I posted on Facebook recently that there were over a hundred current generation games on our shelves. As a collector, I’m quite proud of that fact, but there are people who look down on such an achievement and think that spending money on computer gaming to that level is a waste.
I’ve long battled against such an idea and came up with a way of viewing entertainment spending some time back which makes computer games pretty much the cheapest hobby out there. I thought I’d share my thinking and also take the time to look at some of the values of my games.
Value is an important thing; it’s one of the reasons this blog was started - to keep in check the amount of money spent. While we no longer really stick to the ‘complete two, buy one’ system that started all this, we still try to get the most out of a game.
So what is the way I calculate game value. It’s nice and simple - you just have to work out how many pence per hour your entertainment costs. Let’s start with a pretty universal benchmark: going to the cinema.
Going to the cinema for Jen and myself costs around £30 a time. There’s the cost of the tickets themselves (close to £10 a piece, if not more in some places) and the travel and the popcorn or whatever. An average film lasts two hours, so a cinema cost can be seen as £15 per hour (for the two of us) or £7.50 per hour each. No one really reacts negatively to you saying ‘we’re going to the cinema’ so I have to assume that everything agrees it is a reasonable entertainment thing to do; thus it can become our benchmark.
Cinema: £7.50 per hour.
Out to the pub for an evening with some friends probably costs £15 to £20 for three hours (drink, travel, maybe something to munch). Let’s be nice and say it’s £15. That’s £5 an hour then.
Pub: £5 per hour.
Assuming pub conversation is as interesting as a film, going to the pub is better value than the cinema.
What about buying a DVD, and not a cheap one. A release day BluRay in fact, is normally about £20. Two of us will watch it, and if you are buying it to keep, chances are you’ll watch it at least twice, if not three times. Hell, if it is a kids film, it’ll be seen thirty times. Let’s assume three times with two people watching on average and a two hour film. ((£20 / 3 [times]) / 2 [people]) / 2 [hours] is £1.67.
Brand new BluRay: £1.67 per hour.
This is our cheapest so far, so buying a BluRay has to be cheaper than going to the pub.
Let’s jump to computer games then. A brand new special edition PS3 game on release day with bonus junk can be as much as £60 (certainly, that’s what Final Fantasy XIII was, I think), whereas an average Wii game on release is about £35, and a DS game around £27. Working on £35 as an overall average, it comes down to hours of play. Now, bear in mind I like to try to complete all the games I get and intend to do that even if I’ve not done it yet. An average game according to my data gets played for about fifteen hours. So £35 / 15 = £2.33.
Average game bought brand new: £2.33 per hour.
Finally, the real stats. Games are rarely bought brand new on release day, and are more likely to be £10 to £15 second hand, or in offers. Some are played multiplayer (meaning one hour of play is worth two if two people enjoy it) and many games, especially RPGs, blast the 15 hour stat out of the water. So here’s a list of all the games in this blog so far, the hours I’ve played them for to date and their subsequent cost per hour:
Final Fantasy III : £20 : 25 hours : 80p / hour
Link’s Crossbow Training : £15 : 5 hours : £3 / hour
Final Fantasy Tactics A2 : £25 : 120 hours : 21p / hour
Prince of Persia : £30 : 20 hours or so : £1.50 / hour
Professor Layton 1 : £30 : 25 hours or so per person, with three people completing it so 75 hours : 40p / hour
Super Paper Mario : £30 : 120 hours [this may be an anomaly but two of us played it through and that’s what the Wii says it was played for in total] : 25p / hour
Wii Fit : £70 (with board) : 130 hours : 53p / hour
Virtua Fighter 5 : £10 : 15 hours : 67p / hour
Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games : £20 : 19 hours, mostly multiplayer, I’m counting it as 29 hours total enjoyment : 69p / hour
Soul Calibur IV : £10 : 10 hours, almost all multiplayer, so 20 hours total : 50p / hour
Final Fantasy XII : £40 : 130 hours : 31p / hour
Plants vs. Zombies : £15 : 15 hours (this is a guess to be fair) : £1 / hour
Call of Duty IV - Modern Warfare : £20 : 12 hours or so : £1.67 / hour
Ninja Town : £10 : 20 hours at least : 50p / hour
Defend Your Honor : £0 : 1 hour : FREE!
Pinball Dreams : £4 : 10 hours : 40p / hour
Circuit Defenders : about £6 : 30 hours : 20p / hour
House of the Dead - Overkill : £15 : 19 hours, all multiplayer, so 38 hours total : 39p / hour
Professor Layton 2 : £30 : 25 hours or so per person, again with three people playing it so 75 hours : 40p / hour
Street Fighter IV : £30 : 28 hours, at least 8 of which were multiplayer, so 36 hours total : 83p / hour
Wii Fit Plus : £17 : 70 hours : 24p / hour
Final Fantasy XIII : £60 : 83 hours for me, 50 or so for Jen so far - 133 total so far: 45p / hour
Final Fantasy XII - Revenant Wings : £10 : 30 hours : 33p / hour
Flower, Sun and Rain : £4 : I have no idea how long I played this, it was a blur. I’d estimate 20 hours : 20p / hour
Final Fantasy CC - My Life as a Darklord : £8 : 19 hours : 42p / hour
Dragon Quest IX : £30 : This is the beastie… at the moment 124 hours and I’m still playing it : 24p / hour
Doctor Who Adventures : £0 : 3 hours : FREE!
So what does all that prove? Simply that even my most expensive completed game (Link’s Crossbow Training) was cheaper than going to the pub. Actually, I’m quite stunned at the number of them that come in under 50p an hour. Using the cinema benchmark, computer gaming as a hobby works out around SEVEN TIMES cheaper.
Of course, this doesn’t take into account the other seventy or so games I have which I haven’t completed, but other than the odd horrible piece of rubbish (Enchanted Folk at the School of Wizardry, I’m looking at you!) most of the uncompleted games have seen enough play to put them below £1 per hour, and many of them will go on to be completed and join the list above. Even the most expensive stuff (Guitar Hero / Rock Band with all its peripherals comes in above the £100 mark) has seen enough play, often multiplayer, to see it drop way below the cost of the cinema.
So the next time you sit wondering whether your hobby is expensive, boil it down to pennies per hour of enjoyment and I’m sure you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Unless, of course, your hobby is going to the cinema…
