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.

Comments

DLC

[sopssa]

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.

Three Words

[BigMeanBear]

Magic The Gathering