How many hours of gameplay is typically expected for a game anymore in order to get your money’s worth?
1 dollar or euro per hour would be pretty good, way over delivering. Think Blizzard delivers at least that.
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Hard to say now with these indie games being $20 and able to get thousands of hours out of
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All they have to do is double the amount of time it takes to level a voila – moneys worth!
O wait they already did that.
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I don’t know if hours played is the best metric, but if I get a really good 30 hour campaign out of a game, that’s an easy $70 from me. I don’t go to movies often, but people will gladly plop down $15 to sit in a theater for two hours, and many of us regularly spend anywhere from $10-100 on a meal that we could have made at home for no more than $2-20.
I think ballooning sales volume of digital assets and the relatively minimal upscaling costs are what have kept gaming prices so low despite the early days of arcades and the fact that there were N64 games that cost more than the $70 we are expected to shell out for a 3A title today. Games in the ARPG genre are pretty much always worth their asking price upfront, assuming you don’t just hate the game to its core.
People don’t really do a very good job of recognizing production value as something worth paying for though, which is why a core gameplay loop that is really fun is a great thing to have going for you, because many people will look at very cheap entertainment pixels (see: Vampire Survivors) with high replayability despite the overall simplicity, and then treat all games with the same evaluative model, despite some major differences, all because they were able to keep themselves hooked on the dopamine loop for a really long time in a simpler, more repetitive game, while under-appreciating the work that goes into a more elaborate title.
Hence “hours played” as a metric, despite its unreliability and frequent inapplicability.
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Like you I feel this exact way. If you look at other typical entertainment options like sports you can end up with quite a hefty bill.
And you’re correct hours/played is an oversimplification. However, it seems the measurement is fairly relatable.
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It’s all gotten muddy with the rise of free games, mobile games, low budget pixel block games and so on. All of that has skewed what people are willing to pay for, how much, and so on.
For me, if I get a solid 25-40 hours of fun from a new release AAA, which is around 60-70 USD, I’m happy with it. But I do know that people expect 10,000 hours for that, as well, based on “I played X for 50k hours and so I have expectations!” and so on. In the end, how people value their time, money, and what they think is worth spending both on, vary wildly as between people, even in the context of the same hobby (and that’s not only the case for gaming).
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i actually don’t get why adult people count their money for an hour spent on the game.
You should be either stupid or very poor to buy DIABLO title and count money that you spent.
if we are talking about diablo, then these are not the things that are measured by money. This is not your CoD, we have been waiting for this game for 10 years and I bought it immediately for 100 bucks as soon as the pre-order was announced. I don’t care about this money, no matter how much it costs, it won’t change the fact that it’s complete sh*t
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This game is easily worth the money, but it’s also not worth playing long-term. One time play-through is fun enough until WT4.
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For a single player narrative game I expect about 20-30 hours. For an online live service AAA title I expect atleast 10x that.
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It should not be bases on hours it should be based on whether you enjoys the game or not.
In D3 some people had S28 finished in a few days, others are still going at it 5 months later.
Some people quit D3 in a few weeks, others have been playing it for 11 years.
Some people quit D4 the first week others will play in until they shut down the servers.
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I think that’s a good measurement as well. If you hated a game you’d barely get any hours out of it.
The only time you’d be considering the hours/cost ratio is if you’re broke and need to stretch every $1 you’re spending on entertainment.
If I like the game I don’t care if it’s 10 hours or 100. When 1 game ends I can always just buy more games; as many as I want as often as I want.
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