to be much more organised about issues.

One of the best characteristic must be the notification system. By default, you’ll get an e mail each time a recreation in your wishlist goes on sale. If a bunch of video games go on sale on the identical time, these can be mixed right into a single e mail fairly than spamming you with a number of messages. Notifications are very to-the-point, displaying simply worth, low cost share, and whether or not or not it’s an all-time low. If you happen to’ve acquired the app put in — it’s actually only a net wrapper — you will get push notifications as effectively. Whereas the Android app works fairly effectively, there are complaints in regards to the iOS app logging customers out unexpectedly, so your mileage might fluctuate there.

One thing else I’ve come to understand is that the builders of Deku Offers are fast so as to add brand-new video games after a showcase like a Nintendo Direct. They’ll add a particular part to the homepage right away, alongside all the opposite useful filters comparable to ‘hottest offers’ and ‘current worth drops’. The positioning has had a Nintendo Switch 2 page up because it was first introduced, and it even lists {hardware} and equipment, in addition to software program.

As anybody who owns a Swap can attest, the eShop is a largely depressing expertise. It’s sluggish and laggy, it’s stuffed with shovelware, and it’s simply not nice at surfacing video games you would possibly wish to play. Deku Offers is superior in nearly each manner, with wonderful filters and suggestions that can assist you uncover new titles which can be up your road. And since it tracks each bodily and digital copies, you may select whichever format saves you probably the most cash. I used to go for largely digital, so tempting was the thought of not having to trouble altering recreation cartridges and having the whole lot simply accessible. However by means of utilizing Deku Offers, I’ve more and more discovered myself buying bodily video games when there’s a good low cost, realizing that I can then resell them afterward eBay if I’m not fussed about replaying.

Opposite to in style perception, even Nintendo’s first-party video games go on sale generally. Only in the near past, for instance, you could possibly get Tremendous Mario Bros. Marvel for 33% off on the eShop within the UK. On the time of writing, it’s 26% off for the bodily copy from Amazon UK. I picked up Metroid Prime: Remastered for 15% off its MSRP from ShopTo (low cost UK video games retailer) quickly after it first launched for Swap. After enjoying by means of it, I then resold it on eBay for nearly as a lot as I initially paid for it.

The place Deku Offers has actually shone helps me to work by means of my backlog of indie titles, for a fraction of the worth. If you happen to don’t thoughts enjoying video games a short while after they launch, it can save you your self loads of money. I performed by means of a few of my favorite video games lengthy after the hype (and worth) had gone down. Indie classics like Hole Knight, Celeste, Cuphead, and Tunic value me subsequent to nothing — these are a few of my most memorable gaming experiences in current reminiscence.

Looking forward to the Nintendo Swap 2, it’s necessary to notice that you just’re not going to immediately see big reductions on video games, and particularly not on first-party titles. However should you’re prepared to be affected person, Deku Offers ought to have the ability to assist ease the ache of the brand new pricing period we’re being dragged into.

Deku Offers is run by a small workforce, together with founder and indie recreation developer Michael Fairley, Nintendeal’s Andrew Wolf, and software program developer Scott Parker. They not too long ago hosted an AMA on the Nintendo Switch subreddit the place they went into element about their motivations and the internal workings of Deku Offers. They’re extremely in style with the group, for apparent causes, they usually appear to genuinely get a kick out of constructing nice video games accessible for as many individuals as doable. Additionally they not too long ago launched a podcast — Talk a Good Game — the place they discuss in regards to the video games they love and chat to attention-grabbing business people.

It’s value noting that they aren’t the one ones doing this. For Swap, there’s eshop-prices.com, and Xbox gamers have XBDeals.net. The PlayStation-focused PSPrices.com additionally tracks Swap and Xbox video games, in addition to some iOS and Meta Quest titles. Fairley himself has acknowledged that the PC gaming website IsThereAnyDeal.com was a giant inspiration for him, too. Despite the competitors, Deku Offers stays the clear winner as a consequence of its in depth options and clear consumer expertise, so it’s a straightforward suggestion for me to make. Having a unified wishlist that additionally consists of Steam is such a game-changer.

Whereas I’m clearly very keen on Deku Offers, I need to finish with a phrase of warning. It’s little doubt an effective way to save cash on video video games. However it’s additionally very simple to spend much more cash, because you’ll seemingly purchase video games you may not in any other case have bought since you’ve seen a killer deal. At the least you’ll by no means be in need of wonderful video games to play — so I suppose it’s a win-win.