How to Pay Less for Video Games: Sales, Price Trackers and Subscriptions

Full price for a new game is $70 on most consoles now, and a single year of buying the big releases at launch adds up fast. The good news is that games lose value quicker than almost anything else you buy. Most drop 30 to 50% within a year, and the stores run big sales on a fairly predictable calendar.

This guide is for anyone who plays on Steam, PlayStation, Xbox or Nintendo Switch and wants to pay less without hunting through coupon sites that rarely work. It covers when the sales happen, the free price trackers that tell you when a game drops, which subscriptions pay off and which do not, and a few smaller tricks with bundles, gift cards and free weekly games.

Prices below are US prices I checked in early October 2026. They change, so treat them as a starting point and confirm on the store before you pay.

Know the sale calendar

The biggest single saving is patience. If a game is not something you need on day one, wait for the next big sale.

Steam

Valve publishes its sale dates months in advance on the Steamworks site. For the rest of 2026 the big ones are:

• Autumn Sale: October 1 to 8, 2026 (ending as I write this).
• Steam Next Fest: October 19 to 26, with free demos of upcoming games rather than discounts.
• Winter Sale: December 17, 2026 to January 4, 2027, the longest sale of the year.

There is also a Spring Sale around March and the Summer Sale in late June, plus smaller themed festivals almost every month with discounts on one genre. Valve also highlights Black Friday discounts from publishers, even though it does not run its own seasonal sale that week.

PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo

The console stores are less predictable, but some patterns repeat every year. PlayStation runs Days of Play around late May and June, a Black Friday sale, and a holiday sale that runs into January. Xbox has Black Friday deals and a long holiday sale in December, plus weekly discounts in the Deals section of the store. Nintendo discounts less often and less deeply, usually around Black Friday, the holidays and the Mario Day period in March.

My rule: if a game is out for six months and not on sale, add it to a wishlist and forget about it until the next seasonal sale.

Use a price tracker instead of checking by hand

Price trackers watch the stores for you and send an email or alert when a game hits the price you want. All of the ones below are free.

IsThereAnyDeal for PC games

IsThereAnyDeal compares prices across Steam, GOG, Epic, Humble and dozens of authorized key stores, and keeps a price history for each game. The history is the useful part: if a game has dropped to $15 three times in the past year, you know not to pay $30 now.

Who it suits: PC players who are fine buying from more than one store. Limitation: it lists third-party key shops, so stick to the ones it marks as official or well known. Tip: build a waitlist and set a target price for each game, and let the emails come to you.

PSprices for PlayStation

PSprices tracks the PlayStation Store in many regions, shows the lowest price a game has ever had, and flags when a discount is only for PS Plus members. It also covers Xbox and Switch, though most people use it for PlayStation.

Limitation: the site is heavy on ads. Tip: check a game’s price history before a big sale starts so you know whether the “sale” price is actually low.

Deku Deals for Nintendo Switch

Deku Deals is built for Nintendo games. You add games to a wishlist and get notified when they drop, and it also tracks physical copies at US retailers, which matters on Switch because physical games often go on sale at stores before the eShop.

Limitation: Nintendo’s own first-party games rarely drop much, so the tracker cannot make a Mario game cheap. Tip: sort by “lowest price ever” during a sale to see what is at a real low.

The store’s own wishlist

Steam, PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo all email you when a game on your wishlist goes on sale. It is the least effort option, and on Steam it is good enough for most people.

Subscriptions: when they save money and when they do not

Subscriptions are the most misunderstood part of game spending. They save money if you play several games from the catalog each year. They waste money if you subscribe for one game and forget to cancel.

Xbox Game Pass

Microsoft cut the price of Ultimate from $29.99 to $22.99 a month in April 2026, and PC Game Pass from $16.49 to $13.99. Future Call of Duty releases are no longer promised on day one. If you play two or three new Microsoft games a year, Ultimate is still cheaper than buying them. If you mostly play one game, buy that game instead.

PlayStation Plus

Sony raised the monthly and three-month prices for new subscribers on May 20, 2026, but the yearly prices did not change at that point. That makes the yearly plan the better buy by a wide margin if you know you will keep it. Extra is the tier where the catalog lives; Essential is mostly for online play and the monthly games you can claim while subscribed.

Nintendo Switch Online

The basic plan is cheap and needed for most online play. The Expansion Pack ($49.99 a year individually) adds older consoles’ libraries and some paid expansions for Nintendo games. Family plans cover up to eight accounts, so splitting one with family members is the cheapest way in.

Humble Choice

Humble Choice gives you a set of PC games each month to keep, plus a discount in the Humble Store, for $14.99 a month at the time of writing. You can skip any month before it starts without paying. Tip: read the month’s lineup before the deadline and skip unless at least two games interest you.

A subscription habit that saves real money: rotate. Subscribe for a month or two, play what you want from the catalog, cancel, and come back when there is something new. Turn off auto-renew right after you subscribe so you are never charged for a month you forgot about.

Free games every week

The cheapest game is a free one, and there are more legitimate free games than most people realize.

The Epic Games Store gives away at least one game every week on PC (the swap happens on Thursdays), and has also given free mobile games through its own app in some regions. Once you claim a game, it stays in your library even after the offer ends. I claim them every week whether I plan to play them or not.

PlayStation Plus and Xbox Game Pass members also get monthly games, but those only stay playable while you keep subscribing. And Steam regularly runs free weekends and short “free to keep” promotions; your wishlist and the store front page announce them.

Do not forget free-to-play games and demos. Steam Next Fest, in late October this year, has hundreds of free demos, and you can play most of a game before deciding to buy it. If your play is mostly on the phone, our list of the best free offline mobile games has options with no ads pushing you to pay.

Bundles, gift cards and other tricks

Bundles

Humble Bundle and similar sites sell bundles of PC games, often for a few dollars, with part of the money going to charity. Bundles shine for indie games and older titles. Check the region and which store each key works on before buying.

Discounted gift cards

Retailers and warehouse clubs sometimes sell PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo or Steam gift cards at 10 to 20% off, especially around Black Friday. Stacking a discounted gift card with a store sale is one of the few ways to beat a sale price. Buy only from the retailer itself, not from resellers on marketplaces, since stolen and fake codes are common there.

Refunds as a safety net

Steam lets you request a refund for almost any reason within 14 days of purchase if you played less than two hours, according to its refund policy. It is not meant for “free trials”, but it saves you from a game that runs badly on your computer. Console stores are much stricter, so watch reviews before buying there.

Older editions and complete versions

A “Complete” or “Game of the Year” edition released a year after launch often costs less than the base game did on day one, with all the paid extras included. If you are not in a rush, wait for it.

Coupon sites: why I mostly skip them

Searching “game coupon codes” fills the screen with sites listing codes for Steam, PlayStation and Xbox. Almost none of them work for the stores themselves, because Steam and the console stores do not use public promo codes the way clothing shops do. The real discounts are on the store at sale time. Sites promising free gift card codes or “free V-Bucks” are scams aimed at your account, the same pattern we cover in our guide to legit ways to get Robux and the scams to avoid.

Where coupons can work: retailer codes for physical copies (Target, Best Buy, Walmart sales) and occasional discount codes from authorized PC key stores listed on IsThereAnyDeal.

A simple setup for this weekend

Here is a plan that takes about twenty minutes and keeps paying off. Put every game you are curious about on the store wishlist. Add the same games to IsThereAnyDeal, PSprices or Deku Deals with a target price. Claim this week’s Epic freebie and set a reminder for Thursdays. Look at your subscriptions and turn off auto-renew on any you did not use last month. Then write down the next big sale date (the Steam Winter Sale starts December 17) and wait.

If you keep a monthly budget for games, a simple app helps you see what you actually spend; our list of the best budgeting apps has a few that make this easy. How much you save depends on what you play and how long you are willing to wait, but most people who stop buying at launch spend noticeably less without playing fewer games.