Gaming Gift for a Male Friend?

$36 is an odd cap. lol
Maybe just get him a $35 gift cert. for Gamestop. That is what I do for my daughters boyfriend, let him get what he wants and you don’t have to worry about him not really liking or wanting what you get for him.
I don’t know how old you are but….you could give him the gift cert. and then make a “date” to get together to play some games and have a few beers and pizza or?

Oh..never mind the beer, I just caught that you are still in H.S. haha

Gift him a game on Steam.

For my brothers birthday last month, I got him a 3 month subscription to loot crate
He loves it.

Civilization 6 beyond earth. Or get an older civ 5 for less money.

If he has a computer, a great idea is this or a gift on steam as @ragingloli suggested. If he doesn’t, you can get him something like this box. Another thing you could buy him is a collection of pokemon manga!