Black Friday 2017

Once again, the day commeth upon us. A day that liveth in infamy. The very speaking of its name strikes fear into the hearts of children and ire into the hearts of men. A day where the strong and diligent are rewarded and the weak and lazy punished. A day of love. A day of hate. I’m talking about Black Friday!

Looking back at Black Friday 2016, I have to say that it was pretty disappointing. I was not able to achieve even half of my gaming deal  goals. Here’s what I started with.

A decent list of games overall. A fair haul for any gamer worth his salt. But looking at my post showing what I actually managed to snag, at the prices I wanted of course, I didn’t manage to get much.

A measly 5 games out of 16. That’s super depressing. I remember years where I managed to snag more than 80% of my list for fair prices. Now it’s become terribly impossible to get anything at a good price that isn’t over a year old. Sadly, a lot of publishers have started the intentional practice of releasing their games later in the year so they’re either to close to Black Friday so they don’t have to give a price drop. Often they even wait till after Black Friday has passed so they don’t even have to deal with it. Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition is a good example of this with it’s December 5th release date.  So now I make my lists and continue to value the games with the same metric I always have, but I’ve accepted that I won’t be able to get nearly as many games as I’d like to until Christmas season or even next year. But let the records show I that I do keep track of these lists forever. To date I now have 11 of those 16 games and have given up on three of them because of lack of interest or lack of supply (glances at Devil’s Third). Some games still haven’t come down to an appropriate price point. Looking at you Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan. And I’ll most likely be retiring that from the list at the end of this year. But I was diligent for the entire year in my desire to buy it at a fair price.

As it tradition, here is my Black Friday/Holiday Season shopping list for 2017 with my ideal price points. As always, if you see a deal that’s at or below my numbers please take the time to shoot me a link. You can leave a comment here or tweet me @GameChangerDOC. Note that these aren’t necessarily the prices that you’ll see for all these games/products. Again, these are not necessarily prices you will see. They’re prices I’m willing to pay. And I have no illusions about the fact that many of them I won’t see at the prices listed below. I’ve accepted that. As always, I’ve created this easy reference picture for deal hunters on the go.

1. Injustice 2 Champions ED – $30
2. Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark – $10
3. TMNT: Mutants in Manhattan – $10
4. Nioh Gold edition – $50
5. Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 Full – $20
6. Horizon Zero Dawn GOTY ED – $40
7. Uncharted Lost Legacy – $15
8. Cuphead – $10
9. Assassin’s Creed Origins Full Edition – $25
10. Crash Bandicoot Trilogy – $15
11. South Park: The Fractured But Whole – $30
12. Star Wars Battlefront II – $20
13. Shadow of War – $15
14. Knack II – $20
15. Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice – $15

Just a quick note about Star Wars Battlefront II. It’s on my list because my friend wants to play it, but I honestly don’t care if I never get that game. I am so fed up with EA and their bullshit microtransactions/loot crate models and even just the idea of supporting them in any way puts a bad taste in my mouth. I care so strongly about this issue that I took the time to mention it here in this completely unrelated post.

Thanks for taking the time to help a gamer win his hunt. Much appreciated as always. Happy Black Friday and may the deals be ever in your favor. Also Happy Thanksgiving to my American readers out there.

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