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Looking forward to your tax refund, but not sure what to spend it on? We've got a list of suggestions for what's worth throwing your Uncle Sam money at.

What should gamers be buying with their tax refund?

Looking forward to your tax refund, but not sure what to spend it on? We've got a list of suggestions for what's worth throwing your Uncle Sam money at.
This article is over 8 years old and may contain outdated information

Tax season is on us, and though for most people that means months of procrastination followed by frantic last-minute filing, there is a silver lining: your tax refund! According to the IRS, the average refund is around $3000, which is a pretty hefty chunk of change.

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Now sure, you could save or invest that money, but you don’t come here for sound financial advice, you come here to read about games, so here’s a list of our ideas of what cool gaming gear you can spend your hard-returned government dollars on:

A sweet gaming rig

You can buy or build a pretty nice gaming PC for under $1000 these days, but if you’ve got the cash, why not splurge on something crazy, like six overclocked cores in a water-cooled chassis or six linked monitors for unnecessary visual awesomeness. I mean, sure, you don’t need to spend $3000 on a PC, but maybe you really want to play Crysis 3 on one monitor and The Witcher 3 on the other. 

If you already have a PC that works, this would be a great time to buy a fancy new display, a better GPU, or just plug in an excessive amount of RAM. You could buy direct from the manufacturer, but we’re not talking Donald Trump money here guys, so check the regular places before buying: Newegg, Amazon deals, Frys, etc.

Way too many Hearthstone decks

Sure, Hearthstone is technically free-to-play, but don’t tell my bank account that. You can be a scrublord if you want and brute force your way to Legend with a shitty aggro deck, but would you rather be a glorious wallet warrior who makes his enemies rage with golden legendary after golden legendary? This guy spent $6000 dollars on Hearthstone decks and couldn’t be happier. Who can argue with that?

By the way, this goes for any game with consumables — think of how many League of Legends skins, Team Fortress 2 hats, Heroes of the Storm mounts, and Clash of Clans gems you can buy with $3000. A lot, I’m guessing.

Or just wait for the Steam sale

I know that it can be hard to sit around with $3000 burning a hole in your pocket, but if you’re patient, you can get some serious bang for your buck by waiting for the next big Steam sale. When Steam goes big, they go big, and you can pick up hundreds of games for way less than they’re normally worth.

Does it matter that you’ll never have time to play them? Probably not. I mean no one wants to play [Humorous Thing] Simulator for more than a few minutes anyway, but it was only a few bucks, so what’s the harm in picking it up just in case?

Just buy games

So there you have it! Our list of suggestions for what you should spend your big government giveback on. There’s, of course, dozens of AAA titles, several good consoles, and all kinds of gaming merch that might be worth your time as well, but it’ll take forever to burn through $3000 dollars that way, and you’ve got games to play! Get to it gamer, that dosh isn’t going to spend itself!


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Author
Image of Robert Guthrie
Robert Guthrie
Writer, freelancer, historian. www.robertwguthrie.com