One videogame can provide hundreds of hours of entertainment. You can easily buy amazing old games like Borderlands, Skyrim, Last of Us, Witcher etc for as low as $10 and pay for hundreds of hours.
If you prefer to play with friends, that’s great! Invite them over to play Mario Kart, Fifa, It Takes Two, etc. You might need to buy another controller for $50, but it will pay off in time. OR play online to reconnect with existing friends or make new ones across the world.
On the flip side – there’s almost nothing you can do these days for cheap in the absolute majority of US cities – especially if you don’t have a car (car expenses are the equivalent of buying a new PS5 every month).
Going out for wings and a beer? Bam, $50 for 2 hours and you’ll shit it out tomorrow
Going to the movies? $15 per ticket for 90 minutes, and that’s without snacks
Going bowling? $20 per person for 2 hours
Fitness classes? Don’t get me started
Netflix might only be $10/month, but how much do you really enjoy it?
..
You get the picture. I’m not trying to dunk on people complaining about new $80 games, but with the cost rise of every single thing lately including the essentials, it makes sense. But the good news is you can still buy great games for cheap, or sometimes even free. Wanna save money? Play some games 🙂
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I enjoy going on walks with my dog and that shit is free.
Library
I think this is generally true but there is a somewhat high and growing price of entry.
But even old console + games can be great.
I would say the only thing is many games aren’t worth 80. But who cares, many more better games are cheaper
Idk about THE best value for entertainment. Reading, knitting/crocheting, drawing, running, etc. are all probably either about the same cost-per-hour or better
Gaming also isn’t super social which is probably where it gets a bad rap
Look, if you like gaming, that’s cool and all, happy for you, but let’s not pretend it’s the be-all-end-all objective best hobby
and you can play these games with friends. some of my best memories are playing games with friends late at night or home alone and getting banned for a day or two from the online service.
Yep. Couldn’t agree more. Even if the next GTA game is $100, if we get half the legs out of it as we did the last one, it’s a deal.
“Netflix might only be $10/month, but how much do you really enjoy it”
You know that broken ass $80 game that has thousands of hackers due to poor security? You might have gotten 100 hours out of it, but how much did you really enjoy it?
Heavily debatable. What about going to the gym? Games are only as good as the amount of hours you put in. If you go to the gym 5 times a week for 1h-2h for a 20$ membership a month you also get health benefits, mental benefits and another way to form a social group
This is just an opinion of one lol. It provides the most value-for-money entertainment for YOU because you value video game entertainment the most. Netflix has 32,000 hours of content for only $15/month. Going for a hike only costs gas. Library books are totally free. You just like video games more.
I think you’re equating ‘entertainment’ in terms of ‘pixel consumption per dollar’
I think you’re equating ‘entertainment’ in terms of ‘pixel consumption per dollar’
I think you forgot that books exist, which can be borrowed for free from a library. Also, many libraries have dvds and cds to borrow for free as well. Video games, as much as I love them, are not the best bang for your buck in media entertainment.
But games do not have to cost that much.Its greed plain and simple.If games keep getting more expensive people will start pirating more and more.
I agree. Cost per use of video games is minuscule, especially compared to your examples.
It’s still a large upfront cost though so I’d like to see game demos come back as a standard across platforms. Just make them timed demos and you don’t even have to make any changes or custom demos. The game store you use should just let you download it and play for X hours. Maybe base X on the price of the game or the length of the total campaign.
I don’t want to spend $80 on a game that might suck. But I’d be more willing to try games out of my comfort zone if I could play an hour or 2 first.
Laughs in board games
What about books? Libraries are free
I agree that videogames is some of the best value for money entertainment but that’s not justification for the price hike on these games. 60 bucks was a lot for a game when I was a kid and id have been crazy to ask my parents for a new game I’m 28 now and still struggle justifying paying 80 dollars for a game and will often just wait for a sale. I will be buying GTA 6 day 1 though 😭😭😭
I agree that videogames is some of the best value for money entertainment but that’s not justification for the price hike on these games. 60 bucks was a lot for a game when I was a kid and id have been crazy to ask my parents for a new game I’m 28 now and still struggle justifying paying 80 dollars for a game and will often just wait for a sale. I will be buying GTA 6 day 1 though 😭😭😭
I agree that videogames is some of the best value for money entertainment but that’s not justification for the price hike on these games. 60 bucks was a lot for a game when I was a kid and id have been crazy to ask my parents for a new game I’m 28 now and still struggle justifying paying 80 dollars for a game and will often just wait for a sale. I will be buying GTA 6 day 1 though 😭😭😭
I agree that videogames is some of the best value for money entertainment but that’s not justification for the price hike on these games. 60 bucks was a lot for a game when I was a kid and id have been crazy to ask my parents for a new game I’m 28 now and still struggle justifying paying 80 dollars for a game and will often just wait for a sale. I will be buying GTA 6 day 1 though 😭😭😭
ok but when they’re charging $60 for a game port without DLC included or charging an upgrade fee to have switch 1 games playable on switch 2, it makes no sense. There is no creative development when you make game ports to justify charging the same price as the original game. How can porting a game cost as much in development as making a game from scratch? Makes no sense. At the very least, all previous DLC are included when you’re charging the original price of the game, JRPG ports and remasters always do this. We have mario kart being $80 when there’s nothing really technically innovative that would warrant the price increase.
I just got downvotes by stating on another thread that the increase in price just brings it more in line with inflation. The fact is, games have been well under the rate of inflation for a long time. 10yrs ago games were $60. And barely changed since then.
I hate having to pay more. But it should not be surprising to see prices go up, as everything else is.
The opportunity cost is very expensive though
Cost alone, $80 for a game now compared to $65 in the mid 1990’s seems like a bargain
Cost alone, $80 for a game now compared to $65 in the mid 1990’s seems like a bargain
Depending on the game the value is unbelievable. For instance, I’ve played over 7k hours of Dota 2, a game that’s free to play.
your right it’s unpopular opinion alright.
Bold of you to assume it’s going to take till tomorrow for me to shit out these wings and beer. 😂
Bold of you to assume it’s going to take till tomorrow for me to shit out these wings and beer. 😂
Yes that is true, but here is the thing. All companies are bleeding us dry and all it took was the more reasonable one ( gaming) to set me on another path. Remember cutting the chord? It was a scam. Now with 6-7 episode seasons with 2-3 years in between and rising costs, I cancelled all of them. Its now more expensive than cable. Rent, food, and basically everything is how much they can get out of you. No more deals you can shake on anymore. After the switch 2 and game price reveal, ( which is still cheaper than other systems) I was done. So a multitude of companies going the gouging route is what set me to get rid of it all. I love gaming. Been doing it since the atari days. I buy tons of collector stuff, multiple systems and tons of games. I went at the beginning of the year to upgrade to a ps5 pro, but no disc drive and no where near the excellence of the ps4 pro felt like a rip off. So for the first time I said no. Now ill just be smart about it. Eg Every Doom game will go down to 7 dollars faster than any other game out there. Because the sales are front loaded. So ill just buy it then rather than whatever it sells for new. For NIntendo, who I was always a ride or die, im just going to wait till most of the heavy hitter games are out in like 3 years. Then maybe get the refresh. But only if it is a good deal. The problem though are the simps. Nintendo could release a switch where you have to buy the buttons separately and some gamers would glaze the hell out of nintendo. So you cant really make a stand for change because some idiot just jumps when told to
As something purely recreational and not productive yeah your spot on like I could have motorbike riding as my hobby and need a new engine every 6months.
Thing is I don’t think it’s comparable to fitness classes or social activities because you can’t put a dollar value on your health and family without it you cease to exist.
The problem is we are paying $60-80 for incomplete games.
With your bowling comparison, it would be like you paying to play a round, but the 10th frame is extra once you finish the 9th.
Games are being designed around how to squeeze the customer for every last drop of money. $80 is ok for a full game, but not ok for a game with day 1 dlc, bug fixes, updates, pre-order bonuses, and locked content.
Adding that we don’t even get physical copies of games anymore, no booklets(even some games you must pay extra for that), pay extra for sound tracks or artwork.
Anyone else remember when PS1 games could be put into a regular cd player to hear the music? And now I have to pay $80 to download a game, and another $10 for the music?
Video games are a great value if you are single or your partner is also a gamer. The majority of us married men I would go out on a limb and say that our wives are not gamers and would frown upon us spending hours on end gaming instead of bonding with them on some trash tv.
Games have their place but I do disagree with best bang for your buck.
Board games?
The reason this is unpopular is because video games primary consumers are broke younger people.
They are one of the few things where the cost has NOT kept in line with inflation. A video game for Nintendo 64 in 1996 was $60-$80.
Since then, everything has doubled or tripled in price.
I don’t understand the argument from people who think it is too expensive.
These games will typically minimally provide 15-20+ hours of entertainment.
It costs basically $75-$100 to do anything to keep your kid entertained for a couple of hours.
They are a good value even at $80-$100.
sketchbook $2 – $5
colored pencils $2
Exactly, I like to get about $1/hr value out of a game. This means if I pay $60, I expect ATLEAST 60 hours worth of quality content. Then there are the handful of games that really get their hooks in me, spending 100+ hours on them, where the $/time ratio gets crazy low.
I agree that videogames is some of the best value for money entertainment but that’s not justification for the price hike on these games. 60 bucks was a lot for a game when I was a kid and id have been crazy to ask my parents for a new game I’m 28 now and still struggle justifying paying 80 dollars for a game and will often just wait for a sale. I will be buying GTA 6 day 1 though 😭😭😭
I think it is a good value for sure, but the amount of entertainment a kid can get from a $5 basketball is probably higher
Lol I made the same comment in this sub months ago…still agree 110%! Absolutely true.
very true and it ends up me doing all the things you mentioned
This is not even remotely close to true considering how many things you can do for free or very close to free. You can spend thousands of hours reading a ton of books for the cost of getting yourself to a library and making a library card. There are free shows, concerts, events, etc. constantly happening all around the place in many cities-particularly in the summer. You can buy a soccer ball or a basketball and spend hours at a park playing pickup games. By contrast any video game requires at least the upfront cost of the device to play that game. Sure, you may already own one in the form of your phone, but that doesn’t mean that it was actually free to play that game because you needed to pay for that phone to be able to access it. That upfront cost is almost certainly going to be more than a basketball or a soccer ball.
Yes, video games are a better value than a lot of things such as movies or going out to eat, but it’s not even close to the best value-for-money you can get in entertainment.
It depends. If the game is good I agree. I’ve spent 60 bucks on a bunch of games that I instantly hated and hardly played.
I see gaming as dollar per hour. If you don’t get atleast 1 hour of fun meaningful gameplay per hour it’s not worth. Many other entertainment on the low end is 3-5 per hour
Musical instruments. High upfront cost but can be gifted across multiple generations.
It would be if it was the same level of content that we used to get.
I mean hell, Diablo 4 was a fully priced game WITH a battle pass.
The initial price point isn’t the full content with AAA games 9/10 times. If you want to get ALL the content available you usually have to spend upwards of $160. ($70 game, $30 DLC, if there’s online multiplayer, gotta have a subscription service so that’s another $10-$20/mo, plus a few cosmetics $5-$30)
At the end of the day, it’s your money and your choice, but I’ll be damned if I’m not disappointed at the absolutely bare minimum of a bar that consumers have set for allowing monetization in live service and AAA games to become this horrendous.
on the flip side: subscription services like Gamepass on xbox – great fkn deals for sure, but often cause revenue shortages for studios who actually put in some real effort while simultaneously pouring money into publisher pockets.
You aren’t wrong. From a sheer cost per hour of entertainment standpoint, video games are extremely cheap.
Nah skateboarding is cheaper and better. Not everyone is ‘entertained’ from a couch
Here’s another example. I’ve been playing the new Marvel rivals game a lot since it came out a few months ago. I have hundreds of hours played and it was literally free.
This is wrong because your formula for calculating value for money is wrong. You are assuming $/t, where $ is dollars and t is time. But a better formula is $/(e*t) where e is an enjoyment factor, or roughly how much enjoyment you get out of the activity per unit time. You need this e factor because the amount of enjoyment you get out of playing 1 hour of a video game is not the same as the enjoyment you get out of watching 1 hour of a Tarantino movie, or knitting, or going to pub quiz with your friends. If I have ten times more fun playing slo pitch than playing a video game, that needs to be accounted for in this calculus because that fun is as integral to the value of the activity as the time spent doing it.
Agreed, even though those games are $80-109.99 plus tax in Canada.
I feel like I agree with this, but with a huge caveat.
Games that rely heavily on loot boxes for a revenue stream are a ripoff and should be considered gambling. They can be extremely addictive for some people, who often spend far more than the game is worth. This is especially prevalent for free games with a major online component (like Fortnite).
This is also how I usually justify it.
Right now I’m big into NHL (I know it isn’t great but it’s hockey).
I spent $100 on the early release and haven’t spent dime one since.
I’ve easily recouped that $100 in time spent, and playing with my friends also. Yeah. It’s a bargain
You can get books for free from your local library
Video games have been $60 new for as long as I remember. Literally over a decade. While I hate having to spend more, a push up to $70 or even $80 is honestly long overdue. Prices have been incredibly sticky and we’ve benefitted.
We’re lucky the prices haven’t been creeping up consistently.
If you borrow games from the library, the value is even greater.
mmm yeah that’s correct but the problem is not everyone lives in the US
I dunno man, The Office DVD boxset is on sale for like $30 and that’s literally thousands of hours of entertainment.
I never got the $/hour metric for entertainment. Entertainment value can’t be measured by how much time you can kill with said thing these days. You can kill time for free on social media all day long, it’s not inpressive. Especially recently I have come to appreciate shorter more streamlined games which have fewer hours of content per dollar but also less fluff leading to an overall better experience.
Video games have tons of good experiences to offer and you can game on a budget but there are definetly movies, books, boardgames and live performances which brought me about as much value as my favourite games.
So it’s entirely plausible that there are people out there who will get more out of a 240€/yr netflix subscription or a 120€/yr Spotify subscription than getting into videogames. This isn’t even mentioning sports which can be ridiculously cheap and enriching or the fact that pirating movies or music is obnoxiously easy in comparison to pirating games.
Can’t agree more. An Xbox One, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Witcher 3 helped me pay off a ton of CC debt back in 2018/19
Even a shorter game (let’s say 40 hours to complete) usually won’t cost more than 40 or 60… so yeah a dollar or less an hour for entertainment is a steal.
I suppose you COULD argue that Netflix, Hulu, and other streaming services probably have the cost/time ratio beat.
Acid is 5 bucks a hit and lasts like 12 hours.
Depends on the game but yes. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey took me almost 200 hours to 100%. I’ve played it 3 more tiems since then.
If you adjust for inflation, AAA games are much cheaper than they were 20 years ago.
Yes but that’s not the point. They are raising prices and offering less compared to what we were getting when they weren’t so expensive/making so much money.
They 100-115 in Canada now. I’ll buy less at full price but stuff like gta6 will be worth it
Fair, but hardware is starting to become uncomfortably pricey. I’ve been a PC gamer for a while, but here in Canada even lower middle-tier video card is comfortably over CA$1k now. That’s too rich for me. I’m making do with 5+ year old video card and playing older games, but I don’t know if it’s even affordable for me to upgrade, because after such a long time I can’t just upgrade a video card, I would need a new motherboard, new CPU, new RAM, basically new everything. That’s going to cost thousands.
Gods help me, but I’m genuinely pondering having to buy a console. And I really, REALLY don’t want to!
yep and I can just pirate all the shows or movies I want and not have to deal with sketchy game downloads
Ya I could spend 100 bucks every single weekend I leave the house just for something to do. New video game in Canada cost me 100 bucks and I can get 30+ hours out of it no problem which usually lasts me about 3 weeks to a month. It’s the cheapest hobby I have, and I’m willing to wait usually and buy used or discounted physical copies so it becomes an extremely cheap hobby then.
I’ll just keep on putting it out there but i bought 9ne of the megaman x games for over $80 at Toys r Us. Back when they had the wall of cards and you had to bring it to a little window to get your game.
I think i may have even payed close to ,$100 for the legend of gaea.
Also, the price in gaming is such a non issue. Zero. No one forces you to buy a game at launch. No drawbacks (even the opposite) on waiting for a sale etc. Or buying a key somewhere cheaper.
I am always surprised at how some gamers behave as if a publisher puts a gun to their heads and forces them to buy games they don’t want to play…
It is not like warhammer or some TCG where you have to drop money on launch of new cards or minis to stay competitive / in the meta.
It’s not better value than reading books at the library.
How about go outside and doing some exercise with the plentiful amount if free resources available online instead of rotting inside all day wasting your life on a game. Exercise provides genuine use for your time and is actually good for you and can cost nothing. Instead of spending $80 a month on a shitty unfinished gatcha game, get a gym membership and improve your quality of life exponentially 🙂
Games still have price elasticity. If it’s $100 not great but people would still get it. If it’s $1000 yeah no 1% will buy 99% would pirate it.
They are very cheap. But the hidden cost of the health risks of sedentary activities should probably be figured in if you’re comparing them to fitness classes etc.
Walking, running, biking etc can be very low cost too.
Video games are like the biggest industry in entertainment, probably one of the most popular opinions out there.
I’ll give you that one, I had friends that always wanted to go out to the movies and get upset I didn’t want to spend $20 on a movie. They’d say “well you spent $80 on a game”. I don’t buy many games and have like 500hrs on each, that’s like 10 cents an hour vs 10 DOLLARS an hour to watch a movie lol
I live in a city where you can get everywhere on public transit, so I am not familiar transportation-related struggles, but…
Reading a book? Free from the library. (And for ebooks free from the library, you don’t even have to leave home.)
Meeting a friend at a coffee shop and chatting for a few hours? $4 for drip coffee
Yoga class in the park? Free
Plant swap in the park? Also free!
Going on a hike? Free
Going to an improv show? $10
Not anti-video game, but it’s a great big world out there. And it’s really fucking depressing that there are places without public transit and that it makes people’s worlds so small.
I’ve got ~900 hours in a game I payed $20 for – Satisfactory. I’ll probably put another 100 hours in if I get a wild hair and decide to revamp my whole factory.
Roadcraft is $30 and I’ve got ~54 hours in that after about 2 weeks. This is just playing after work for a couple of hours a day as well as some time in the mornings on weekends.
But what if I just buy the games and then never play them
At least you’re aware enough to put it into unpopular opinion.
You pay a lot of money to be able to play the games first and foremost.
Second and the most important. Time played vs enjoyment you receive is a terrible metric. You’re not receiving 100% enjoyment every moment of those dozens of hours.
Even if we put this argument to the test, someone can enjoy playing chess. You can play chess infinitely and all it costs you is a chess set.
Another example would be phones. You just need a cheap phone with WiFi to have all the entertainment for free on all the brainrot apps you want – tiktok, Instagram, YouTube, you name it.
Can we stop saying this. Its true but I also don’t want publishers to give me a reason to pay $200 in 2 years because I got 30 hours out of a game
Tiktok has entered the room
I wouldn’t say “best” but if you get 50+ hours out of it sure it is a good value.
But lets be honest. Video games are still the same as they were a decade or more ago. There truly has not been a major advancement.
I WANT to get back into gaming. I still own two game systems.
But I watch people play and watch gameplay online and its just saddening.
I thought VR would be fun,and it was for a bit,but hella buggy.
Downvote for not unpopular.
Downvoting because this is not unpopular.
100% agree and I hate how fiercely people bitch about when nearly everything else is way more expensive. Getting a fucking taco meal or whatever is almost 60 bucks these days lol
This is only unpopular for pale that don’t play video games
Some games were $80 in the 90s.
I’ll throw out a similar value proposition, though appealing to a more narrow audience: running shoes. On sale, entry level shoes will be priced similar to video games, and can provide well over 500 km on the road. Even at a relatively fast 5:00 per km pace, that’s over 40 hours for a pair. So, behind the likes of Elden Ring and Baldur’s Gate III, sure, but not every game provides or should try to provide hundreds of hours of content. Plus, you get fit running – it’s hard to get fit on the couch playing video games!
Mind you, that’s entry level shoes. They are the gateway drug. You start out buying Saucony Rides on sale for $80. You tell friends and family that you’re OK, that you have your habit under control. But before too long you’re up at 1:00 AM waiting for a drop of the Puma Deviate Nitro Elite 3, even though you already shelled out $$$ for a pair of the Adidas Adios Pro 4 earlier in the year. Hypothetically, you know.
Wow, look at all these bots defending $80 games lol
Except for the fact you need to spend $500 on a console to play them on. Which is a LOT of money for a lot of people.
Books and bikes beat videogames any day.
Great point OP. Books might be even better value as some others have suggested, but video games are a great value for sure. Most of them anyway. Even when you factor in the cost of the concoles or computers, though that does make it more expensive. I dial it up a notch by basically always being a full generation behind (thanks to work, wife, kid, etc). So I tend to get my systems for half price or so, and almost never pay more than $20 for a game. Amazing value!
The issue is that there are maybe 10 games that are worth paying full price for that came out in the last 5 years
Everything else isn’t even worth $20
It’s not the gamers’ fault your stupid development company is as bloated and overstaffed as Twitter used to be and that the publisher wants a huge cut
Expedition 33 came out pretty much self-pubished and made with a relatively small team and it literally pissed on most tripple A that came out since 2020
If you are that obsessed with a video game that it is the best value for your money entertainment ever… you probably aren’t a very productive person in society. Like others have said, reading is free and will potentially make you a better person. I wish I enjoyed reading.
The best times in my life have been without video games, and the worst times have been when I was obsessed. The best value entertainment is something that actually improved you and your health. Instead of spending $150 on video games that you’ll play for thousands of hours, buy a pair of running shoes and get in shape. Go to college, or get a new skill.
I know that’s personal experience, but the people I’ve kept as friends over the years and who have been fun to be around are not the gamers.
I’m not a video game hater. I enjoy video games. I enjoy Hearts of Iron and Football Manager. However when I was 80 pounds overweight playing World War II video games, I was not living a very good life. When I bought a road bike off of Facebook marketplace and got nice running shoes and swimming equipment for $1000 and started doing triathlons, I became a much more well rounded and healthy person.
This is a strange way to look at purchases—sure buying a video game is cheaper than going to a bar with friends, but those aren’t apples to apples comparisons. You can spend $80 on a game you play for hundreds of hours, but you also could have spent $75 on Skull and Bones and still not had any fun. Alternatively, you could play a free to play game with friends and have fun for $0. Or you could subscribe to a game subscription and pay $15 a month for a library of rental games that you’ll never have enough time to play through. How do I justify an $80 game that might be good when that same money gets me 6 months of gamepass? Your argument is predicated on the fact that the person you’re speaking to doesn’t like subscription services, likes old-school RPGs, and never makes a regrettable game purchase. It’s not a realistic argument IMO.
Is this unpopular? A large share of young men apparently agree.
Wait till this guy finds out about free games
And I never pay anything close to sixty and get so much value out of the few games I play. PC gamer a few years behind so games are around $10 and I can get a LOT of value out of that. I also love comics however, I have to find new ways to read them as $3.99-$4.99 for a few minute read is not good value for money.
And libraries do have graphic novels and connected comics so that’s always a way to enjoy them.
Ive always said that if I got a solid 60 hours out of a $60 game, and enjoyed my time playing, then that was only $1/hour, and you cant beat that anywhere.
The bigger problem is, with those $60-80 games now, they arent really playable on the average gaming computer – not to mention the price of PC components to build/buy the system. And consoles arent that much cheaper at this point.
highly agreed. the right game can be played for thousands of hours by the right person. you could charge them a thousand dollars for that game, and it would still be about a dollar per hour. at worst.
Fuck fifa man.
They are greedy as fuck.
They shut down to fifa 21 server very fast.
Than any other fifa previous games.
Never buying shitty fifa anymore.
This reasoning is why I don’t worry about video games proces and the hours it takes to play them through. I spend a lot of money on things that only last an hour or two. So if a game gets me 20 hours and I pay 60 dollars, then cool. As long as I had fun.
…You pay for your games?
While that is true, it costs a developer next to nothing for one more person to download a digital copy of their game. Then the games are released incomplete, full of bugs, lacking care, etc. The value is created by the ease of technology, not the game itself.
Books. Imagination. Time spent with your family.
Fuck $70 and $80 games. Videogames are just entertainment, not a necessity. Companies raised prices when the world couldn’t go outside. It is time for them to remember that people don’t need them. They need people.