For gamers, quarter 4, more commonly known as the holiday season, can be difficult. October, November and December generally see more game releases than any other time of the year. Moreover, a lot of those releases are big-name, triple-A titles that a lot of people look forward to for the whole year. As a gamer/college student with a modest budget, it pains me to see this flurry of releases and be forced to sit idly by, begrudgingly paying my bills instead of buying everything I want. Still, I’ve been through years of this exact phenomenon by now and have learned that the key to surviving is compromise.

Going on the assumption that, on average, you’ll be able to reasonably afford one game per month without it cutting into other expenses or making your significant other irritated with you because of your irresponsible spending. That means you’re going to be able to get 3 games between October and December. Looking at the release list for this particular holiday season, that’s a pretty small fraction of what’s actually coming out. Don’t fret, though. If you sit down and think about it, how long will it take to complete such-and-such a game? I mean, really beat it? Sure, most games nowadays only run from 10-30 hours, but a lot of them can be played a lot longer than that. Heck, when I was in elementary school I was lucky if I got a new game every six month. One of the only games I had was Sonic 2, which I probably beat fifty or so times. Now I know every level by heart and can get all the chaos emeralds by the second level. Trust me, that kind of thing really impresses the ladies.
If you aren’t a completionist, though, there are other options. Do you have friends? Okay, probably not many if you subscribe to the advice I gave in the above paragraph, but that’s beside the point. If you have a friend or two with the same consoles as you, try to negotiate an agreement so that each of you purchases different games. That way, once you each beat your respective game, just lend it to the other and bam! Two games for the price of one.
Of course, lending out a game that you bought with your hard-earned money can be difficult. Heck, I’ve had my fair share of games returned with minor scratches or fingerprints all over them, which immediately leads to a deep sense of distrust and contempt. If this describes you, and you refuse to play a game until you understand every minor detail about it, there’s still hope. Remember, gift-giving season is just around the corner and I’m sure that anybody that reads my articles would be incredibly beautiful and charismatic enough to convince his or her loved ones that, yes, death would be certain if Fallout 3 didn’t end up in a stocking or under the tree.
Still, having to wait until Christmas can be difficult, too. If you’re the kind of gamer that goes out to midnight launches just so you can be one of the first to play a certain game, the wait can be downright agonizing. Let’s be honest, though—there are much worse things than waiting, like having boiling tar spilled all over your body so that angry peasants can stick E.T. NES cartridges to you. If you absolutely must have a game on its release day, though, you should take a look at what’s being released in the next month and decide if that game is the one you want to get. Personally, I’ve already set my budget so I was able to get Fable 2 and LittleBigPlanet when they came out, and I plan on getting the new Banjo-Kazooie in a week, too.
The holidays can suck for gamers, but there are definitely ways to survive. Besides, isn’t it better that tons of great games are coming out than if nothing were coming out at all? Or worse, if the only games coming out were from Ubisoft’s Petz series? You should be thankful! Don’t forget that for most normal people the most stressful part of the holidays is buying other people presents.