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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.

17 of 358 comments (clear)

  1. A fool and his money are soon parted. by gzipped_tar · · Score: 2, Funny

    See title. 'Nuff said.

    --
    Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
  2. My New MMORPG ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    is called The Road to Serfdom. I think you would make an excellent beta tester. Are you interested?

  3. It is immoral and unethical... by AliasMarlowe · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...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
  4. Re:DLC by cjfs · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

    Considering 3 games per month, $40 avg price, you're saving 105 right there. Then consider the cost of tuition, gf, wife upgrade, and possibly kids. The savings are astronomical!

  5. DLC is great by Rik+Sweeney · · Score: 4, Funny

    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..."

    1. Re:DLC is great by Xoron101 · · Score: 2, Funny

      If you've ever worked for a software development development company, it goes a little more like this:

      CEO: "Are we going to meet the release date?"
      Project Manager: "Most of the work is done, but we still have some bugs to work out"
      CEO: "Release it, we need the revenue"
      Project Manager: "But it's still pretty buggy, users are going to notice and not be happy about it"
      CEO: "Release it, we need the revenue"
      Project Manager: "I really think we should push the release date out a couple of weeks"
      CEO: "You're fired!!!"

      CEO: "Head lead developer, we need to release this software ASAP"
      Lead Developer: "Yes Sir!"

    2. Re:DLC is great by Rik+Sweeney · · Score: 1, Funny

      I'll see your scenario and raise you a more wacky one:

      Ballmer: "Is Windows Vista ready?"
      Project Manager: "Not even close"
      Ballmer: "OK, release it anyway, finish the OS later and re-sell it as a new version"
      Project Manager: "?????"
      Ballmer: "Profit"

  6. Re:DLC by selven · · Score: 5, Funny

    I think wife + kids addon and games are incompatible. You could try installing a different distribution of gf but I haven't had any successes yet.

  7. Re:DLC by Shadow+of+Eternity · · Score: 5, Funny

    There's no way to get it to work in the long run, trust me. Reformatting's just plain prohibitively expensive and time consuming which only leaves dual-bootying which is almost impossible to start up properly and usually ends in a complete system failure if they ever interact in the slightest way.

    --
    A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
  8. Re:DLC by sopssa · · Score: 3, Funny

    I find it more interesting if the gf doesn't herself play that much, so your whole life doesn't start to be just one thing. Of course it sometimes sucks to be sucked in to "boring" sounding places, but its a good change.

    And when she does play something then, its more fun. I can take a beer and watch while she plays GTA Vice City. Or when she comes get me to bed at 4am after a long hours of Left4Dead, while watching me finishing the game all sleepy.

    For that matter my father plays a lot too (and used to play when we we're kids too). Even so that calling to come to eat was sometimes done in WoW whispers :)

  9. Re:DLC by mrboyd · · Score: 2, Funny

    From what I saw wife is a mandatory upgrade for gf if you want to keep playing past a certain level. I've heard of account being canceled when some player tried to avoid it. The kid dlc is a sneak update, you can install it yourself on both gf or wife edition but if you don't it will be pushed to your account at some point anyway.

  10. Re:DLC by Gilmoure · · Score: 3, Funny

    After child process was spawned, wife started getting add-on packs. Have almost twice as much wife now as before. At least add-on packs are evenly distributed. We might need to try running an exercise process. In our copious free time, of course.

    --
    I drank what? -- Socrates
  11. Re:DLC by pwfffff · · Score: 4, Funny

    /., for all your knitting kneeds.

  12. Re:DLC by Rogerborg · · Score: 3, Funny

    Don't do it! IT'S A TRAP! I lost my wife to that Goddamn cult. Seriously, they've got secret meetings and a lexicon to keep the Unbelievers out. They call their wool and stuff a "stash". A stash!

    --
    If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
  13. Re:Three Words by servognome · · Score: 3, Funny

    I was a pack a day player, I think that's why I never started smoking.

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    D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
  14. Re:DLC by rockNme2349 · · Score: 3, Funny

    10 people that I know in real life? I play WoW man!

    --
    Sewage Treatment Facilities - "Our duty is clear."
  15. Re:DLC by mattack2 · · Score: 2, Funny

    For the gf -> wife upgrade, all you have to do is procure the right parts when you first start putting together the system.

    The right parts being a token ring, right?