Sam initially has $50. After buying one video game for $26, he has:
\[ 50 - 26 = 24 \]
dollars left.
Next, to find out how many $9 games Sam can buy with the remaining $24, we perform the following calculation:
\[ \frac{24}{9} \approx 2.67 \]
Since Sam can only buy whole games, we round down to the nearest whole number:
Sam can buy 2 games.
Therefore, the answer is 2 games.