Don't get a laptop just to play games: because you can't upgrade and any "gaming" laptop will generally not be very portable because it will weigh a tonne and have a battery life of 2 minutes. I'm not saying don't play games on a laptop (my macbook pro runs the games that I want to play really nicely, and probably could run anything out there now...); but if all you want is a computer to play games at home on and you wouldn't leave the house with it: build yourself a desktop since it'll be cheaper, you can upgrade it, and the screen that you'll get will be much bigger than 15"...
I'm biased though in that my last two laptops have been an 11" Macbook Air and a 13" Macbook Pro with Retina Display; which weigh nothing and have very long battery lives (I get 8 hours of internet browsing now: that goes right down when you try games but I still get 3 hours of Crusader Kings 2 on the battery, which is pretty good). I could never go back to a bulky, heavy laptop: mine just fits in my bag with all of my uni books no problem; and that's pretty nice when you look at the specs that it has. You can get PC equivalents a little cheaper: but I go for the Mac side since the service you get is fantastic and I've had less problems with OSX in the five years that I've been using it than an average year with Windows...