One of my fondest teenage memories is the time I wound up at a mall Circuit City in Nyack, New York, right as it was opening.

It was the day of the now-defunct electronics chain's massive video game clearance sale, where literally hundreds of older titles were getting marked down to $5. Someone, on some web forum, had somehow figured out which games would go on sale, and compiled a master list. I printed it out and took it with me.

When the store opened, it was total chaos, as dozens of nerds like myself swarmed the store. But it was also pretty cool: Since there were so few games and so many gamers, we started swapping them around like Pokémon cards. I myself traded the last "Timesplitters 2" for a copy of all-time Xbox classic "Panzer Dragoon Orta" with a broken case.

Ultimately, I wound up with "Orta," "Gun Valkyrie," "Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance," and at least a half-dozen more games, coming in at about $50 total — the regular cost of a single brand-new game at the time.

Since then, video game deal hunting has become a hobby unto itself, for me. I have less time than ever to play video games, but I still spend my free cycles hunting down deals. There hasn't been a single huge event like the Circuit City sale, but I would dare say that I save hundreds of dollars on video games in an average year.

Here's how I do it — and how you can be as neurotic as me when it comes to saving money on video games: