How do you play all your single plays games?

Hi all, new user to the site but a fairly long time listener to the podcast. Firstly I have to say that I absolutely LOVE the podcast it really has affirmed my passion for the video gaming industry and helped me realise that for me it's more than just a hobby.

Anyway onto the topic at hand I currently have 3 (maybe 4 if I am really lucky) nights a week to play video games as my girlfriend often works nights around her University schedule (huzzah) however I tend to find myself gravitate towards multi-player games because I can buy one and then sit on it for a year (or 6 months) and then buy another title to last me the same amount of time. November last year was depressing for me, with the number of AAA titles that came out that (as a student living out of home) I couldn't really afford I found I couldn't jump into any new games. I am primarily a PC gamer but dabble around on my PS3 for more controller friendly games such as the Assassins Creed series.

Do you often buy games on release (I realise everyone has some games they simply must have at release) or do you generally play all last years games when they are cheap. In the steam sales I was about to pick up Batman Arkham City cheap and also picked up Bastion which are on my to-play list this coming week. I also have a backlog of old games I am trying to get through or ones I have gotten stuck on that I can't get passed (curse you Orcs Must Die).

How do you keep your hobby cheap when it comes to purchasing a new title every week or few weeks? (I might add I am from Australia so regional pricing really hits us hard, especially on AAA titles, comparing prices on the steam store makes me frustrated sometimes!)

(I typoed my forum title, this makes me sad. player**)

I buy them when their on sale and then never play them because I get addicted to games that don't end (WoW, LoL, TOR, NBA 2k12)

Recently I've been picky about the games I buy. In 2011 the only games I bought were Skyrim, Saints Row 2 & 3, and Borderlands. 
 
In 2012 there's maybe two or three games I might want to buy. 

I buy 4-5 games at launch a year, rent another 5, borrow a couple, and then buy a whole bunch of cheap, older games. And I play single player games almost exclusively. If I had more money, I'd buy all interesting games at launch, but I'm a student, so I can afford to buy only a few brand new games every year.

For consoles, I generally buy used. Usually wait for the big sales on Steam. Only release day game I bought was Skyrim last year. With the good deals on Steam and some finds in the bargain, I have such a backlog that I'm not even thinking about any game for 2012 yet.

Man, now that I think about it. I do not finish as many games as I thought.

I only pay top dollar, day one, brand new for games that extremely interest me and that I want to show support to the developer. For me this is normally stuff by From Software, Valve, Atlus, Treasure, Team Ico, and some others. Everything else gets bought at bargain bin price.

I almost always wait for console retail games. Games tend to get cheap quick on Amazon, so I have no problem waiting. In 2011, the only console games I payed full price for were Dark Souls, Catherine, UC3, and Zelda.

If I absolutely must, I buy a game on launch day. Most of what I play is old, though. Usually, a generation or two old. You can generally find games from the past generation for dirt cheap, though going further back is more expensive. I've been taking advantage of services like gog.com and Steam as well, which offer great old games for super cheap (on PC, of course). If you're looking for cheap console games, just raid all the local bargain bins. Maybe you hate Gamestop, but you can find great stuff there. Ebay and Amazon are also great sources.

Luckily, I don't play a new game every few weeks. It can take me months to get through a game, unless it's vacation time. During the semester, I simply don't have the time to spend playing games.

The games I buy either have extensive multiplayer to go along with the single player (like Call of Duty) or single player games that are extensive (RPGs like Elder Scrolls or Fallout) or greatly replayable (Assassin's Creed, whose multiplayer I don't care all that much for). 
 
Any other games I just rent from GameFly.

I used to buy the games I thought I'd like when they came out but I've gotten much better in the past year specifically with waiting for sales a few weeks or months later. And then I've been trying to make games last longer this year I bought a bunch of games I thought I'd like around christmas and black friday to save a good amount of money. Hopefully I'll stick to waiting as games seem to go on sale quickly but there are still titles I don't want to wait for.

The games that I must own because I ultra love them I pay top price , ie Dragon Age 2 , Portal 2 etc. The games that I know I wont enjoy as much I rent them , and that worked really well for me last year so Im doing it again (except for LA Noir ... I shouldnt have bought it :( got rid of it soon but man that sucked hard).

So it seems that is the norm, it's just listening to the giantbomb guys who get to play so much (jealous) and so close to release I always feel like I am missing out on the experience by playing the titles 12 months later. I literally only finished Arkham Asylum the other week and I wonder if I had of bought it when it was relevant and still talked about if I would have gotten more out of it. Guess I will just bide my time until the next steam sale! Thanks for the replies good to be here :D

Oh also just as an aside I saw a little note on top of the giantbomb page about TNT being in 1 hour then when I came back it disappeared, whats the URL for the TNT page? Cheers!

i have a pile of games. i buy games and never get to beat them, but continue to play games. you see when that happens i play a game for a couple of weeks and then buy a new game and the cycle continues. i haven't done it in a a long time.

I play them until they no longer become fun or something new comes out that I know I will like. I do not like having a pile of games to play.

@CaptainCody: Same here. Last game I beat was AC2 and that was about a month ago, even tho I have a shelf full of games to play and finish. I usually play BF3, get bored and then turn off my PS3 altogether.

@grnt: I'll usually target three or four must-have, first-day buys a year, and buy a few more games used. I buy a new game every month or two instead of every few weeks, so there's loads of titles from '11 I have yet to play, like Dark Souls, LA Noire, and some others, but waiting on games allows me to get em cheaper, so I'm all for it. I hate having a huge backlog, even three or four games unfinished is too much for me,so until I finish Deus Ex, Far Cry 2 and get my fill of Skyrim, there'll be no new game for me until Kingdoms of Amalur at the earliest, or maybe Mass Effect 3 in March.

I usually just rent stuff from gamefly(I still get launch games on day 1) and I only really pay full price for fighters and RPG's (Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Dark Souls.)

I don't buy many games at all. Usually just ones I think I will play a lot(Mass Effect, Skyrim, etc.). I play everything else by renting, which is mostly done through Gamefly. Any PC games that my crappy PC can run that I want to play, I usually get them during a Steam sale. Same goes for a lot of XBLA games.

I probably buy a couple dozen titles a year on launch day or pre-order and another dozen or so after launch, upon review, and maybe one to two dozen a year after price drops, when more questionable titles seem more worth the risk. That doesn't include Steam deals and GoG games, obviously.

Long story short: I don't really keep gaming cheap. I spent almost $5k in 2011 and another grand on gifts (for co-op with my brother on the west coast or to send him Steam games for example) and I didn't do any real hardware purchases in 2011. Ugh.

I don't spend to much time playing multiplayer games, because with a single player game there is a set goal and once I beat it I can add it to my shelf of games beaten. That makes me feel like I have achieved something, where as in multiplayer your just playing to no end.

I am a crazy person. I will buy games and then not play them for months. I used to be the type of person that basically bought 3 new games a week because I was young and dumb and who saves money right? Somehow that mindset never completely left me despite not really having the time or money for it anymore. Or I'll go buy old like PS2 games or whatever and say to myself "oh they're cheap it's cool" and then buy 10 at once (there was an especially bad time where the gamestop next door to me was starting to try and clearance out a bunch of their ps2 stock and I ended up dropping like $250+ in a matter of like 3 days because I kept going back and buying stacks of games). I guess what I'm trying to say is...I have a problem ._.;;;;

Over the years i have developed a system which quite simple and relies on good comunicationwith mates and other trusted friends (some family haha). We just keep talking to each other to work through who wants what games so we can avoid doubling up, thus we are able to buy more titles and then share them around around.

when we get a 'unanimous' title like a blk ops we are all on multiplayer. Sometimes we will get 2 copies for the whole group and share multiplayer for games like Dirt.

because we have been doing this for so long we also get the 'bonus free game' when we get to make a few trades in for something we want - usually during the big sales

in the group we have kids and students with little to no budgets so the swap is huge for all - PLEASE NOTE important to keep a record on who has what game! :-)

I buy more games than I can really afford to pretty soon after release as well as buying a decent number when they get reduced. Ultimately I spent too much money (and probably time) on video games).