Poll of the Day > Video game enjoyment vs cost of game

(+) Yeah! (+)

I'm not exactly sure how to word this. But how much fun out of a game should you get based on price. I remember some people said you should get about 1 hour of enjoyment per dollar. That seems kinda high for some games. Someone else said 1 minute per dollar, but that seems kinda low. for some games... I feel like if you got a full story that you liked. Or can have played it a lot and called it fun, it should be alright. But what do you guys think?
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when you play a free game for 2300 hours (dota 2 for me) it kind of warps your perspective on this kind of thing. I guess I think it's just not worth any collective effort to think in such a robotic way about enjoyment of video games. Personally, I try not to think of money in that way under any circumstance. if it's too expensive it's kind of based on principle or gut feeling rather than a hard and fast rule.
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If I get an hour for every $2 I spent on it, I feel like I'm ahead.
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Similar to a beej and some cupping.
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I have a lot of time on free games
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What if you play games that don't cost money or even play games "for free".

*wink wink nudge nudge*
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At this point, I don't ever want to pay more than $30 for a game. And even $30 is kinda pushing it. As such, I'll usually wait for a sale or clearance. Granted, part of that is because I have a massive backlog.

LinkPizza posted...

I remember some people said you should get about 1 hour of enjoyment per dollar. That seems kinda high for some games.

I don't really quantify it like that, but that estimate seems kinda low to me (at least over the long-term). Kinda for comparison, I don't bother buying a film for more than a few bucks unless I plan on watching it fifteen to twenty times. (And pretty much any film I buy is something I plan on watching at least a few times, unless it's something I really want to see but can't stream.)

I should mention that I have about 700 hours in Kid Icarus Uprising, which I paid around $30 for iirc. Best value was probably my vanilla copy of Skyrim for the 360, since I probably put in over a thousand hours and only paid $5 for it (which would work out to like 2 hours per penny). Unfortunately, I paid like $30 for the Legendary Skyrim on the ps3 (could have got it for $20 had I waited, I think) and I barely dented it.
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As for free games, I feel it doesn't really fit into this question. But just for the paid games. Personally, I usually put in a lot of hours into most of my games. Even if it's partly grinding. Or doing stupid stuff that makes me laugh or whatever. I feel like as long as you had fun, it's a good buy to me. But I know some people don't care about fun if it wasn't enough hours. Though, some of them rush through the main game, miss a bunch of side stuff, and don't do post games. If they do that and then complain that the game wasn't long enough or worth the money, I pretty much ignore their thoughts on the game unless there's more to it... And there usually isn't...
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I can spend 500+ hours playing something I got for $5 and still feel like the $30 I spent on a 12 hour game was worthwhile. Different games offer different experiences and require different amounts of effort to create, there are plenty of factors that contribute to enjoyment besides playtime.
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ThatHappySack posted...

What if you play games that don't cost money or even play games "for free".

*wink wink nudge nudge*

lol, I remember fucking with my friend who pirated PC games a lot (in high school) that I was gonna tell my dad (who was at that time on a JTF with the FBI) and they would probably raid his house. I was joking and never mentioned it again but years later he was like "I thought you were serious and I was paranoid for weeks"... Oops.
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It really varies for me. I could drop $50-60 on a game that my friends and I co-oped through for 50-100 hours and I would feel I got my money's worth. I could then spend $5-10 on some indie game that provided the same number of hours of fun and I'll see feel I got my money's worth.
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LinkPizza posted...

As for free games, I feel it doesn't really fit into this question. But just for the paid games.

Well, like it or not, it most definitely is part of the equation.


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I pay more for more production values, and I don't pay at all if I won't enjoy it for longer than one playthrough.
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There's really no standard. But saying that, I do prefer my games to be a bit longer.
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My general rule of thumb is that for every 2 dollars I spend, I should get out at least 1 our of enjoyment.

There are exceptions to the rule though. I love kirby games, but I sometimes don't reach the 30 hour mark in the games (even after 100%ing them).

But other games like skyrim and the tales game make up for it.

There aren't many games nowadays that I spend a buttload of time on.
Last game was Super Mario Odyssey which I spent over 50 hours on(100%'d it).
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Breastmilkn_Dip posted...

LinkPizza posted...

As for free games, I feel it doesn't really fit into this question. But just for the paid games.

Well, like it or not, it most definitely is part of the equation.

I mean, it's part of the equation. But in the end, whether I loved it or not, I can't put a value on it. The question is more or a dollar value amount to time spent on games or enjoyment. Or something like that. Free games do fit into the equation somehow, but I can't put a dollar amount for each minute or hour or anything...
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$1 per hour is an absolute minimum. All of my absolute favorite games have ultimately cost less than 10 per hour, though.
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There are many people who spend $60 on a game then play it for only a few hours, not even finishing the main story. Then there are people who spend $30 on a grindfest game, playing it for 100+ hours but only really enjoying the minutes of grinding attempts that didn't end in failure. There's also people who buy $2 indies, but get many hours of enjoyment out of them.

Would make things easier if there were a clear connection between how much money is spent on a game, how much time is spent playing it, and how much enjoyment it gives, but people are weird so it just comes down to preference.

Personally, I'm a cheapskate, so $20 is the most I'll spend on a single game, even if it's the best of its genre or some grand open-world sandbox game that I know I'll never tire of. The ratio of cost and enjoyment doesn't matter much to me, as long as it's cheap and I'll be getting some pleasure out of it.
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Zeus posted...

At this point, I don't ever want to pay more than $30 for a game. And even $30 is kinda pushing it. As such, I'll usually wait for a sale or clearance. Granted, part of that is because I have a massive backlog.

LinkPizza posted...

I remember some people said you should get about 1 hour of enjoyment per dollar. That seems kinda high for some games.

I don't really quantify it like that, but that estimate seems kinda low to me (at least over the long-term). Kinda for comparison, I don't bother buying a film for more than a few bucks unless I plan on watching it fifteen to twenty times. (And pretty much any film I buy is something I plan on watching at least a few times, unless it's something I really want to see but can't stream.)

I should mention that I have about 700 hours in Kid Icarus Uprising, which I paid around $30 for iirc. Best value was probably my vanilla copy of Skyrim for the 360, since I probably put in over a thousand hours and only paid $5 for it (which would work out to like 2 hours per penny). Unfortunately, I paid like $30 for the Legendary Skyrim on the ps3 (could have got it for $20 had I waited, I think) and I barely dented it.

I have to agree with this. At *most* I'm willing to spend $30 on a game, and that's *if* it's a multiplayer game I like, and that I can replay for the foreseeable future. $60 is just outlandish in my book.
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JanwayDaahl posted...

Zeus posted...

At this point, I don't ever want to pay more than $30 for a game. And even $30 is kinda pushing it. As such, I'll usually wait for a sale or clearance. Granted, part of that is because I have a massive backlog.

LinkPizza posted...

I remember some people said you should get about 1 hour of enjoyment per dollar. That seems kinda high for some games.

I don't really quantify it like that, but that estimate seems kinda low to me (at least over the long-term). Kinda for comparison, I don't bother buying a film for more than a few bucks unless I plan on watching it fifteen to twenty times. (And pretty much any film I buy is something I plan on watching at least a few times, unless it's something I really want to see but can't stream.)

I should mention that I have about 700 hours in Kid Icarus Uprising, which I paid around $30 for iirc. Best value was probably my vanilla copy of Skyrim for the 360, since I probably put in over a thousand hours and only paid $5 for it (which would work out to like 2 hours per penny). Unfortunately, I paid like $30 for the Legendary Skyrim on the ps3 (could have got it for $20 had I waited, I think) and I barely dented it.

I have to agree with this. At *most* I'm willing to spend $30 on a game, and that's *if* it's a multiplayer game I like, and that I can replay for the foreseeable future. $60 is just outlandish in my book.

I guess it is for some people. I don't really care much since most games cost that amount. But I can see how some people would think that.
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no upper limit. the value of a game is not just in the amount of content, but more like the amount of content times its depth.
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In the end, it's just probably a lot of stuff that makes up what a game's worth...
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I compare it to a movie. Like $9 per person for two~ hours of entertainment. I don't feel bad if I enjoy a game as much as the price per hour of a movie.
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Moonjay posted...

I compare it to a movie. Like $9 per person for two~ hours of entertainment. I don't feel bad if I enjoy a game as much as the price per hour of a movie.

That's a good way to look at it. I never thought about that...
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acesxhigh posted...

when you play a free game for 2300 hours (dota 2 for me) it kind of warps your perspective on this kind of thing. I guess I think it's just not worth any collective effort to think in such a robotic way about enjoyment of video games. Personally, I try not to think of money in that way under any circumstance. if it's too expensive it's kind of based on principle or gut feeling rather than a hard and fast rule.

This. Attempting to quantify it so rigidly is pretty dumb, and ignores the tremendous range of variables that contribute to a game's overall enjoyment that aren't game length. Even more so where even getting 10 hours out of a $60 game is a pretty solid deal in terms of hours of entertainment per dollar (compared to other entertainment media), and it's pretty rare not to hit that.
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LinkPizza posted...

In the end, it's just probably a lot of stuff that makes up what a game's worth...

Those intangibles can pretty neatly be summed up by how much you play a game, though. If you play a 10-hour game through ten times, you probably liked it more than a 10-hour game you played through only once, then never touched again.Like you probably aren't going to play a game for hundreds or maybe even thousands of hours unless you really, really like it.
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Golden Road posted...

LinkPizza posted...

In the end, it's just probably a lot of stuff that makes up what a game's worth...

Those intangibles can pretty neatly be summed up by how much you play a game, though. If you play a 10-hour game through ten times, you probably liked it more than a 10-hour game you played through only once, then never touched again.Like you probably aren't going to play a game for hundreds or maybe even thousands of hours unless you really, really like it.

That's true. Replay value is another factor.
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A dollar an hour sounds about right for a modern day video game.

At least until you get to 50/60 hours. It also depends on how much work is put into it.
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I kind of have my own scales. I do typically buy the games I want at launch to maximize online population. I try to play games that I feel I will get my money's worth, and since I do launch day, I have to be very careful.

This is why I avoid most Sony exclusives, they were known for being 5 hour cinematics. If you wanted to extend play, you'd have to replay the game in a new game+ or extra hard mode to grind for platinum. Personally, I'm one and done in any action game, I've seen the story. good enough. 5 hours isn't worth 60, and I don't pretend that the prerequisites of beating the game 4 different times count as 'game play time'.

Fighting games have 'unlimited' replay, on and offline, WRPG's are good. And personally racing games with a lot of modication, are going to get the time from me to justify 60 bucks.
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LinkPizza posted...

Golden Road posted...

LinkPizza posted...

In the end, it's just probably a lot of stuff that makes up what a game's worth...

Those intangibles can pretty neatly be summed up by how much you play a game, though. If you play a 10-hour game through ten times, you probably liked it more than a 10-hour game you played through only once, then never touched again.Like you probably aren't going to play a game for hundreds or maybe even thousands of hours unless you really, really like it.

That's true. Replay value is another factor.

Though replay value and enjoyability aren't necessarily linked. For one thing, replay value and length are inversely proportional in the vast majority of cases, regardless of how enjoyable the game is. For another, there are definitely games which don't hold up as well for second playthroughs. The most immediate examples that come to mind are the Phoenix Wright games, which are very heavily story-based and the gameplay consists pretty much entirely of figuring out answers within that story. They're still great fun, but not very replayable.
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adjl posted...

LinkPizza posted...

Golden Road posted...

LinkPizza posted...

In the end, it's just probably a lot of stuff that makes up what a game's worth...

Those intangibles can pretty neatly be summed up by how much you play a game, though. If you play a 10-hour game through ten times, you probably liked it more than a 10-hour game you played through only once, then never touched again.Like you probably aren't going to play a game for hundreds or maybe even thousands of hours unless you really, really like it.

That's true. Replay value is another factor.

Though replay value and enjoyability aren't necessarily linked. For one thing, replay value and length are inversely proportional in the vast majority of cases, regardless of how enjoyable the game is. For another, there are definitely games which don't hold up as well for second playthroughs. The most immediate examples that come to mind are the Phoenix Wright games, which are very heavily story-based and the gameplay consists pretty much entirely of figuring out answers within that story. They're still great fun, but not very replayable.

They aren't directly linked. It it can contribute to your enjoyment. Like all other parts of the game...

Also, while I know PW games aren't very replayable, I do like to replay them once I forget most of it...
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adjl posted...

Though replay value and enjoyability aren't necessarily linked.

Neither is game length and enjoyability, so not sure why you'd point it out. To be controversial? Well, there's edgy and then there's offensive, and I say good day to you, adjl, good day!

adjl posted...

For one thing, replay value and length are inversely proportional in the vast majority of cases, regardless of how enjoyable the game is.

Really depends on the genre and the type of replay. Traditional "arcade" genres are built around full-game replay and are short enough to be completed in a reasonable span of time -- lightguns, fighters, beat-em-ups, etc. Other games have replay built on a repeatable elements in the post-game, such as raiding in MMOs or arenas in RPGs (like the Battle Tower in some Pokemon games), where you're not actually replaying the full game. As an off-shoot of the second example, you have games like Kid Icarus Uprising where you can replay sections of the game for new rewards and to unlock new content -- which, by the way, if why I have roughly 700 hours in KIU (although some of that is PVP as well, which also gives the game replay)
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