OMG, SO EXPENSIVE!

How much, on average, do you spend on video games in a year? Do you think it's too much or too little? What about video game prices themselves: do you think they're cheap, expensive or juuuuuuust right?

Oh god,

I regret nothing. Last year, i'd definitely say that I spent well over $700. Yeah, what of it? I'd got a 360 the christmas before, I couldn't NOT get all the classics. And this year's looking pretty good too, I'll say. :D

At most, I can only afford 2 games per year. So probably around £60-£70.

I spent about ~$400 last year. A good amount of that was on my DSi (which I have since dropped on concrete and partially broken the R button--which is the main reason I replaced my DS Lite--fml) and the other $275 was on games. (And $100 of that was on just one game lol.) I think I did fairly well last year as far as holding myself back. I also had a lot of people to split game purchases with. XD Most of the games I bought near the end of the year were split between myself and a roommate (or both roommates) so I got a lot of games pretty cheap.

But umm... this year, before I gave up on my log, I was at $82 and the last date in there is early February. Since then, I've probably spent like $500. (Most of that was on my 3DS which I was mostly reimbursed for since it was my birthday present from my parents but I still had every intention of buying it even if I hadn't gotten the okay from them for funding. XD;) The year's not even halfway over but I'm... pretty sure that aside from buying KH3D again... although I do intend on selling off the game itself!, there aren't any games I intend to buy this year. I'll pick up a few things during Steam sales here and there, for sure, but I don't think any retail games are on my radar. I'm kinda broke anyway since I'm not working this summer.

I'd say I probably spend ~$300 a year when I don't buy any consoles. If I do buy consoles, I've never bought more than one in a year, so I guess that's something to be thankful for. :P I'm not too bothered by this since (at least when I was working) that's about what I'd make in a week and a bit. I'm pretty good with game prices, too. I can usually wait for prices to go down for games I'm not super antsy for... although unfortunately, the ones I AM gung-ho about usually end up eating the difference of the games I'm patient on since I always import them, hahaha.

About 100-200 of ze American currency.
I don't really buy much video games or computer games, maybe two a year, sometimes three if I find some nostalgic stuff or something that made me interested.

I would guess around £140 for the games themselves. Perhaps I buy too few, but only as much are of interest to me.
Linear singleplayer games are very often overpriced for the time one is untimately likely to spend on them, but are thankfully rare nowadays. Generally, with the scope of video games ever-increasing I sometimes wonder if they're a bit cheap; that said, as a PC gamer I do get the better end of pricing, and for all platforms there is the newfangled extortion of DLC.

Now, regarding peripherals and systems... my computer in particular of course, some things are cheaper than I tend to expect, but then I'm not a high-end buyer. I couldn't provide an average value since getting new hardware is such an occasional occurance.

Uh... it depends on whether I'm feeding my other hobbies or not in a given year, but it's been toned down quite a bit simply because I realized I already have a ton of games I own that I have yet to play through and beat. This year, I figure it'll be between $100 and $200, but in recent years, it was closer to $400 or $500, which is a lot considering I also average about $400 per year on my collectible card game hobbies and about $300 to $400 per year on my anime and manga hobbies.

Some games I do feel are quite cheap, but that's because many games have teams of over 100 people working on them.

oh the topic of console titles.....

considering EA and playstation started releasing the multiplayer via the "online pass" which is only redeemable via that regions PSN store, this means sony region locked multiplayer so no more importing from hong kong :( i used to get brand new releases for an average of $40 AUD delivered, eliminating the 10% tax and even not having to leave the comfort of your house, although DLC focused games this was a bad choice as DLC was region locked to that specific regions store, it seems these days its best to hire standalone story games overnight from your local video store, slay them on the hardest difficulty over two nights than return them as you'd have no reason to play something you've conquered on nightmare again.

anything like battlefield 3 or something that holds a certain replay value is definitely worth the retail store coin as its a long term investment

on the topic of PC titles, Steam is a no brainer, its fantastic as it saves all your purchased games and will install them all automatically for you, if you loose your hard disk or your computer, you've always got your PC games and the licenses saved within your steam cloud so you can never loose them, it also includes a very robust social system, the best benefit of steam is weekend specials or publisher/developer super specials where you can get sometimes 80% off purchases, leaving local retailers in the dust.

i'd spend maybe $1000+ a year but i definitely make it go along way, always trying to get that bargin price.

To answer my own question, it varies a lot. I don't think I've had any more than 10 games for each console I've owned (probably about half of all of them being Pokemon related), but I do tend to go through binges and droughts when it comes to purchasing them. Last year, for example, I bought Pokemon Black, and that was it. This year, on the other hand, I've already bought a 3DS and will probably be getting at least 5 or 6 games over the course of the year to accompany it. So, as much as I asked the question, any attempt to average my yearly game spending would be a really inaccurate of my spending habits.

With regards to game purchase prices, I do think they seem to cost too much. I understand that they often have thousands of people working on them, and that - especially early in a console's run - they're the main source of income for companies given that consoles traditionally lose money in the first few years of release but... £40 for a newly-released PS3 game? I could buy 5 newly-released books for that money; or 4 newly-released DVDs. I dunno... there'll be a reason why games cost so much, but I do wish they were cheaper. [/grinch]

in a year i bought 7 games with a total price tag of 280 (40 each average)

Mr Cat Dog said:

With regards to game purchase prices, I do think they seem to cost too much. I understand that they often have thousands of people working on them, and that - especially early in a console's run - they're the main source of income for companies given that consoles traditionally lose money in the first few years of release but... £40 for a newly-released PS3 game? I could buy 5 newly-released books for that money; or 4 newly-released DVDs. I dunno... there'll be a reason why games cost so much, but I do wish they were cheaper. [/grinch]

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Yeah, but even if the DVDs are two hours long each, it'll only take you eight hours to go through them all. For the same price, a game typically lasts you twenty or forty hours. For books, it depends on the age level and number of pages and all that, but you're paying for a very different experience either way. Your book will always be the same every time you read it. It's not really a big multimedia experience and it's much more passive. So if you like both gaming and reading, it can indeed be a better deal to pick up a few books and buy a game much later when the price has gone down, but this is really more up to tastes. Also, high fantasy is the only stuff that would probably take me 40+ hours to get through if I had five of them to read so depending on the game it still might not be more value for my money. XD;

Games are neat because even as far as linear blockbuster games go, when you replay it, you can probably find things you've missed. Plus, since they're typically so long, you get a much more fleshed out story and characters (hopefully) than other forums of media. Games are about $2/hour if you get them at full price here (maybe a little less) and play for 40 hours which will usually get you through any single player plot and a few extras here and there. I mean, it'll obviously change by genre--you might get 300 hours out of an RPG with lots of sidequests or 500 hours out of a game's multiplayer--but there's still a much higher hours-of-media-consumed to price ratio with games over other forms of media. So I don't think it's too out of line to sell games at the initial prices they ask today. It kind of makes sense considering the size of the teams that make them and all that now.

1 maybe 2 games a year. Nothing new. In my opinion all my favorite games have been released (such as Pokemon Leaf Gree/Fire Red/Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald/Diamond/Black, Hoyle Card games/Board Games/Casino Games, and Sim City 4) - most of the "new releases" aren't the same - I mean from my favorite games.

In 2010 I spent only about £200 on video games, mainly as there were not a lot of intersting games released. 2011, probably £500, thanks to my 3DS mainly. I'd say I've spent about £150 on games already this year, counting my purchase of my PSP.

I don't spend a lot of on video games, mainly as I own consoles were the games are usually £40 at the most. (well, I did see NSMBWii go for a cheeky £55 once, but that's about it)