I'm pretty new to the Playstation club, but upon the advice I saw on this forum, I did signup for the Plus membership.

So far I'll say the advice was good. I've already downloaded several games I actually was interested in, and some of the discounts have been alright too (already it's immeasurably better value than the xbox gold account I also have - my standard on what a premium service ought to offer has now been raised, and I don't think I'll be renewing that one).

My query however is how often the instant games and member special prices rotate. I get why they don't tell you how long things will last for, but it would be nice to know at least from patterns in the past how often new things will show up for downloading without needing to log in and check the slow loading storefront. I find myself reluctant to want to buy some games like Journey. pixel junk, or fl0w, just in case they ever make an appearance in the instant games collection list, so I was keen to hear other peoples thoughts on that too.

Don't wait for Journey to go on sale. Just buy it now, while there's still others playing online.

There is usually a set of games free every month, but the games are different depending on where you are from.

@syzygyeolith There is normally a mix of formerly disc only retail games and PSN downloadable games free every month. These stay free for an unspecified time frame usually many months. Around the beginning of every month they normally cycle in new games and drop some old ones and announce new discounts. The discounts don't last long maybe a week or two at most.

I would recommend not waiting to see if a game will get discounted. If you want to play it now, just pay the extra $3-5. Not a big savings. If you think you may play it down the line and and its not discounted, wait. For instance I know I will play Sound Shapes at some point, but missed the sale. Now its $15 so I'm waiting until I actually will play it to buy the game, maybe it will be free or discounted (again) along the way, who knows?

Most of the games have become free/discounted as promotions for other things. Like the DLC for Hell Yeah is discounted as an incentive to buy the full game. Or Portal 2 is discounted to promote the release of Portal In Motion. Many (not all) of the retail games that are free are first/second party Sony games like Infamous 2 or LPB2.

Playstation is continually holding out the proverbial carrot on stick to get people to stay subscribed so there's not much incentive for them to telegraph their thinking.

One tip I would definitely recommend, when a game becomes free for plus members you should "buy" it even if you may not want to play it. This adds the game to your download list and you can download it at any point and play even if it is no longer free. This works as long as your plus membership is active.

Cool, thanks for the advice. I was really keen to play Journey (it's one of the reasons I got the PS3), so all I needed was some assurance it was worth 'not-waiting-for' in terms of becoming a freebee.

Also, I have noticed that the deals some people have talked about I haven't got, so yeah, I did work out thats probably because I'm in Australia (where for some reason most games are priced at $20.. ugh).

@syzygyeolith: They rotate out 3 games and put 3 new ones in every month. Last month and this month, they put out 1 new game in the first week of the new month and put in the next 2 games out the next week. They discount DLC one month and switch them out the next. October had a Halloween game sale with some pretty good discounts on games, although I only bought 1 game and that was Dead Rising 2: Off The Record for $10. So expect holiday themed sales from now. They have some good deals but it sucks that they only add new deals every month. It's worth the money though.

Edit: Also, go buy the Journey's Collector Edition at retail. It comes with a month of Plus, Flower, fl0w, Journey, 3 little games from thatgamecompany, the soundtrack to the former 3 games, and some other stuff. It's $30.

Traditionally at the beginning of a month Sony would put out a bunch of free new games. These past couple months they have spread it out. Whatever day the Playstation Store is updated in Australia should be the day new perks on Playstation Plus show up. So once a week you'll see new discounts at the least. New games come it around one or two a week with some weeks having none. They include disc based games, PSN games, PSOne Classics, and PS Minis. You usually get one Classic a month, along with a couple PSN games and one disc based game. Minis come in fits and starts. Sometimes there will be a half dozen new ones in a month, other times there will only be a couple. Just check back every week under under the new content section and you should get a list of all the new stuff. Also go to "Other Freebies" (I think that is what it is called on the new store) to find Minis, Themes, Avatars, Soundtracks, and other stuff.

I want to also second two pieces of advice. 1. Journey is the best game of the year and maybe the best PS3 game of all time. Get it. It is worth full price. 2. Every time something free comes on just hit the buy button even if you don't download it. You never know when you might change your mind, or when a dry spell in gaming might drive you to try something you maybe didn't want to play that much. The games remain free as long as you purchased them when they were free. I also cancelled my PS Plus account and then resubscribed at a later date and was still able to access all of the games I had downloaded my first time around.

Last thing, if you ever want to try a game out in its full form before you buy, check out the Full Game Trials. You get an hour with the full game, no restrictions. After the hour is up you can buy the game and continue from where you left off, or delete it and move on. It's a great deal if you aren't sure if a game is for you or not. There are a good 50 games on there in the US, not sure about Australia.

One other recommendation I would definitely pass along to any Plus subscriber is to check the Expiring Soon tab every Tuesday or Wednesday, after the store's updated. While they don't make a huge deal of it, that page DOES advertise what deals will no longer be available after the next store update. For example, Renegade Ops, Portal 2, the Portal in Motion discount, Pac-Man Championship, and When Vikings Attack/WWE Axxess discounts will all be coming off the grid tomorrow (Renegade Ops feels like it's been on there forever). I probably wouldn't have bought Portal 2 this week if I hadn't seen that it was a one-week-only discount.