Opinion How affordable is gaming for you?

texhnolyze

Child at heart
Oct 19, 2018
3,581
8,584
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Indonesia
PC gaming is an expensive hobby.

It's probably debatable but that's how I feel based on my experience and circumstances. The initial investment is so pricey if you want a decent rig, and you can't resell your digital games. Consoles are cheaper and 2nd hand market is pretty big here, I can basically buy a used copy and resell after I finish the game and not lose a penny at all in some cases. It's free video games. That said, I still prefer PC gaming for various reasons and I'm happy with it.

Anyway, my main income is $500~ per month (converted), not including the income I get from my side business. That sounds pitiful, isn't it? Surely, but when it's applied here in Indonesia, it's really not. With how low the cost of living here, you can basically feed yourself for a day with $2. We're not talking about trash/instant food, you can get a decent meal with proteins and vegetables from a small diner that we call 'Warteg' for $1 or less. So with $60, you should be good for a whole month.



That's eating outside, so it's naturally cheaper if you buy and cook your own food, which I do. Furthermore, I don't have any debt, installment, and whatnot, fortunately. So after the monthly bills and other necessities, I can save some money and usually allocate $50-70 for fun and entertainment, which mostly goes to gaming. That's one AAA game, or maybe two, if I buy it from Steam with the usual regional pricing, or a few indies.

This is why regional pricing is important for me (and many other people around the world with similar circumstances). When your store is asking a full $60 for a game, you definitely won't get my business. Payment options are important too, as we can see from Valve's data from back then, almost 90% of Steam transactions from Asian users didn't come from 'standard payment methods'. It's not about loyalty, it's all about convenience for me.

So how about you?
 

fsdood

Junior Member
Jan 9, 2019
465
441
63
prices of common goods/utilities have started to get higher and wages are stagnant. I used to buy a lot of games, but now I'm mostly saving and will probably not get that many hyped games until I have stable income and finishing some of my backlog (probably my main reason to doing this). Steam's regional prices are amazing, MK 11 is twice as cheap on Steam compared to consoles. With the rise of MTX, predatory practices, online subscriptions, and weak sales on consoles, Steam/itch.io are the cheapest options for me for the remainder of next gen.
 
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Durante

I <3 Pixels
Oct 21, 2018
3,853
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I think comparing and contrasting the price of food with games provides a really interesting perspective on the (relative) cost of this hobby.

Here in Austria (the western part of it, there's a bit of an east-west difference in food prices) eating out for lunch during a work day usually costs me between €10 and €13 (for one lunch) -- not for something particularly fancy. Generally, I can get a new AAA PC game Steam key for ~€45 at launch, which is less than what I spend on just lunch in a 5 day work week. That really puts a completely different spin on game prices.

So while I always thought that gaming is a very affordable hobby here, I'll be more careful in the future with generalizing from that.
 

lashman

Dead & Forgotten
Sep 5, 2018
30,514
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Anyway, my main income is $500~ per month (converted)
well mine is around $300-400 (if i'm lucky and actually have some work) ... except here in this dump the prices are full-on EU ... so pretty much the same as Durante mentioned

so yeah ... gaming is pretty expensive for me, i'd say, lol

not to mention hardware ... my PC is like 6 years old at this point and almost literally falling apart
 

Ge0force

Excluding exclusives
Jan 12, 2019
3,994
13,837
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Belgium
Pc gaming is very affordable for me, but not without limitations (read: I'm not rich ☺). That's why I rarely buy AAA games at full price day one: I prefer buying more different games later over buying a few games on the day of release. Waiting for sales, 3rd party keystores and humble bundles/monthly allow me to play most games that I want to play, without my wife complaining too much. 😉

I'm only upgrading my hardware when it's necessary to play my games with comfortable settings, framerate and resolution. At this moment this is 1440p@60-90fps, and my two years old GTX1070 is still doing fine with a bit of tweaking so I'm not planning to replace it for now. I also always build my own pc and import hardware from webshops in the Netherlands.
well mine is around $300-400 (if i'm lucky and actually have some work)
That's not much, at least not in my country. I pay €90 a month for internet, tv and mobile for two phones. In what country do you live?
 

bmdubya

Junior Member
Apr 17, 2019
51
96
18
It's decently affordable to me. I can't buy every AAA game that comes out, but I buy a couple full priced games a year. I try to do a PC refresh every five years, which would be this year for me. But I may try and get my PC to last one more year because I'm getting married in December so I need to save money for that. For my next build I'd like to do a Ryzen 7 with a graphics card that can run games at max settings at 1440p.
 

Ex-User (307)

MetaMember
Dec 11, 2018
1,105
2,597
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It’s affordable enough that I can buy a dud game or two and not feel too bad about it. That’s kind of a weird bar to have, but that’s the one I kind of care about.

If you’re going by pure dollars-to-hours ratio, most games are more affordable than alternate forms of entertainment. The only thing that makes other hobbies “cheaper” is pretty much the library lol.
 

PossiblyPudding

sometimes a doctor of rhythm
Apr 17, 2019
1,839
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I spend a fair bit on gaming, both in terms of hardware/software purchases and MTX, but I don't have many other hobbies so I still stay relatively thrifty overall. I don't have netflix, go to movies, eat out, etc (yes I'm very boring).
I'm basically in the same boat. I enjoy music and sports quite a bit, but I'm currently living in the middle of nowhere in Indiana so even if I ever had the urge to go see a concert or game in person it's not worth the cost of gas to get there.

And being someone who loves cooking I rarely go out to a restaurant either. So while I usually don't have a lot of spare cash it does end up going toward upgrades or games. Mostly games.
 

gabbo

MetaMember
Dec 22, 2018
3,512
5,554
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Toronto
The games, yes. I generally only buy on sale and can count on one hand the number of DLC i've ever purchased separately from a full game Mtx is none and likely won't change. The single player titles I go for often don't lend themselves to mtx OR I can live without whatever has been nickel and dimed.. Consoles and pc upgrades? Not at launch or often, Thankfully I rarely buy consoles at launch if ever and I can live with slides shows for fps and middling settings between upgrades of my PC so I can save for a system that'll last me a good 5 years before I need to start swapping parts or rebuilding from scratch.

The pc i'm writing this on was built in 2013, so it's getting to be about time about time I put it out to pasture, but even then it'll just end up being an HTPC to replace my current one from... I don't even know how old it is at this point.
 

xinek

日本語が苦手
Apr 17, 2019
748
1,358
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I'd say it's pretty affordable for me (USA). Prices are about the same as what Durante described. Except my takeaway is that eating out is too expensive. :ROFLMAO: I buy new games often, but never full price between discount eshop cards from Raise, cdkeys for Steam games, and the soon to be gone GCU.

Considering what others pay on going out to bars, a car, or golf or whatever, it seems like a reasonably priced hobby really. I could save more by renting games or borrowing from the library, but I don't bother.
 

WahabiPapangu

GarfCumLover
Dec 27, 2018
23
46
13
Ever since getting out of university, I can't say I ever had to think twice about buying whatever I wanted. Even right now with no stable work, I have enough for whatever I want to play really ( own a ps4 pro, switch and pc with 1080ti).

I buy very few games on release though, unless it's something I am really looking forward to. Just easier to wait a bit and see how the game turns out, and maybe even get 50% off a few months later. Instead I buy csgo skins like an idiot.
 

Kurt Russell

SUPREME OVERLORD OF EVIL
Sep 6, 2018
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Mar del Plata
I also earn the equivalent of about US$500 per month. Sadly, while we also used to have prices for food and bills adjusted for the cash we earn, this hasn't been a thing for the past two years or so, since our currency is in freefall and the government is busy trying to make things look good for a few assholes so they can get re-elected. As you might expect, regional pricing is a very important thing for me and other people who live here (Argentina). Games that don't have good regional pricing are usually skipped, or I have to buy them with the credit card, paying for them in 3-6 months.
And I agree with xinec, it's a cheaper hobby than most, actually :D (my father used to collect model trains and stuff like that, and he spent a pretty penny on al that stuff).
 

NarohDethan

There was a fish in the percolator!
Apr 6, 2019
8,959
24,850
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Also, I decided to focus on PC gaming because it is truly cost effective in my region.

For example, almost everything is at least $5 more expensive on Switch than Steam. And since I don't like to play games on the go, I vastly reduced my spending on Switch games. And I'm reluctant to buy Sony stuff because their customer support is terrible, I wouldnt want to get banned for some misunderstanding and lose all my games.
 

low-G

old school cool
Nov 1, 2018
901
1,723
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USA & in school with employed and pretty thrifty S/O (I'm unemployed now but very employable -- current game money comes from savings and a bit from student loans... My S/O doesn't pay for any of my game stuff at all and I chip in a decent portion to household expenses).

I dunno, I scrape and scrabble my way until I can get a good paying software development position.

I have a kid and a S/O, but I don't really have interest in spending my money on much other stuff (no significant other hobby expenses, I don't care for expensive clothes, no fancy car, no fancy house... don't even eat out now... Total vacation costs for the year will be <$700)

I'm a little wary about 2020-2021 because of probably moving and other things... But I also feel like I have enough gamestuff to get through any droughts for quite a few years.
 
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OP
texhnolyze

texhnolyze

Child at heart
Oct 19, 2018
3,581
8,584
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Indonesia
It's interesting to see things from others' perspectives. Hopefully everything's getting better for everyone, so we can all enjoy more games as long as we can.

well mine is around $300-400 (if i'm lucky and actually have some work) ... except here in this dump the prices are full-on EU ... so pretty much the same as Durante mentioned

so yeah ... gaming is pretty expensive for me, i'd say, lol

not to mention hardware ... my PC is like 6 years old at this point and almost literally falling apart
That was me a couple of years ago. I feel you. I couldn't afford most new games, and I tend to wait for sales too nowadays.

Anyway, it's commendable that you can still run this website despite that. I guess I should make my own website/forum too one of these days. :thinking-blob:
 

Milena

Lost in VR
Jan 4, 2019
532
1,628
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I don't really need to budget a lot, as I don't have debt, I've inherited a house and I've got a stable job for the past 11 years. However, compared to what we women generally get here in Italy and how much everything else costs, gaming is on the expensive side, at least AAA gaming.

Comparing again with food: eating out for lunch usually costs 10-15€, unless you settle for a sandwich, then it gets reduced to around 5€. For dinner it's at least double that. That's why I generally eat out only 3-4 times per month. I've even bought an oven specifically designed for making pizza, just to avoid that cost as well.
 

beep boop

MetaMember
Dec 6, 2018
2,170
4,558
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It's not particularly expensive here in Western Europe (compared to other expenses), but even as a working adult I find it hard to justify spending €60-70 on a new game. I do that once or twice per generation for the new Zelda game and that's it. Lately I've also been making an effort to go through my backlog. When you're part of a household and all the costs associated with that, I can't really buy something on the off chance I might play it. Now I try to only get a new game if I'm excited for it and know I will play it immediately (rather than getting something because it's a good deal). The "too good a price to pass up" trap has caught me too often in the past.
 

「Echo」

竜の魔女。
Nov 1, 2018
2,680
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Mt. Whatever
I also have no outstanding debts, and very little overhead without a family to support. I haven't really made any IRL friends here in America so I don't randomly have to spend money on frivolous outings either. So basically every dime I make goes to supporting me and me alone. I don't eat out often and prefer to make my own food which ends up being cheaper, I don't have a fancy car but an economical one, I make my own tea bags and grow my own veggies. I think my biggest recurring expenses are raw tea imports, alcohol, art supplies (pastels/paints mostly) and sometimes I like to splurge on clothes I guess but never without limits. So basically I'm saying I live pretty frugally all things considered. So...

For me it's less about how expensive gaming is and really just the fact that it's my main and most steady hobby. I constantly make exceptions for it because what the heck else am I gonna do? I'm also quite picky too, so I don't end up buying 100s of shovelware games either. In that sense, games end up being cheap. I tend to wait for the big sales on Steam and buy in bulk. Otherwise it's just the occasional JP game on day-1 to show support or whatever. Outside of that I just save up for hardware.

My other hobbies are casual as heck and also don't cost too much. Hobby Shooting (Pistols, I own a Thompson Contender and Px4 Storm and decided to stop with just these), Archery, and Martial Arts (black belt in Judo and Karate). Occasionally I'll buy some movies to build my digital collection, same with books and manga, I collect these things digitally since they can follow me all over the world and take up no space. That's important to me, cuz up to this point I've moved around a lot and I don't think America will be my final spot either though it has been fun and full of opportunities.
 

Prodigy

Sleeper must awaken
Dec 9, 2018
927
1,999
93
In my country, PC gaming ends up being cheaper than console gaming. Especially if you typically buy more than two games a month as the price of 2 new pc games ends up being the price of 1 console game. There is of course a higher upfront cost though but that is taken away over time.

My problem though is I also love the console exclusives so I end up buying all of them as well, this makes the hobby expensive and a cost that never really goes away as there is always something new around the corner.
 

Ibuki

MetaMember
Dec 9, 2018
348
907
93
Colorado, USA
This thread gives me a very interesting perspective on the cost of games in countries other than the US. Typically I only hear about the prices of games in certain regions, but never about the real world implications like income or how much food costs. Thank you for opening my eyes to what other people around the world are dealing with.
 

Panda Pedinte

Best Sig Maker on the board!
Sep 20, 2018
4,643
13,065
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For some context I make around $450 per month. When Valve introduced regional pricing for my country it was affordable and many publishers were following the suggested but nowadays mostly of them just put some stupid absurd price.

PC parts and consoles are also not cheap so I stayed away from gaming for quite some time (my last console was a Dreamcast). I started playing again after I got a cheap notebook to use in college.
 

Frecklestein

Tender, Violent and Queer.
Oct 23, 2018
219
568
93
PC gaming is amazing for prices, it's the hardware side that kicks my ass whenever I've had to upgrade. I've got a 1050 laptop which does me justice and works beautifully. But when I upgrade next, I'm going to save up for a higher end build. A lot of PC stuff tends to last longer than a console lifespan in terms of being able to comfortably play games from indie to AAA.

As a Nintendo Switch owner, however. As someone who is returning to Canada. The $79.99 full priced never on sale first party titles are going to kick my ass. Nintendo pricing is not friendly to a poor bastard like me :s
 

dmaul1114

Junior Member
Apr 19, 2019
5
14
3
Very affordable for me since the wife and I both make decent money, have no debts other than mortgage and student loans and aren't having kids!

I still try to be reasonably frugal though and only pay day one prices for games I'll dump a ton of hours into and wait for sales on the rest, buy short and/or one-and-done games physically and sell when I'm done and so on.

Hardware wise I mostly game on PS4 and Switch. I have a gaming PC I sort of impulse bought as I found a decent deal on a pre-built back in 2016 for about the same as the PCs I was looking at when needing to upgrade my desktop I use for working at home since I need a decent CPU and RAM. I doubt I'll upgrade it though as I just haven't used it as much as I thought I would. Even with it hooked up to the same TV as the consoles, I just gravitate toward those as that's where my friends are, Sony and Nintendo exclusives get a lot of my time and PC gaming is still a tad bit more hassle than consoles (more steps to start playing with needing to switch monitor to TV, change audio to the receiver etc. and I hit more issues there than on consoles with crashes etc--probably user error on my part).
 

teezzy

formerly 'deftones r cool'
Apr 19, 2019
540
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I couldn't imagine paying $60 for a video game. Frankly, I'm too broke.

Most of my gaming revolves around my Steam backlog, emulators on my PSP, and whatever cheap original Xbox games I come across in the wild.

So, apart from PC hardware which I upgrade once every blue moon... gaming is dirt cheap.
 

NarohDethan

There was a fish in the percolator!
Apr 6, 2019
8,959
24,850
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I couldn't imagine paying $60 for a video game. Frankly, I'm too broke.

Most of my gaming revolves around my Steam backlog, emulators on my PSP, and whatever cheap original Xbox games I come across in the wild.

So, apart from PC hardware which I upgrade once every blue moon... gaming is dirt cheap.
There's hardly a need to pay full price anyway. We're drowning in good games ever week :p
 

z1ggy

No Anime
Apr 17, 2019
134
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I dont spend too much to live, i have a full time job and i go to university...i own my house and since im getting old i dont go out too much (i do stuff like gardening, music and so on)

Im finishing an apartment to get some extra money per month so most of my money goes there now. Anyways, i dont spend too much on gaming, i dont buy day one releases and my PC is quite old (tomorrow im picking up a ryzen 5 2600 + 16 gb ram, then in june im getting a 2060 rtx) and since Steam has regional prices for my country games are pretty cheap and mostly i wait for sales.

I have a base PS4 too but mostly i do the same, i buy games on sale or used ones hehe.
 

Angelo

Junior Member?
Dec 21, 2018
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I couldn't imagine paying $60 for a video game. Frankly, I'm too broke.

Most of my gaming revolves around my Steam backlog, emulators on my PSP, and whatever cheap original Xbox games I come across in the wild.

So, apart from PC hardware which I upgrade once every blue moon... gaming is dirt cheap.
This! I used to be a compulsive buyer. I buy games that i really want, just to see it collect dust in my backlog. Nowadays i am patient and always wait for discounts. I am working through my backlog but it's pretty difficult. Ever see the Monkey Island meme? the "Never pay more than 20 bucks for a computer game?'. That's me! :face-with-stuck-out-tongue-and-winking-eye:

(Sometimes i buy fullpriced games. Sometimes.)
 
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Mudface

Junior Member
Apr 18, 2019
15
28
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Pretty affordable- both my wife and I have decent enough jobs, and our kids are in their teens now, so we don't have to pay for childcare etc. I only generally buy games when they've had a decent discount- I think the only one I've paid full price for in the last ten years was probably Left 4 Dead 2.

I will need new hardware in the next year or two though as my current PC is from 2013 (4670K and 970GTX). It still runs fine, but I'd imagine the next round of consoles will see a bump in requirements. PC and component prices are higher than ever in the UK thanks to Brexit, so that's going to be a bit of a stretch.
 

teezzy

formerly 'deftones r cool'
Apr 19, 2019
540
1,053
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This! I used to be a compulsive buyer. I buy games that i really want, just to see it collect dust in my backlog. Nowadays i am patient and always wait for discounts. I am working through my backlog but it's pretty difficult. Ever see the Monkey Island meme? the "Never pay more than 20 bucks for a computer game?'. That's me! :face-with-stuck-out-tongue-and-winking-eye:

(Sometimes i buy fullpriced games. Sometimes.)
I was an annoying retro collector for the longest time, the girl I was dating at the time would practically beg me, "why dont you just buy what you wanna play right now, and then get something else after you beat it?"

In retrospect, it was the most sensible advice in the world but I wasn't sharp enough to take it. Hindsight is 20/20.

Yes, that meme is solid advice.

"Think with your wallet, and you'll never go wrong." - Jesus
 

Big_Al

Miserable old git
Jan 22, 2019
139
370
63
Nowadays very affordable, though it did take me 4 - 5 months to save up for my new PC because what I wanted was expensive but also because every other time I was going to buy a part something would come up be it something breaking in the house (fucking boiler) or birthdays or even xmas time.

But now that I've got my hardware sorted it should be extremely affordable especially since I don't feel the need to buy every release I want at launch and honestly don't have as much time as I used to. The other thing that helps is that I don't collect anything anymore (apart from a Steam backlog :p). Basically for most of my 20's and even early 30's I bought so much collectors shit be it dvds, blurays and games. I would buy £100 - £200 collectors editions at the drop of a hat on payday and maybe watch them once or put them on a shelf and never watch them. Ended up with over 1000 various games, blurays, dvds etc. I also used to buy stuff, never play it and then trade it in to buy the new stuff out that next week which I also wouldn't fucking play. Basically it was all compulsive bullshit and just a collectors mentality for the sake of it. Ended up selling half of it and donating the rest to charity to at least make some use of spending and changing my habits completely. Nowadays I own no physical media at all and I'm much happier for it tbh and I generally buy much less, Obviously hardware I own (console and PC) but after the clutter for years, fuck that, for me personally anyway, in regards to physical media. I know some folks love to collect stuff and that's cool but it's not for me.
 

teezzy

formerly 'deftones r cool'
Apr 19, 2019
540
1,053
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Nowadays I own no physical media at all and I'm much happier for it tbh and I generally buy much less, Obviously hardware I own (console and PC) but after the clutter for years, fuck that, for me personally anyway, in regards to physical media. I know some folks love to collect stuff and that's cool but it's not for me.
Yup. Sold my games, movies, records, etc. Felt so damn good. What a bunch of junk, how foolish to think that crap defined me.

Only thing I can't get rid of is books. Maaaan, do I still love a nice physical book. Plus, if you put them on shelves throughout your home guests often mistake you for being a highbrowed cerebral type.
 

NarohDethan

There was a fish in the percolator!
Apr 6, 2019
8,959
24,850
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Yup. Sold my games, movies, records, etc. Felt so damn good. What a bunch of junk, how foolish to think that crap defined me.

Only thing I can't get rid of is books. Maaaan, do I still love a nice physical book. Plus, if you put them on shelves throughout your home guests often mistake you for being a highbrowed cerebral type.
I'm in that phase that I got rid of a lot of things and still think I have tons of shit laying around x.x