I absolutely love this hobby, but I say it all the time.it doesn't come cheap.
I own all 3 of this gens consoles and am now DEEP into owning over a 100 titles for my 360 alone. Last year was ridiculously expensive..especially for me buying both Move and Kinect with 5+ games a piece from jump, not to include all of the games I bought last year. This year is going to be worse. I'm looking at close to 20 games between September and January. (to include gifts)
But I will not lie..all games are not built equaly and there are those times where the experience may not have warranted the price, but it won't stop me from supporting this hobby to the fullest.
The author is questioning the 10 dollar Black ops price..how about the 150 dollar MW2 price or the legendary edition of Halo 3 or the 100s and 100s of dollars millions of us spent playing plastic instruments. LOL @ me buying the expensive Keyboard edition of Rock Band 3 only to play it 3 times.
I Salute all the REAL gamers who truly love and support this hobby.
I'm on the same boat man. I have all 3 consoles and the two handhelds and so far I've got about 60 Ps3 games, 30 360, 15 wii, 20 PSP, and 20 DS... I look at my shelf and wonder how the hell I spent so much money on so many games, lol. And I think I'm about to snag Kinect from a friend for less than 100 bucks with 3 games included. Just so I don't miss out on absolutely anything.
No one said anything about there being something "wrong" about spending money on entertainment. It's merely an examination of whether your truly getting a good bang for your buck when you buy a game.
IMO, it depends on the game in question. Games like Skyrim obviously offer more replay value than most single player only games.
Problem with that outlook though is there are truly amazing games such as Heavy Rain which really deliver on the plot-front of a game - yet lack the replayability of Call of Duty. It's quite sad really because there are some truly great Single Player experiences out there which people just tend to ignore because they don't get much out of it.
I never thought that those kinds of games offered much replayability. I mean, you have a lot of other stuff to choose from on your second time around, but the sense of discovery goes out the window. Discovery in open-world games is important to me.
I agree with 'Pandamobile'. It is a general statement and therefore demands a general answer.
I would choose to be more direct though:
Q: Is gaming worth the money?
A: Yes! I keep buying them, so it must be worth it to me. No?
@LOGICWINS: Thats why I have not bought a Madden game this gen. It is not worth it to me. Now Skyrim and Gears 3 sound like sound investments to me. So you can bet you long johns that I will give up my $50 for those games.
Like I said the question is generalising so picking a few example for or aganst does not really answer the question. To me this is directed at people on the outside looking in, as I don't see someone who is gamer, sitting a round wondering if it is worth it, then going and popping down $60 more. If this is the case, he is in no condition to answer the question any way. That person is wath I will call an addict, and should seek profectional help.
Is gaming worth the money? Yes. Is it cheap entertainment? Yes Like you said it's a better value than most things. Yeah it's sometimes fun to do other stuff like going golfing but that only lasts one evening and can cost like $40 when my video game lasts weeks before it gets old.
I would hardly call gaming cheap. Little Cesar's pizzas are cheap. Gaming in all is nothing but one big scam. Not that gaming isn't great, but its hardly worth the money they sell the hardware and software for.
$60 for a game that you may very well be playing for the next two years(Skyrim, Uncharted 3 etc.) is a great value...but I wouldn't say that $60 is "cheap".
Just because you get a good value from something doesn't automatically mean that its cheap.
I'll be using my $1800 HDTV for the next 5-7 years. Great value since I'll be getting a lot of entertainment out of it...but that doesn't mean that $1800 is necessarily pocket change.
@DA_SHREDDER- Your right. One could call it a scam since most of the games people buy aren't worth $60 a pop. For example, tons of people buy the next Madden and COD every year, yet they only bring minor changes to these games. And THEN these companies expect you to pay more for DLC.
I understand that there are people that are happy to put down $60 a year for these games because they like them..but when you see the massive improvements that devs are achieving with games like BF3 and Uncharted 3, you can't help to question why games like COD/Madden aren't seeing these HUGE improvements as well.
Well how would you rate expensive or cheap? A cheap TV is somewhere in the sub 300 range for a 32. A cheap house would be compare to other houses around the neighborhood.
I say gaming is cheap entertainment because I get more bang for my bucks compare to OTHER form of entertainment. We can't go around compare apples with rocks.
If it wasn't for all those people who end up buying all these DLC, these companies wouldn't keep doing this. It's because people out there just keep buying these rip off DLC. But know what I do? I don't buy the DLC or don't even buy the game that might implement such a strategy just like I wouldn't go out and buy overprice auto insurance.
Interesting point, but "cheap" is a subjective term. To Bill Gates, both $60 and $1800 is "cheap." To a person who is unemployed, neither one of those amounts is feasible for a game or TV because they're worried about putting food on the table.
Think it's hard to put a price on things, depends what games you want, and like most things in life. If it's something you want to do in life, money is irrelevant.
I think it is, but it's still expensive and I think us gamers in general as a group are not the best of consumers considering the prices and company practices we often put up with without any waivering (such as shorter games for the same high price, unfinished games on release, certain DLC trends, etc.).
Is anything truly worth what we pay for it? If you can afford it, and you have your necessities paid for, then you can use your money for anything you want.
For me, gaming is my passion, and I enjoy nothing more, entertainment-wise, so yes, it's worth it for me.
If you choose your games wisely yes... I don't understand why every dev thinks that there game is worth 60 bucks. I would have tried out so many more games (mediocre) at $30 but they insist on suicide and sell it at a AAA game full price.
Well from a business perspective it's the right thing to do. Even though people like you and me wont buy mediocre games at full price, people like parents and uninformed gamers (gamers who just buy a game from the look of the cover art) will still buy the game at full price. Prices eventually drop, especially if sales aren't doing well.
I agree that mediocre games should have a different tier of pricing but in the world of business it seems silly to do so.
I agree with FAGOL...if a game looks mediocre to me, I'll wait until the eventual price drop to pick it up. Sure, I've made some bad choices over the years, but I think that's bound to happen in every form of media (going to see a bad movie, buy a bad album, etc etc).
Yes. Movies are starting to get really repetitive with the occasional hitters that appeal to me once in awhile. Music to me is just dead. TV Shows are seasonal. Comic Books are meh. So, yeah video games to me are more immersive and I play it for tons of hours and never get bored. :D
60 Dollars for the Maywether vs Ortiz fight which is 3 hours long versus 60 dollars on a game which I am going to play for at least a month. I'm still getting the fight but gaming is worth for me.
I believe his math is wrong. He needs to consider the cost for electricity, TV, internet, console and any other online fee if applicable to see his true cost.
For me, yes. Nothing more relaxing after programming all day then to sit down and play some video games :)
People like to spend money on entertainment. What's wrong with that?
Is gaming worth the money? Yes. Is it cheap entertainment? Yes
Like you said it's a better value than most things. Yeah it's sometimes fun to do other stuff like going golfing but that only lasts one evening and can cost like $40 when my video game lasts weeks before it gets old.
CHEAP AND GREAT ENTERTAINMENT!
Think it's hard to put a price on things, depends what games you want, and like most things in life. If it's something you want to do in life, money is irrelevant.
I think it is, but it's still expensive and I think us gamers in general as a group are not the best of consumers considering the prices and company practices we often put up with without any waivering (such as shorter games for the same high price, unfinished games on release, certain DLC trends, etc.).