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The Nickel & Dime Generation
Phaethon360 sends in a piece that looks at how quickly game costs can add up these days, now that DLC, microtransactions and standalone expansions are commonplace, writing, "If you were trying to the think of the most expensive games to play, Rock Band or a monthly-fee MMORPG would come to mind. But Halo 3 is right up there, too." It's reminiscent of a recent post at IncGamers where the author tallied up how much he'd spent on World of Warcraft over the past several years, and was astonished to realize it numbered in the thousands of dollars.
That's a total of 4 years and 8 months as of right now. That means that I've paid $14.95 a month for 56 months. That's $837.20.
Considering that's almost 5 years of entertainment and actually a good game, is that really so much. Like he notes, it comes down to $14.95 a month - pretty much every other hobby costs a lot more per month, while still providing less in back in terms of time spent.
Microtransactions and DLC's is a good way. If you like the game, you get more of what you like. It's not like you *have to* buy them. Patches in my opinion should be for game balancing or bug fixes - DLC's and expansions for things that add content to the game. However some companies, like Valve, release DLC's (TF2, Left4dead) for free on PC too.
Any XBox 360 game is expensive if microsoft continue to charge users to play online...
See title. 'Nuff said.
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
...lest you end up like this kid ;-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPWnyOvSXoE
The only game I regularly play is GranTurismo, and with version 5 they're going to introduce micropayments as well, appearently if you want to buy all cars and all tracks, it will set you back several thousand dollars. Come on! With GT4, you got all cars and all tracks in the single payment! It's just a total rip off. Makes me think twice about actually buying it when it'll come out and that with my favourite game ever. Any other game with micro payments would not enter my house hold.
"If anyone needs me, I'm in the angry dome."
Don't play the game. It is only a game.
I can see whining and bitching about prices for things that we need to function in modern society. Homes, Transportation, energy, food etc... But video games just let the market decide what will happen if it is too expensive and you don't want to pay that amount then don't buy the game. It is only a game you don't need it. If you think you do then you are a shill to marketing.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
is called The Road to Serfdom. I think you would make an excellent beta tester. Are you interested?
...to leave a fool with any money.
This is taught in business ethics 101, and reiterated in all subsequent business ethics classes.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Be ready for nickel and diming across the board. I see strategic war games on Steam selling sprite packs for $2.50.
Browsing around yesterday, I knew that when I saw a "Buy today and get four landmarks free" advertisement for CitiesXL (MMO SimCity) that if I were look into its pricing scheme a bit more, I'd be in for a doozy: $9 a month to play with "free" content each month, followed by add-on packs called GEMs. Right now people are in an uproar over it because the general impression is that people will need to start paying the monthly fee to have access to mass transit in their single-player cities, something many consider an essential part of a city/world-building game as opposed to an optional add-on.
In my mind, ignoring facts that I'm sure will prove otherwise, nickel and diming all started with Elder Scrolls: Oblivion's horse armor for $2.50 :)
It's reminiscent of a recent post at IncGamers where the author tallied up how much he'd spent on World of Warcraft over the past several years, and was astonished to realize it numbered in the thousands of dollars.
Don't forget to include the cost of Cheetos and HoHos.
But seriously, it's entertainment, and, compared to a lot of other things one could be doing (going to the movies, fly fishing, buying new hardcover books, restoring classic cars, etc.) it's relatively inexpensive. Yeah, sure, the cost adds up, but it does on everything. How much have you spent on rent, mortgage interest, food, shoes, or transportation? You want dumb? Consider how much people spend on cars between the device itself, maintenance, fuel, and insurance versus what percentage of their time they actually spend in it.
for the developers:
CEO: "Are we going to meet the release date?"
Project Manager: "Most of the game is done, but not all the bonus maps have been completed or tested yet"
CEO: "You'll just have to pull all nighters until it's done"
Project Manager: "Well I was thinking that we could just release that stuff as (paid) DLC when the game launches"
CEO: "Kind of like how you'd release a patch to fix a hideous software bug you only noticed just before game went live?"
Project Manager: "Exactly, and that leads me to my next point..."
Summation 2
It's reminiscent of a recent post at IncGamers where the author tallied up how much he'd spent on World of Warcraft over the past several years, and was astonished to realize it numbered in the thousands of dollars
TV services will add up to thousands of dollars in ONE year, not several.
If your hobby is auto tuning or off-roading that souped up sports car or SUV will gobble through even more money a year in parts and gas than the afore mentioned TV bills.
Is your hobby reading? Only a fraction of titles are available in the libraries of most municipalities, this means at least as much as WoW a month if not more.
The point is this is nothing new. Every generation has had its "nickel and dime", it's the nature of all hobbies.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
wonder what his /played totals? I can't look at mine. The money is nothing compared to the time wasted. Generally I think of WoW as saving my entertainment dollar. What other entertainment could you possible find for $15 a month. Heck Netflix costs more. Of course if you want to go crazy add in the net connection, the new PC every couple of years, the junkfood for raiding, and the gym membership that you got to take off the raiding pounds (but have never used)
Magic The Gathering
+= E
They may just get a seat.
One of our current federal senators is Seven Fielding, of the christian political party called Family First. http://www.stevefielding.com.au/
That fool got his seat with only 1.8% of the primary vote. The remainder were on preferences.
...
Warcraft is a poor example of where it is hurting the player, MMORPGs have always charged and if they provide new content it usally saves the player money because they are not out purchasing new $50 games.
Where you can see DLC hurting the player is with Fallout 3 and similar. It use to be you could purchase an expansion pack for $20-$30 and it had plenty of new content to last the average player a few extra weeks. With Fallout 3 you have them charging $10 per DLC with the DLC aimed for 2-3 nights of play. So Fallout 3 DLCs costs the player $50 and less content them a previous $30 expansion would of had.
Look at it this way. You pay $14.95 a MONTH to play WoW. Now, granted you have to buy the games as well, which will cost anywhere from $20-$40, you're essentially paying $15 a month to be entertained. Now, being a one time payment every month, MMO's have a nasty tendency of destroying a social life. This is fantastic if you love to save money, because you wont be dropping $18 for those two movie tickets and another $10-$20 on snacks for the movie. That's just one night. Now, the average pack of ramen noodles (gamer's food) is roughly 50 cents. That's at a maximum. Now, given that any average sized human being, meaning around 5'6" - 5'11" and around 100-180 lbs, you'll eat roughly two packets of ramen noodles every 3-4 hours. Now, tack on that 12-pack of Dr. Pepper, which is around $5, and you're spending about $9-10 a day. So, $15 plus $10 a day for 30 days on average, is $315 dollars a month. This is the figure we will go for a WoW gamer. Now, on the same token, if you work, you're spending about $5 in gas to get to work and back, probably $5.49 for that value meal at McDonald's, and then $15 for the pizza every night because you're just too damn tired to cook for yourself. So, on average, that'd be $25.50 a day, plus that $30 you spent on one night at the movies with someone. So, that brings us to... $795 for the person who complains that they spend too much money on MMO's. That's even BEFORE you factor in an active social life which involves, but is not all inclusive, gambling, drinking, partying, bowling, more movies, dates, etc. I think I'll stick to staying at home with my son and playing WoW thanks. Saves me some epic cash.
"Chance favors only the prepared mind." -Archimedes
Might not have been his intention, but the author has basically proven that MMOs, in terms of the game fee itself, are incredibly cheap entertainment.
He also demonstrates that stupid people will spend stupid amounts of money on MMO-related bits and pieces. That's not the cost of playing the game.
And surely paying the 1-month-at-a-time fee of $15 is fine when you're trying it out, but surely at some point in the 4 year 8 month saga you realise you're going to stick with it for a while, and take one of the cheaper/longer sub options. Even if he takes 8 months of "eval" to arrive at that conclusion, using 6 month subs saves him $100 over the next 4 years.
In other words, you're a WoW fan but not a Fallout 3 fan...
I, on the other hand, have never played WoW & have no plans to, so cannot really comment on it.
But I do play Fallout 3, which I bought some months after release in a "3 for £25" offer ($40 approx or $13 per game). So far, I've bought two of the DLC expansions, one of which adds additional levels over the original limit of 20 to 30 - so I could argue that expansion alone increases the gameplay time by an additional 50%.
So I cannot make a comparison to WoW but your figures for Fallout 3 don't stack up, I'm afraid - especially as I am over here in supposedly "Rip-Off Britain".
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
the author tallied up how much he'd spent on World of Warcraft over the past several years, and was astonished to realize it numbered in the thousands of dollars.
So the author's incompetence in 2nd grade mathematics is suppose to make this news how?
He knew what he was getting into when he signed up. Just because he's reflecting on the price years into it doesn't mean it's a rip off. This isn't like getting your car tuned up for some amazing low price only to find out they stack fee after fee that double the price. Anyone who's doing anything on a subscription basis should understand what they're getting into as they get into it. Anything short of that is just foolishness on their part.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
As a big hockey fan I picked up NHL 10, to play with friends on their online league, the EASHL. In past years the game just featured "real" equipment that the players in the league wore, and you could chose any of that for your character.
This year they featured customized "cool" equipment with boost slots. So a piece of equipment could be unlocked with 3 boost slots, and then up to 3 boosts could also be unlocked and added to it. So suddenly if you decided you wanted your character to look like he rides the short bus, you could actually increase your character up to 60 points, which is a major increase, considering leveling up your character fully only gets you about a 75 point increase.
EA set most of these "unlockables" to some really impossible tasks. Play 4 seasons, manually playing at least 40 games each season and score X number of goals each season. If somebody has a month, they could probably achieve this, but because these would be used in a competitive league, people wanted them now and EA allowed people to purchase them. $3 per equipment, $2 per boost. Maxing out the boost equipment on your guy comes to roughly $40, yet if you don't you're at a disadvantage from those who either have too much time and can unlock, or too much money and can just buy it all.
I bought one or two pieces to try and keep up, and would probably have bought more but my 360 RROD'd and its given me time to think. I doubt I'll buy a $60 game in the future where the part of the game I'm most likely to play will cost me a full $100, then I'll be fully expected to do it again next year.
Introducing Microsoft Vacuum 1.0 The first Microsoft product that doesn't suck.
At the risk of being deemed a heretic, I'd argue that World of Warcraft is not a good example of nickel and diming, as they seem to have struck the right balance between giving the base players an excellent value for their money, while letting the more fanatical players pay tremendous amounts of money for things that are -- and this is key -- absolutely superficial as far as gameplay goes.
I think that's the perfect way of doing things. For players like myself, who just want to play the base game, I can experience 100% of the content the game has to offer at the price of the monthly fee + game + expansion packs, all of which are a great value. No, I won't have a shimmering translucent mount to ride. No, I won't have a set of Nerf bats to play with. No, I won't have a murloc pet following me around, and frankly I don't care. I just want to quest and raid.
For those that want to pay more, they can shell out $40 for a video feed of BlizzCon just to get a pet, shell out $100 for a case of World of Warcraft's Magic:The Gathering cards to try to win some mount or pet, buy the books, buy the pricey sword replicas, figures, etc.
A World of Warcraft player could easily blow thousands a year, but at the end of the day, we'll both be happy with the in-game experience we've had and I won't feel like I'm at any sort of in-game disadvantage despite the difference in "investment."
One of my hobbies is kayaking and canoeing. With three kayaks, two canoes, and all the other supplies needed just to be safe and fun, I already have more than $5,000 spent. Then tack on the price of traveling to the water whenever I want to get some paddle time in. I have no idea how much I have spent in the last five years, but I would say it's more than $15,000. I think that's money well spent, because it is for something that I have a lot of fun doing. If WOW is your thing, and it's fun for you, then $1,000 per year is well worth it.
The irony is that this system works. Almost all software companies envy the MMO's and would love to charge you a yearly/monthly/hourly/etc subscription rate to use their products. It means that you've a garanteed clientele and enables marketing to focus on content and improvements as the product matures, rather than having it all perfect before it is sold. It is not nearly as unpredictable as the model that requires a certain number of sales to break even, because the server support is scalable. Personally I've avoided MMOs cuz I've always loved the RPG, and no doubt I'd be totally addicted if I joined one. My current (writing and sketching) hobbies cost me much less than a typical MMO would. It's kinda interesting that the subscription based software model hasn't worked as well in other areas of software. Perhaps its due to the fact that there are free and cheaper alternatives.
http://www.beanleafpress.com
It's OK that I've wasted thousands of hours of my life playing games. But now that I've realized I'm spending money too, well, that's just ridiculous!
It's reminiscent of a recent post at IncGamers where the author tallied up how much he'd spent on World of Warcraft over the past several years, and was astonished to realize it numbered in the thousands of dollars.
Yeah, but he saved more than that because of not having a social life which involves travel, lots of drinks, meals in restaurants. Girlfriends require even more costs, whereas in-game "relationships" are cheap.
However the fast food deliveries should also be factored in, if he would have had far cheaper alternatives (home cooked or even ready meals) if he had the time to spare from grinding in WoW.
Just to translate into real UK prices we have FTA:
* Halo 3 (standard retail SKU): £30
* Heroic Map Pack (DLC): £7
* Legendary Map Pack (DLC): £7
* Mythic Map Pack (DLC): £7
* Total cost: £51
and here's the important point, OR:
* Halo 3 (standard retail SKU): £30
* Halo 3 ODST (standard retail SKU): £30
* Total cost: £60 (but includes whole extra ODST game on top)
His numbers are stupid. You can't factor XBox live in because it's not a Halo 3 only requirement anymore than your internet connection or electricity bill is so I've outright removed that as it's not a Halo 3 cost. I've separated it into two sections because Halo 3 ODST comes with all the map packs he listed. ODST is in itself a whole new game however, and I played through it this weekend- playing it on Legendary it gives a good 6 - 8hrs gameplay which is shorter than many games, but as long as others so having actually played it first hand now I disagree with the idea it's an expansion.
But here's where I really disagree that anything has changed, I bought Dawn of War and all the expansion backs, with 3 expansion packs at £20 and the original game at £30 it was more expensive. This hasn't changed either, I remember buying Warcraft III and it's expansion totalling up to a similar price to £60.
Really, I don't see the guy's point at all- MMO charges have been around since the UO days circa 1997, and charges for games like Halo 3 + addons aren't anymore expensive than games with addons have always been when you had to buy them as hard copies in shops.
For what it's worth I think in many cases the DLC options give you more for your money. I've bought games for 400 points on Live Arcade (which is about £3.50), these sorts of games would have been at least £5, but more like £10 or £15 in the shops before the DLC option came about.
I don't buy this guys argument, I do not believe games are more expensive now than they've ever been. You only have to look at the price the average PC game goes for- down from around £34.99 on average about 5 - 10 years ago, to around £24.99 on average now. MMO subscriptions I believe are on average about the same now as they have always been also.
The only thing I took away from this guys article is his revelation: "Hey wait, entertainment is actually costing me money?". What happened, did mum and dad stop buying him games and he suddenly had to start paying out his own pocket all of a sudden?
I've played WoW for some time...
I got all game +2 expansions, so 40 eur + 2*25 (?) = 90.
and then the subscription costs: 4 years/6 month rate is= 11*12*4 = 528 eur.
total: ~620 eur.
Not so cheap isn't it? just consider that for Wc3 I've spent only 90 eur... (game + TFT)...
Anyway, even a game as SF4 on PS3 can be very expensive: game: 30 GBP, proper pad: 30 GBP proper joystick (couldn't fully enjoy playing with pad) : 40 GBP = 100GBP...
Gaming today is expensive...
Is not just for kids anymore...
Cheers,
Did someone say microtransactions? You can easily blow $20 a month on buying Linden Dollars to buy clothes and skins and hair and animations and gadgets. Then if you want to buy land that's another $10 a month for a premium account, $20 to actually get some land, plus now you're buying houses and trees and furniture. And that just puts you into "lower middle class". The real status symbol is owning a whole island.
Private island: $1000 down + $295 / month.
That's US dollars, not Linden dollars...
I think it's important to realise the context of the amounts being talked about. Lets say you play WoW for 5 years, at $14.95 a month. You earn $50K, you pay $2000 a month in rent/bills. You have a Starbucks $4 coffee every working day.
Total income: $250,000
Rent/Bills: $120,000
Starbucks: $5,200
WoW cost: ~$1,000 (subscription plus expansion packs)
In that context, it doesn't look that much, does it?
On the other hand, for about as much fun:
Team Fortress 2 total cost: $20
I've noticed that people in general seem to greatly prefer lower upfront fees compared to total cost of ownership (TCO).
For instance, when AT&T halved the price of the iPhone and almost doubled the cost of the text+dataplan (raising TCO, but lowering the upfront fees), this made consumers happy and there was a bump in sales. We see this in other industries - to many car buyers, they only really consider the monthly payment amount, rather than the total cost of the vehicle, which is why car companies are now pushing 72 month leases. Even in the game industry, many people criticize the Playstation 3 as "too expensive", preferring the XBox's prices. Well, once you add in the cost of XBox Live ($50/year) compared to the Playstation Network (free) the difference is less significant.
Companies are just getting smarter and more efficient at extracting money from consumers. In a capitalist society, this is really an inevitable consequence. The only solution to this is for consumers to get smarter, and start making better and more informed choices. I am sure this will never happen.
Subscription services, paid add-on content and endless nickel & diming are the future.
*Disclaimer: I'm not sure if these observations are specific to Americans, or this is how most people around the world behave.
--
#include <malloc.h>
free(your.mind);
You don't get your money's worth like you used to out of video games. I remember paying $60 for a copy of Fallout 3 a while ago. The game was quite short. I ended up spending another $40 on downloadable content. Don't get me wrong--the game is fun and so was the DLC, but I can't help feeling that the DLC should have come with the game in the first place. Not to mention the fact that most of the miscellaneous quests could be completed in under an hour.
For instance, the Broken Steel add on extended the game's plot line another 5-10 hours. Considering the fact that the main plot only took about 20 hours to beat in the first place, this plot thread should have been included in the original game.
I would like to contrast this with another, slightly older Bethesda Softworks game--The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Sure, there was downloadable content for this game, but if you played the original game's main quest in its entirety along with the miscellaneous quests (some of which were longer than the main quest), you could put hundreds of hours into the game without spending a cent on DLC.
What changed between the release of Oblivion and Fallout 3? Why could I get hundreds of hours of play time for $60 from the former, but only a fraction of that from the latter?
I have a bad feeling about this...
Reading through this article made me come to realization how much money I spend on video games in a year. A college student spending 60 dollars a pop now-a-days on video games can become very expensive very quickly. At least I have a steady paycheck to pay for my gaming hobby. But then I thought back to the days when I was younger and couldn't afford to buy the amount of games I do now but wanted to. With increasing technology and ability to validate a person's personal information, how could companies benefit by charging customers of different ages different prices like a tax bracket. The older you are the more you'd pay and the younger the less. Now I know this is a far stretched idea and there are a lot of loopholes with it, however I believe that'd promote sales of games much more and make it affordable to the younger generation of games. Just a thought.
The beauty of "Fallout 3" is how expansion packs keep getting tacked on to extend the content (so it basically never ends). However, that only further proves the point of this article. If someone did not own "Fallout 3" originally, they would have to buy the game and all DLC in order to gain access to the full content. This will of course get increasingly costly until one day, all DLC becomes bundled with the game itself.
People *used* to primarily treat good games like books, after you read it, on the shelf it goes. Sure you might not read it again anytime soon, but knowing you have the option is comforting.
With more and more "casual" gamers buying more and more "awful but severely marketed" titles that offer no lasting replay value, the idea of a "long-term rental" utilizing GameStop as a middle-man, means EA can sell the downloadable content to 5 or 10 different people per disc instead of just 1! Burn-out Paradise is a prime example of this. Sure you can snag the disc for $15-$20 at your local used disc dealer, but after you install and update the game, you'll discover huge sections of the world closed to you (and cars unattainable) until you fork over $20 here and there for download-able expansions!
Even better, if you buy all these trinkets and ever lose the disc/sell the game then EA still has a bunch of your money for bits you can no longer use, and the chance to sell them all over again to someone else!
What, me worry?
This article is ridiculous
The guy has 2 * 2 accounts with his wife, buys WoW normal AND collector editions, goes to BlizzCon and then finds out it costs quite a bit of money?
There are many articles worth nothing and this is one of them.
$50 a year on line play is joke and pc side is free after a shout lived try out of makeing you pay for it.
but a fool and his money are soon parted. I feel terrible for parents that are screwed into their childs addiction by this nickle and dime crap. cellular "family plans" started it in my opinion, and micropayments will be the death of it.
is there ever a tipping point? is there a point where the wendys hourly guy or the dominos pizza jockey sets the controller down, unclutches his preorder preorder receipt and says "not another god damned dollar"? is there a point where the average gamer even pops their head above the slowly boiling water and wonders what they could have done with the money? the time? if the upgrades and service are really even fun anymore or if the myriad of teenagers crying "pwned!" and "thats so gay" over teamspeak have crushed the life out of what used to be a pretty cool way to spend time with friends?
Disclaimer: i dont play games. I think theyre interesting and pretty, but on the whole i cant understand why people blindly piss money away into something that I believe, collaborative gaming that is, should fundamentally be free.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Wonder if author typed /played in WoW and then see how much he paid per minute. It all comes down on perspective. Like others have noted: 15 dollars a month is a good deal for a hobby. Or did he scavenge eBay for trade cards for 900 dollars each?
trans corpus mortuum
Once again I feel justified in not buying games until they hit the bargain bin. I'm currently playing X-Com: Apocalypse (no DLC there), VtMB (none there, either, and this one even has fairly high-end graphics) and the Wakfu open beta (justified in that the beta doesn't cost me anything). Lots of fun for very little money.
Not needing the latest graphics can save you a lot of money on this kind of nonsense - by the time I'll get around to playing Fallout 3, all the content will have been released and will hopefully already be included in the bargain bin edition.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
and i get to fly jet fighters
It's reminiscent of a recent post at IncGamers where the author tallied up how much he'd spent on World of Warcraft over the past several years, and was astonished to realize it numbered in the thousands of dollars.
With lifetime subscription, game and first expansion: $300 ($50 per game and $200 for life-time subscription, got it as a founder).
Uh, the payoff from games is not units of hours.
-josh
Seriously, WoW saved me thousands of dollars over the 2 years I was addicted to it. I stopped going out. I stopped taking my lady out. I stopped seeing friends. Of course all those things are bad, but I've never had such a tremendous rise in my savings.
I was a pretty social guy before WoW, I probably went out 4 times a week. Let's say that each night was $20-40 dollars.
So WoW equaled about $15 a month. Going out was probably closer to $500 a month. So that's about $485 dollars in savings.
Or course I had no real life except the PVP ladder grind. I'm lucky my lady friend didn't abandon me. Luckily I was able to recover from my addiction.
If you didn't get over a hundred hours of play time from Fallout 3, then you weren't playing the game to the full capabilities.
That was $1,675.00 or so to play WoW for 4 year and 8 months.
It costs $1,568.00 to smoke two packs a cigarettes a week at $3.50 a pack over that same amount of time.
All told, I think WoW has a comparatively small cost.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
The point is that people used to get this stuff for free.
Ok, so he spent, in total $4374.08. Over the course of 56 months since he bought WoW, that's about $78.11 per month. That's really not all that much. It's approximately two nights out with a modest dinner and a movie/snacks. One night out if they go to a bar afterwards. Really, it's not such a bad deal, assuming they actually enjoy playing the game.
But then I realized the cable was blue, so I only gave it one star. I hate blue.
is not to play. Thanks, I'll be here all week
Blizzard has offered a discounted 6-month plan since the beginning.
If anyone who started back then didn't convert their subscription to the 12.99/mo model within the first few billing cycles, they have no one to blame but themselves.
By my quick and dirty math I've saved ~$150 since launch by not being in denial of my hobby. If you and your wife played 4 years, I'd say thats solid confirmation you weren't quitting anytime soon...
I know I won't be until something better comes along, of which there will be plenty of fair warning from the betas.
Although counting blizzcons as part of typical gaming, yeah sorry but in no way is that realistic.
FWIW I go to at least 1 movie a week on average (all those summer/holiday weekends I see 2 or 3 far outnumber weekends I don't go) which blows away any MMO subscription costs and gives me at best 2-3 hours of good times and at worst a terrible experience burned into my retinas along with god-awful bottom of the barrel popcorn bits stuck in my teeth. If I didn't smuggle in snacks more often than not, I'd really be broke.
WoW actually saves me money.
I smoke cigrarettes-- they're not cheap, at around $0.25 per smoke. I don't smoke inside the house though, so I make a trip outside whenever I want to light up.
I end up smoking LESS when I play WoW (or any video game actually), because I'm too preoccupied with the game. It usually ends up that I skip enough cigarettes in a month to pay for my WoW account.
It's not just WoW. I bought a Nintendo DS years ago when I first quit smoking-- it seemed like a perfect fit with the stylus and everything. Anyway, I ended up playing an obscence amount of Animal Crossing, even while at work, and it kept me smoke free for over 2 years. That little game system ended up paying for itself many times over!!
I like to get at least an hour for every dollar I spend on a video game.
I think this is a fair rule of thumb.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
As a former hardcore MMOGer (from UO -> EQ then casually checking out newer games) I can say this is completely wrong. It's the opposite in fact. I used to justify my playtime, because almost every other activity you'd do is _much_ more expensive.
Think about it. If you go to the bar and have 2, maybe 3 drinks, that's the cost of an entire _month_ of mmog subscription. For that price you get a form of entertainment that, while not healthy, is arguably better for you than TV, and no cap on the hours. No hangover either.
Making a financial argument against MMOGs fails. The real argument is just the time sink, how it affects your relationships with friends and family. Not to mention - when you're on your deathbed, do you really want to have nothing to show for your life but purple lewtz that are constantly replaced by the next expansion? That you don't even own?
OK - time for the old school to chime in.
Pen and Paper (PNP) RPGs are by far the better deal. Let's take the most WoWish of all RPGs, D&D 4e as an example. You can grab all three core books for $66.12 on Amazon. A little more if you go buy them from your FLGS where you'll find people to help you get started, dice, advice, and even a place to play.
You can get free adventures (blah - write your own!) on the internet to keep you busy forever. And you'll be playing in a freer, more open world where you can try anything you can imagine. And you'll be playing with actual friends sitting nearby - or far away. I've got plans to include one of my longtime players in a special Skype-based session bridging our Albuquerque-Japan gap in a week or two.
And lets face it - you're reading Slashdot - you have access to a computer. That means all the accessories you might buy like dice, maps, battlemats, markers, miniatures, lists of monsters, lists of treasure etc., are available to you for free. Frankly, lots of awesome games are available to you for free, too. Check out _The Shadow of Yesterday_ or _Spirit of the Century_ or _GURPS Lite_.
Yes, in the past twenty-four years or so, I've spent a lot on PNP RPGs. But a new book (averaging $35-$40) isn't just an investment in a strictly timebound amount of entertainment. Almost every book I own has provided:
A) Hours of enjoyment to read, reread, and peruse
B) Entertainment for myself and multiple others while being used to play as intended by the designers
C) Ideas that make *other* games more interesting or exciting
Plus, PNP games offer things that MMORPGs just can't offer.
Can you sit around on a Sunday and go over your old WoW stuff? Can you call up a bunch of WoWers you raid with and say, "Hey, this weekend, let's play WoW JUST like it was on launch day!" Can you change the course of history in Azeroth? Can you freeze the acidic blood of a fallen enemy with a spell, cram the ice crystals into the lock you couldn't pick before the fight started, take a while to rest and heal and let the melting acid open the lock for you?
No, you can't. But PNP gamers can do all of that and more. I'm not saying WoW sucks, or that it's not worth what it costs. I'm just saying if you want to pretend you're an awesome dude or lady in a world of magic and swordplay, there are cheaper ways. Oh, and the genres available to PNP roleplayers are much more varied as well. There are a lot more options besides fantasy, corporatist sci-fi, and superheroes out there.
"If you were trying to the think of the most expensive games to play, Rock Band or a monthly-fee MMORPG would come to mind" I would suggest Wangan Midnight, any Gundam game, ITG, GuitarFreaks/Drummania...any game that anyone in a West Coast city with a decent Asian-style arcade can see people playing for hours at a time, day in and day out. Usually at a buck a game. I've probably spent easily north of $5,000 on Drummania in the last three years...
His huge cost is 13 console games. Over 4 years. What's the big deal?
What was his per hour cost on that WoW bill?
I find being offended by me offensive.
That's why I didn't buy TDU as well. I would have been all over it if not for the micropayment system.
Read my lips, game publishers: I will never pay for a game that uses micropayments or any similar system, no matter how much I might have wanted the game otherwise.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I don't play any games, and my ex-wife buys all of my son's various games & pays his WoW fees. What I get is a pretext to upgrade. If not for games, I would have one Win2K box with dual PIIIs and a couple of salvaged crap boxes running Slack. As it is, I have about a dozen formerly cutting edge boxes, and two or three switches for LAN parties, just so my son could keep up with the increasing hardware demands of new games and new versions of Windows. My GF would never have allowed this to happen otherwise. It works for me.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
More like selling you a car fully-loaded for the full retail price (after all, the game already has all the code and artwork to support all the features), but then charging to be able to turn off the traction control (what, you want to corner at more than 0.4Gs sustained without going into sheer understeer? You need to buy the Premium Handling Package), change or remove the speed limiter (The speed limiter kicks in at 100kph sir, which is the legal limit, whether the car has a twin turbo V8 and a 6-speed or not! If you want to go faster, you'll have to pay for the Premium Speed Package), turn on the AC (the AC switch is disabled unless you buy the Premium Climate Control Package), or roll down the windows (You'll need at least the Value Climate Control package for that!) or open the trunk (Premium Cargo Package).
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Youngsters. We used to play text-based MUDs when it cost by the HOUR to even be online. Personally, I never had a bill over $500 in a month ($2.95/hour on AOL), but I know people who regularly spent a couple thousand dollars a month ($21.00+/hour for prime time hour on the GEnie network), back in the day.
And will did it in the snow! Up hill! Both ways!
Jhyrryl
I've actually made money playing WoW. Play the game for a while, get bored and sell your account. Easiest thing in the world. After 5 years of play, this guy should have a pretty valuable account.
I know I'm out of the loop regarding games, but when I read the article I thought, "Delicious Large Chest...?"
I know, I know, too much anime.
That's a lot of money alright, and it's the primary reason I don't play any game that requires a monthly fee just to play it. I don't care how good it is, no video game is worth more than a one-time cost for the game, and one-time costs for any expansions, additional content, etc.
Now, try this same math with your Cable TV, or cel phone bills. 4 years and 8 months is the period of the article, that's 56 months. If you're paying $100/month for cable TV, that's $5,600; more than this guy paid to play this game.
- James