When I was a lot younger, video games were quite expensive, fifty to eighty dollars each. They still cost a good bit today, but there is a good alternative, and I am not talking about illegal downloads. A lot of places sell used games, at a significant discount from what they cost new. If you look in the right places, great games can be had for pennies of the dollar, and in a few cases, for one cent.
Games for all systems are sold every day, and a lot of people cash in their old games to get money to purchase the new ones coming out. This leaves a lot of used games on the market, which can be bought for very little. The more popular a game was when it was released, the more copies there will be floating around in circulation. A good number will be sold off for cash to get something else, or traded in toward the purchase of a new game. This leaves them on the store shelves, labeled as used, at a good discount, and covered under the stores warranty policy.
You may have been told that used games are the ones people did not like, or that they are not reliable. I have found that in my experience that this is not true. A lot of great games are traded in because people play through them once, and are not interested in doing it again. Also most places test the used games before they sell them, and they are covered under the stores warranty policy.