Be a cheapskate gamer

So I've had my Xbox 360 for a while now and I've come up with a few ideas (read: schemes) for getting games and accessories for cheap. Here are my suggestions:

Scheme #1: Cheap games
Make sure you look for sales. I know this sounds obvious, but there's more to it, trust me. For example, CompUSA currently has last year's 2K sports games on sale for $9.98-$14.98. Pretty good deal right? It gets better. I just purchased NBA 2K6 ($15) and NHL 2K6 ($10) at a local CompUSA and they took an additional $4 off the former and $2 off the latter because they were "on sale." As if the prices weren't good already. You can't get either of those games for those prices even if you buy them used. Now as good of a deal as these are, they are only part of a bigger scheme. If you have an FYE store in your area, give them a call and see if they're doing any promotions on trade-ins for Xbox 360 games. Unfortunately their website sucks, so don't plan on getting any information there, you're going to have to talk to a real person. Sometimes FYE will do a 3 for 1 or 4 for 1 trade-in promo, meaning you give them 3 or 4 of your games and you get a brand new one for free. Doesn't seem like that great of a deal if you just paid $60 for each of those 3 or 4 games. But, trading in 3 or 4 $8 or $11 games? Not too shabby. That could get you your copy of Gears of War for as low as $32. If you're lucky, they might even be doing their 2 for 1 promo. I got in on this a while back and scored a copy of Madden NFL 07 by trading in Kameo (eBay, $20) and Madden NFL 06 (eBay, $20). GameStop and EBGames sometimes do the 2 for 1 or 3 for 1 promos, but theirs are usually very limited. Last time I saw the promo on their website, the disclaimer said they wouldn't accept: Last year's sports games, Kameo, King Kong, Perfect Dark Zero and a few other games. Their little "disclaimer" pretty much counted out half of the 360 games available at the time.

Scheme #2: BestBuy Gamer Gift Card
A lot of people already know about this little nugget, but I'll mention it anyway. BestBuy sells lots of different variations of gift cards. The Gamer Gift card is pretty slick because it comes with a $5-off coupon for any video game or accessory. So, go in and buy a gamer gift card and put $5 on it. Walk outside, open it up and take out the card and the coupon. Go back in and buy whatever you were planning on getting anyway and save $5. It's not a huge deal on something like a $60 game or $50 controller, but use it on something like a 1600 Microsoft Points card ($20) and the coupon gets you 25% off. (Note: Do not buy the Gamer Gift Card on BestBuy.com. The packaging is different and doesn't come with the $5 coupon.)

Scheme #3: eBay
Probably another obvious choice, but for this one I'm not talking about games or accessories. I'm talking about Xbox Live. You can find crazy deals on Xbox Live subscription cards on eBay. I got the 12-Month Value Pack for almost $20 less than it retails for ($60+). The value pack comes with 1 year of Xbox Live, 200 MS Points, an XBLA game (usually Bankshot Billiards, cough*SUCKS*cough), a headset and a $20 rebate for any Xbox 360 game. I'm not positive if the $20 rebate is still valid, but it's still a good deal, even without it.

So those are my recommended schemes right now. Hopefully I someone finds this information useful. If you have any other ideas or schemes for getting cheap stuff, feel free to post them in the comments.