So, I feel a bit like Mr. Monopoly when he gets a bank error in his favor. This was one hell of a haul that I just got at an H-E-B Plus supermarket here in Austin, just now:



For some reason these games were listed for 5 dollars a piece. I couldn't believe it. (There were a couple of 10 dollars in here, but the vast majority were 5.) On top of that, there was a 20 percent discount on all games, so really I got them for 4 bucks a piece. This is really an insanely good deal. I felt like I was robbing the store, to be honest.

So, what did I get?

Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer, with Amiibo Disk Thing - 10 bucks
Chibi Robo: Zip Lash - 5 bucks (two copies, one for a Christmas present)
Scribblenauts: DC Superheroes - 5 bucks
Spirit Camera: 5 bucks
Tetris: Axis: 5 bucks
Splinter Cell 3DS: 5 bucks (two copies, Santa strikes again)
Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel: 5 bucks
Farming Simulator 15: New Forms Edition: 5 bucks
Lego Hobbit: 5 bucks
Dragon Age: Inquisition: 5 bucks
Just Dance 2014: 5 bucks
Splinter Cell: Blacklist: 10 bucks
Assassins Creed III: 5 bucks
Space Marine: 5 bucks (Settle down, Shadowlink. It's a Christmas present.)
Adventure Time: Secret of Something or Other: 5 bucks

When I add it all up based on the sticker prices and subtract the 82 dollars it ended up costing me, I had savings of 654 dollars. GOOD LORD! This is officially the best video game haul I've ever had.

If any of you guys live in Texas, you might swing buy your local H-E-B and see if they have a similar deal. I bought these at the H-E-B Plus in Leander. I'm not sure if this is the result of a mistake or if they're doing some kind of barn sale or what, but if you live around one of these stores, it might be worth checking it out.

I was half tempted to clean them out and then walk right over to the GameStop next door and sell the games I didn't want back. But that would have made me no better than a scalper. I hope some poor, frazzled gamers pick up on this deal.

kriswright said:

Space Marine: 5 bucks (Settle down, Shadowlink. It's a Christmas present.)

I hate you.

That's amazing!

A lot of those are kind of old so some kind of clearance would make sense, but Animal Crossing and Chibi Robo? Wow!

@Zero

Sort of. I mean, Dragon Age Inquisition, Borderlands, etc. came out a year ago. Surely it's not normal to find games like that for 5 bucks, right? Or did the market really crash when I wasn't looking?

Whoa! What a cornucopia of savings. I'd never heard of H-E-B before but I'm a little jealous. I wonder why everything was marked down to such a huge degree. Chibi-Robo and AC are especially surprising.

Wow. Is that store going out of business or something?

Also, Farming Simulator!!

Woohoo!!

I am very happy for you and simultaneously glad there is no H-E-B anywhere NEAR me, because I have way too many "wow what a deal!" game purchases still sitting on my shelf and Steam, ha ha.

Enjoy! :)

Quick! Go back for me!!!

Oh I was mostly looking at the 3DS games. I guess some of those other ones are semi-new-ish too.

I've never even heard of this store, so I doubt they're around here.

@kriswright It's actually not that uncommon to find year-old (and older) games for $5-10 for a used copy, though it can be uncommon to find new copies for that price. It's usually Nintendo stuff that tends to hold its value better, for whatever reason, and other companies' stuff can drop pretty fast and hard. I s'pose that may be because most of Nintendo's games are not annual, or have new editions come out.

In any case, some great deals no matter how you slice it, with AC and Chibi-Robo being the best bargains.

The world is waiting for a Just Dance 2014 un-boxing and re-grooving video.

So Steph went by another HEB Plus today and the sale was going on there, too. She picked up, among other things, Ninja Gaiden 3 for the Wii U, Resident Evil Revelations, Bioshock Infinite and Just Dance 2015.

The biggest bummer is that Steph is certain she picked up Bayonetta 2 for 5 bucks, but that the checkout boy must have taken it for himself when he was checking out all the games. If that's true, that sucks.

Anyway, anyone with an HEB nearby (mostly Texans) definitely look into it. You might find some deals.


@Mop it up

You know, I always knew that other games lost their value more quickly than Nintendo, but I didn't expect them to depreciate as quickly as they do. That's really... terrible. Like, why on earth would anyone ever pay 60 bucks for a game that they can pick up a year later for 10 bucks? That's crazy!

That is an excellent get, sir, especially for the newer games! A good percentage of my (relatively large) collection comes from sales and clearances like these. Toys R Us has occasional large-scale clearances, and Target regularly clearances out older stock. I'll buy most games with decent name recognition nearly automatically for under $10, and if it's under $5, I'll rarely pass up any game. And yet, it's really easy for me to pass on any digital sale, no matter how deep the discount.

@kriswright I've been asking myself that question for years and years.

And so jelly.

@kriswright

A big part of it too though is that those consoles are dying so their games aren't as valuable to people.

Also, great choice on BioShock Infinite. One of my favourite games in recent memory! Let me know when you guys get around to playing it.