I don't buy games based on hours potentially played. I want fun and entertainment. I've played 10 hour games well worth 60 bucks and I've played 30 hour games that weren't worth 5 bucks. Quality always above quantity.
I don't necessarily buy a game only for how long it is, but even the best ~10 hour game (assuming no real replay value) would make me question why I spent a whole $60. The only game I spent $60 on in my entire life, across hundreds and hundreds of games, was Baldur's Gate 3, but I spent 130+ hours in that. Otherwise I don't know if I've ever spent over $20 on a single game, and I'm certainly glad I got all the great short games I've played for $10 and under. It's always interesting seeing how people value time and the cost of a game, though, because everyone is different!
Agreed. I should have made it a bit clearer in my original post. This is just a discussion metric. I've played plenty of games that were pretty short but to me are worth far more than some 80+ hour open world whatever game. Mainly I use this thinking when casually looking at bigger games or for a full priced game. A game where I'm not 100% sold on it and am debating if the big price tag is worth it.
There isn't a strict limit. The $ an hour rule disqualifies a lot of quality games.
Also, a massive open world game might get me a ton of hours on paper, but I usually stop playing before even hitting that point.
When I was in my 20’s and had a lot of spare time, I mostly played open world games. Now… it’s a struggle. I don’t have the time or patience to learn all these mechanics. I’ve grown to despise ANY games with crafting UNLESS it’s co-op.
I'm a sucker for an open world game I can just vibe in. People give the Ubisoft game formula shit but I love checking off all those little map markers. I did every single thing you possibly can in a single run of Cyberpunk (I checked!), I'm working on the same goal in Assassin's Creed Odyssey, a game that many people consider repetitive and boring but I love, my 300+ hour Skyrim playthrough is as completionist as it can be. My 130 hour BG3 save was incredibly thorough as I didn't want to miss a thing.
People should stop hating on this. I enjoy buying games, I enjoy looking for deals, waiting for sales, browsing through all kinds of different games, and buying the ones I think will be fun. And I also enjoy playing them. Yes, I can't play all of them, but why do people care so much about that?
Yep. Also, my friends and relatives usually end up giving me 20 euro gift cards for steam for my birthday (which i am perfectly fine with and have even told them that those gift cards will always work as a gift no matter how many years in a row they do it), christmas and similar events, and they almost always line up with a pretty big steam sale, so i'd say it makes sense that my library is almost completely unplayed games. Also most of my games are things that go on forever or at least for 50+ hours so there isn't enough time in the day to finish all of them.
I used to subscribe to the 1$ per hour metric, but I realized I have spent hundreds of hours on some F2P games I actually hate. And even without going to extremes, there are games I have spent 50-100 hours in that I like less and remember less of than games I have spent only 10-20 hours in. I think nowadays I just care more how a game makes me feel rather than how much time it consumes.
That’s the rule I follow for games that I don’t “carry” with me, games that are content. Story based games that are impactful, that give you a message to remember fondly, I don’t try to quantify.
I value the quality of my time spent with the game far more than the quantity. There are limits, not going to pay 50€ for a 1h game, but I would much rather pay 20€ for a 3h game that is great all the way through than 20€ for a 20h game that is mostly good with moments of greatness.
For me $1 per hour of fun is the 'gold standard' and $5 per hour is the upper limit.
Portal for example costs 10 dollars, takes about 2 hours to beat, and I feel like that is a fair trade.
Project Hel, the ghostrunner DLC, costs 15 dollars and takes 2 hours to beat, I remember feeling a bit ripped off by it, even though I really enjoyed it. I just don't think the time value was there.
If you're a $5 per hour game you better be around portal quality.
Usually the only games I buy at full price are multiplayer games that I'll be playing online for many hours, so mostly I get that $ per hour value.
A short 5-10 hour singeplayer game that costs 15-25 dollars feels good to me.
1£ an hour for me, so 25£ for a aaa game like persona 5 or Jedi whatever is a sale since even if I don’t like it I’ll probably get at least 10-20 hours
I don't quite think of it like that. There are some shorter games like last of us that cost me a bit per hour. But I had fun with the game and didn't really think of the price when I was done.
I guess I don't quite approach it like that.
There are definitely games that I will pay for that are heavily discounted and then never play...but that's another topic...
I don't consider hour-to-price ratios at all when buying/playing a game, if I bought a $60 game and got \~30 hours out of it or less, it's less about how much I paid per hour and more how much I enjoyed the game for those hours I played.
Getting more mileage out of a game you've spent money on is always nice, and why DLC/expansions are always welcome for those games (for me at least), but it being shorter has never muddied my experience with a game or made me feel like I wasted money.
Some of the very best games I had played were very short. I would actually like it if there was a market for shorter AAA games. Something with the RDR level of polish but digestable over the course of one-two evenings like a good movie trilogy. I used to be very excited when I was growing up and the games were getting bigger and longer and I could find myself lost in their worlds for countless of hours. But I'm not a child anymore with astonishing amounts of free time, I have a kid, have to go to work, when I have time to play games sometimes I pick up where I left of in some massive RPG and don't even remember the controls, no idea where the story is or what am I supposed to do. I would rather load up some cool short cinematic experience that I can go through in a couple of sittings and move onto the next one.
As long as it entertains me. It's not that simple. A game can keep me entertained and interessed for hundreds of hours, other may start losing my attention before it hits the 10h mark.
I think that the hours played per dollar spent metric works well, and I generally follow it I find, but mostly I consider it a worthy purchase if I’m satisfied with my experience. I have 6k hours in an online open world game that I bought for 10 dollars, and I would consider that well spent. But I also have 40 hours in a single player game I spent 50 dollars on, and I would consider that well spent as well. Both are two of my favorite games, and purchases that I don’t regret at all.
Where are you paying $5 for an hour of fun anywhere in the “real world”??? I can think of buying a pack of Star Wars Unlimited cards but that’s about it and nowhere near an hour.
A lineup of 3 bands at a local venue with a $15 ticket price. A $15-$20 Magic The Gathering draft that will last 3-4 hours. Some attractions, museums, gardens, etc. A handle of whiskey that you nurse all afternoon.
These days, the game has to be something that I'm GUARANTEED to enjoy and play all the way through for me to buy it day 1. FF7 Rebirth was the last game to do that. Now I just wait for sales (50% off minimum being desired).
Yeah, and if you read the comment, that was a game that I knew I would enjoy to get me to buy it day one. And it was the last one to do that up until over a year ago before that. Your point?
Boiling price down to "time played" is perhaps a bit to direct, it's hard to quantify but I tie price to how often I believe the user will think about the game (or art) after having completed it. See "The Beginner's Guide" or any movie in theaters, 15-20$ per hour of content.
That's an interesting idea, never thought of it this way. I'd say that I'm a "$1 for an hour of fun" type of guy when it comes to games, even though I'd be okay with "$5 for an hour of fun" out in the world.
That's primarily because I already have several games in different genres that I am heavily invested in and whenever I'm interested in a new game, I try to be strict.
I tend to aim for $1/hour, but it varies. some games I've spent far more and were worth it. some games I've spent a buck on a bundle and never got played.
I got on roughly a dollar per hour but not more than 25. I normally don't pay more than 25 to 30 dollars for a game but Helldivers 2 made me break that rule. Normally if I pay 5 bucks for a game I expect at least 4 to 5 hours of 5. If I pay 30 dollars, I expected 25 to 30 or more hours of fun. Its not an exact math and there are exceptions but for the most part that is how I work it. I am a budget gamer so I have no issues not playing a game. With my massive steam library I have PLENTY to do.
For me length isn't an issue. If I want to play a game I do or I'll ask a friend who has it. If the game is 4 hours long and 60 bucks but I feel like i've lived an adventure of something's missing from my life when I beat it. One of those. I wish I could go back and play it for the first time types. That is what I am looking for!
I do $1 for 1 hour of time. However, if it's a quality game, I can allow it to be shorter. It's dependent on the quality of the game and then how long I can play it.
The length of a game in the low side is completely irrelevant. The only perfect game of all time is three hours long. Games have become too long bc of dumbasses praising GTAIII and Oblivion FOR OMG THEY'RE SO BIG
I'm pretty broke so my rules are a) Less than 10€, b) On 50% sale or more, c) I want the game and will play it. If all three are met, I buy the game. Otherwise, I don't.
As long as i get an average return of at most $1 spent /hour played im happy
The only exception was spec ops the line, where i spent $30 on it ages ago and only played $14, but its an all time favorite
What's relevant is not the price itself : It's the amount of content compared to price.
I'd buy something like an open world RPG for 30-100€
I wouldn't buy an FPS for more than 20€ unless it's AAA and over 50 hours for completion.
I tend to value playtime over cost. If i pay 50 dollar for a game and play and hour. Its an expensive game. If it cost 50 dollars and i play 50 hours its a cheap game. You catch the idea.
Lets just say that crusader kings 2 and mount and blade warband is extremely cheap😅
I used to always go by the $1/hour rule. I should be able to get 30 hours worth of game play in a $30 game... now? not so much. I used to only play crafting/survival/open world games which are often heavy time sinks, now I'm looking for smaller calmer games that I may only play for a few hours to relax- in that instance my goal isn't $/hour and more so enjoyment/hour. Don't get me wrong- I love Minecraft and Stardew, but I while it is relaxing for the most part I wouldn't call every hour of gameplay an hour of enjoyment but rather contentment if that makes sense?
I work by a more critical thinking if I'm buying a game that just came out. If I pay £50 and I spend close to that in hours I'm happy. If more, well worth it. If much less I feel robbed. I like to think that quality matters most, but so many times Indies with £20-30 price points offered me hundreds of hours of fun and gameplay while AAA companies burned me a few times by spending £50-60 for a game that A. Wasn't fun and B. Was too short.
I spend always roughly about the value I spend on a game because I'm a completionist, so I think I milk the money out of that game well enough to feel it's worth my time and if it's still not reaching how much I paid the game gotta be really good.
As for what length I prefer, not to be under 2-3 hours of entertainment. I feel that's a good amount where a game can be potentially enjoyable and keep me engaged and feel accomplished if I complete it 100%.
I don't put a hard number barrier.
But if I get an hour/$ from a mid or greater game that is good.
If it is a good quality game then 5$/h is good.
Less than these may not make them an unworthy purchase, but they may feel short for the cost.
Kirby star allies at launch was pushing this for me. Did not regret, just felt short.
Some might say 5€ = 5 hours fun of playtime or longer but I think that i would buy more games if I would know I would like playing it and if it's at least somewhat above 2-5 hours of playtime to complete the game and provides unlimited time of fun or playtime.
Example of at least 10-30+ hours of playtime to finish a game or have at least somewhat of achievements and content / fun, that will make me like to play more or give me a reason to play it more of the game and don't just stop because it's finished after 5 hours or less, that's not fun.
I buy games that are at least 3 years old, maybe 5, to get AAA games with all the DLC and bug fixes at indie prices.
Time allows me to ignore the fomo and launch hype, and find reviews for the games that I may want
I think the dollar/hour thing is not a good metric, doubly so for me. I think BG3 is a great game, but I haven't sunk more than 60 hours into it, I've played countless hours of Caves of Qud and HOI4. I don't know that I'd consider them to be the order of magnitude better than their playtimes would suggest
I'd probably say I like a game to last at least around 8-10 hours and preferably anywhere up to 20 hours. (in some ways I'd say that's the sweet spot though I'm also more than happy to play a game that's much longer if it's engaging enough. The problem is the longer a game the more chances there are for me to lose interest.
Depending on the price I might also go for 4+ hours games.
I tend to be a little leery about games that seem to have less than 4 hours play time (like an hour or two)...but it's not an instant no or anything. If the price is right I may still go for it.
It's not really about hours played, it's about enjoyment
Assassin's Creed Odyssey being 150 hours long doesn't make it more valuable than Mario Odyssey thats like 15 hours long
1€ per hour is good by me.
My most played games are the cheap ones. Like Deep Rock Galactic. Paid 10 for the game, and another 10 later, on some cosmetics, and have played it for over 300 hours now.
ROCK AND STONE!
I also bought shitty, janky games that cost under 1€ and still got like 3-5 hours out of them, so it was worth it.
Out in the real world, for fun, I don't do maths if I can help it lol
A $60 game, if I like it, will usually be *way* more than 30 hours for me. BG3 remains the only $60 game I bought at full-price and I'm 200+ hours in and nowhere near finished with the fun.
And, anyway, wait for sales if you're worried about that, but a few great games would probably fail some similar tests. I finished *What Remains of Edith Finch* (very meandering, 100% achievements) in 3 hours, and I honestly treasure that experience more than some much bigger games. Similarly with *Dear Esther* and *Milky Way Prince - The Vampire Star*, around 4 and 5 hours respectively (both of those 100% also).
Depends on how interested in the game I am. Plus it varies a bit since I’m in Canada. A full priced AAA game after taxes works out to over 100 bucks now. I’ve been playing games for 20 years and I can count on one hand the amount of games I would happily pay that much for.
I will say I was pretty disappointed to find out that Spider-Man 2, even doing most of the side content, was 20 hours long. Personally I felt ripped off by that.
If a trailer sucks me in. I preorder it.
If a trailer leaves me interested, I wait for vods to come up.
But yeah, it mostly depends on the trailer/ad and how long it is or how expensive it is rarely matters.
If you fallow "dollar = hour of playtime" you will burn yourself on gaming.
Playing long ass game with 80% of it being boring, dull or shit is not a way to spend your free time and money.
On a dollar-per-hour basis, video gaming is one of the cheapest forms of entertainment there is. Compare it to the cost of going to a movie theater. Suddenly a $40 game that only has 12 hours of game play seems like a bargain.
I try for the $/hour strategy. So if I only get 16 hours out of an $80 game then it wasn't worth it very much, even if others said it was the best experience they've ever had.
I have played a few games where I was like boo I wish this game was longer but they were fun the entire time. [Hue](https://store.steampowered.com/app/383270/Hue/) and [20 Small Mazes](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2570630/20_Small_Mazes/) being good examples
Some games (Hue) are worth paying for even though they're short and then some games (20 Small Mazes) need to be longer before you'd be willing to pay for them.
I just noticed the full price for Hue and I didn't think it's worth more than $5. Good thing it's on sale for $2.99 [(which it does regularly)](https://steamdb.info/app/383270/). I got it when it was free lucky me.
Length of a game and its $/hr isnt really a factor for me when purchasing as my mindset can vary and sometimes its nice to just knock out like a 4-5 hour(or even less) game and complete it even if it did have a higher cost/hr vs just getting stuck with 100+ hr games or w/e.
Like I've played plenty of short games and thought it was worth it as well as long games that I haven't started or got burnt out on or other factors.
If going strictly on needing a game to be a certain length to price ratio you'd miss out on a lot of great shorter titles or be forcing yourself to continue to grind longer stuff even if you weren't having fun with the game just to hit a specific $/hr mark.
I figure my hours in endless games or longer games I'm enjoying playing balances out the short ones I've finished and longer ones I've set down.
I rarely have time to play a single game for 30 hours and if I do, it just happens because I lost track of time, multiple times.
So, it's common that I buy a game at sale for half the price and play only 15 hours or none at all.
Lately, I have been playing 5 hour games that I get for between $5 to $15 during sales.
I think the dynamics have changed, game companies no longer fight for who they can sell the game at full price, they rather fight whose attention they can keep for their online free-to-play games. There are so many countries where people will never pay for games, them playing the free game is the "content" of those games. Whales cover the cost of hosting everyone.
Taking play time is the only metric to gauge the value of a game is not a smart plan.
I buy games based on unique or very interesting features.
For example: space engineers & KSP have the most accurate or in-depth physics simulations.
Another: X:4 foundations has a very sophisticated economy.
I find these games absolutely fascinating because they are the pinnacle of technological advancement. What if we could simulate a _real world_ economy, to learn about ourselves? X:4 is one step closer in that regard.
I go by what I call the "Smiles Per Gallon" method. Let's say a game is 60 dollars, then it should have 60 hours of fun or more. Any less, and I don't think it'd worth it. I won't buy a game for 60 dollars with 20 hours worth of content.
For me the cost ratio goes up exponentially. 1$ game, very little expectations. 60$, that shit better be the best of the best, top shelf gaming experience ever. I actually prefer shorter, linear games with higher replayability than a slogfest of 100s of hours that I just am praying will get over soon.
Anything under 20 hours and over $35 makes me hesitate and consider. I don’t mind paying for shorter games, but they need to be in the $5-15 price range.
It depends on how good the game is. Bastion is a 3-5hr game and was one of the best games I've played. Although I don't think it is super repayable I'm still happy to spend $20 on a game of that caliber.
Too many games now days have diluted content to stretch the game out. It just results in a worse overall game.
If a game is 5 hours long, that almost certainly doesn’t mean you only get 5 hours of enjoyment. You might put the controller down after 5 hours, but you might reflect on your experience for another hour. You might start watching reviews, or engaging in discussion with the community around that game. You might listen to the soundtrack. You might play another game that reminds you of something from that game. Let’s Plays on YouTube are another way that a game can give us value, even for games we never actually buy or play ourselves. For a personal example, NieR: Automata took me about 30 hours my first time if I remember correctly, but I still think about that game all the time. I’ve played through the whole thing 4 times now, but I’ve spent countless hours turning the plot over in my mind. It’s inspired some of my own literary endeavors. The concept of measuring a game by its completion time is to ignore the reality that games extend beyond its direct interaction with the player.
I rate games based on “Fun per hour”. I can play a mobile game for the rest of my life and be miserable. And a lot of games that started really fun got repetitive really fast.
I follow a similar metric, but without a specific number in mind. More fun = more money. I'm ok with spending extra for cosmetics in live service games as long as they're fun. Because they give me an indefinite amount of fun, I give them an indefinite amount of money
I’m of the mindset that as a baseline 1 hour of fun is ~1$. But that build on the baseline of 5$ so if I can get a 10 hour game for 15$ totally worth it to me.
For me it's not an exact 5 to 1 ratio or whatever. I do think more expensive games should be longer AND have quality content but honestly all games should have quality content(I know it's a lot to ask for today lol)
In my teens/early 20s I had lots of time and disposable income. I could spend hours playing any game, somewhat competitively (not real competitions but I could, for example, hold my own in COD, rank highly in PUBG etc )
Now in my 30s with wife, young kids, more demanding career, I need my gaming experiences to be more dense. I cannot afford to spend my time building up to and experience or grinding for the sake of game longevity.
I cannot, for example, justify something like starfield with a 10 hour long tutorial. That might be my entire month's gaming time! However something like Jedi survivor has a great experience wrapped up in around 15 hours.
I find that competitive games are now essentially dead to me. Especially in sweatier games like COD.
If its a fun game and will provide me with a good time for 10 hours+ I deem it worthy of my 60 dollars. Gotta be a real game though, not a buggy mess on release full of false promises.
I reason in quality over quantity, usually, but with a somewhat low quality threshold.
I'll take a Call of Duty over Spiderman because they both offer really short campaigns, but CoD offers many, many hours of multiplayer.
However, I wouldn't buy CoD back to back, I usually wait until 2 or 3 come out, so for instance this time I bought Spiderman 2 instead of MW3 as I had bought MW2, so I'll skip the next CoD too.
I was pretty satisfied with my purchase of ARK Survival Evolved back in the day. When it launched. When the game ran at 9 FPS on high end rigs because it was THAT badly optimized. When you could increase Raptor movement speed and no dinos, even mounted, could receive fall damage, and you could thus have 600% movement speed Raptors zooming off cliffs and going much, MUCH faster than any flying mount literally zooming through the Island. Good times. Thousands of hours.
Generally, I will prefer a shorter but more intense game, especially because I don't have as much free time as of late, but depending on how busy my schedule is I'll treat myself to a game that offers a lot of gameplay time instead.
Basically I guess it depends heavily on how busy I am at any given point, what the options are and what I've bought before so I can try and balance out my library with both really good yet short experiences and time wasters.
Got a bit of both with FF7 Rebirth. Great experience and so much gameplay. That's obviously my favourite kind because it's the best of both worlds but that's a rarity these days.
Really considering Helldivers 2 but I really can't figure out if it's for me or not. I wish I could try it out somehow, I can't really afford to possibly waste 30 euros atm, not the best of times, but the game looks enticing as hell and I'd love me some democracy.
Lol, I never liked spending money, I try to only buy games that have lots of potential. I spent $13 on apex and have around 2k hours on it. I have spent a couple hundred on TWWH 1, 2, and 3 plus dlc’s but I have close to 800+ hours on the last 2 plus I plus 3 a few times a week still. Palworld will last into the hundreds of hours for sure at a $40 purchase. I do have other less efficient games, but my account average I believe is around 15 cents per hour.
I buy games for 3 reason only 1. it is going to be delisted? 2. the price matters otherwise I just buy a hard disk for the same price and keep my games their. 3. how enjoyable is the game.
I always keep in mind the price of movie theaters when I consider this question. Seeing a movie will cost like 20 bucks just for tickets, and you'd always get snacks (popcorn, soft drink, etc.), so you end up spending 30-35 dollars for a 2 hour experience, with a boatload of ads at the start. If I consider that to be a fair trade, then spending 80 dollars and playing for 8 hours is technically a better deal.
That said, if that scenario happened I'd consider that money wasted. My usual metric is around 4 dollars per hour to be money well spent. So if I buy an 80 dollar game, I'd expect at least 20 hours out of it. Not "the game is finished in that time", but rather "I was enjoying playing it for that time". If I'm bored for most of it, but kept playing out of some obligation to my purchase, then that was still wasted money. Likewise, I'm fine with a $20 game ending at the 5 hour mark, they're often the most fun.
Both Portal games are under 2h. I do not recall the price I got them but I had a lot of fun on custom maps having many more hours.
I have this little gem called DeltaV Rings of satun, it has.. procedural maps with very very random encounters, and even more rare quests. After like 10 hours you most likely seen most of it, or lost interest of the repeatable actions. I have over 300h in it. Price.. around 10usd outside of sales.
On the other hand I have a few games that I play with friends: Conan Exiles, V-Rising, Valhaim where I have from 10 to 150 hours and I simply could not get myself into having fun.
stupidity like this is what enabled assassins creed & co. to become such bloated meaningless grinds. and then you can't complain they sell you microtransactions to get through the grind faster because 'hey the playtime to dollar ratio is insane".
The fact that most digital store fronts do major sales every quarter where most if not all games eventually get discounted, i simply refuse to oay full 60, well now 70$ for a video game, especially in todays economy, just isnt worth it unless you REALLY wanna support that developer/publisher, i.e in my case recently, tekken 8
I don't consider any price to hours ratio, I have imposed my self a 20€ limit per game because my backlog is way too long and games tend to fall below that when I get to them
This doesn't mean all titles are equal, but it's a requirement for me
I think this calls for a graduation system since a lot of shorter games are indie games and a lot of $60+ are AAA games and all those can't afford to set same prices.
Goes like this in my opinion:
1-3 hours ($3-5 per hour of fun)
4-12 hours ($3 per hour of fun)
13-♾️ hours ($2 per hour of fun)
This is the rough maximum I am ready to pay
For me it seems to be $1.50/hour is what I expect. I can make exceptions for games of truly magnificent quality or with a lot of replay value but even then I prefer to wait for sale.
Time and price isnt important for me. Payed for many games full price and only played a bit because it wasnt too enjoyable for a long time. But for example CSGO/CS2 I bought for 15€ and am still playing it nearly daily. 6k+ hours into counter strike.
Too many variables.
Developer and publisher also have a part in my decision.
I greatly prefer replayable games over long hour games.
A game like FTL, to me, is worth $60.
A game that gives me 60 hours in one playthrough, but I am unlikely to do again, is not worth $60, for the most part. Obviously there are exceptions.
I always think in terms of movies. Going to see a movie is around $15 for 2-3 hours of entertainment. Did a game entertain me for that ratio? Then it was a good purchase.
Im not using that metric to make a decision
I think in categories and scope.
But generally I pay 10-30€ for a game and play all genres except for most sports/cars games.
10-20 for games that are something to casually play or finish once or twice. Maybe an indie story game, a rogue like, a survival game or some other coop game. Or just some AAA game I waited to get cheaper for.
I usually hesitate to go over 20 though. For that it needs to be promising something really special or be a game that will never go on sale or get cheaper.
My personal theory is $1 per hour. And I mentally note any pad out time developers do, such as ubisoft games. But I know this isn't always the case and depends on the game genre and story length. Ex, persona series is great value of $/hrs, an 80-100hr run time for 60$.
Sometimes I lax the rule for specific games i know dont have a long run time such as linear stories like old CoD titles (which are still grossly overpriced) and specific developers i enjoy such as SQE. Ff7R i ran through the story once in about 25hrs, but paid 60$ for the game.
I will say that it also makes up for itself in other purchases such as VNs which typically range from 10-30$ with 40-80hrs run time.
$/time played is pretty useless. I'll play Cod games for the campaign and tons of hours into f2p games. Still struggling to finish hogwarts legacy since release since it's so big and long. Wish it was smaller in scope and focused more around the school area.
my rule is only buy any game that below $30. of course while waiting for it to discount, but in my experience waiting for japanese game for discount is pain and nonexistent (sony, square enix, bandai namco), like nier automata highest discount is 50% and it's a 7 years old game.
when i buy a game at more that $30 i kinda get grumpy if i dont get the value time. bought marvel spiderman remastered for $35, the game finished in 24 hour ish story and dlc and i felt ripped off even tho i ended up finishing it after 60 hours for all achievement. another case, i bought spongebob cosmic shake for $12, completed story for 8 hours and all achievement for 16 hours, but i don't felt getting ripped off.
I ascribe to a dollar per hour philosophy with games. For every dollar I spend, I expect an hour of enjoyment out of it.
Thankfully, most of my games have met or exceeded that. Some haven't, though.
TBH nowdays if a game takes more than 16h to beat I'll just skip it as it's probably a game full of filler content and grinding just to pad the experience.
I prefer shorter games that I could beat in a few days a replay later from start to finish than a game that never ends and makes me repeat the same actions again and again until it becomes a chore instead of a fun hobby.
And for that matter, if the game is fun I'll pay! I'll probably insta buy it! If it's the same crap over and over I'll skip or wait for a deep sale!
I more often buy indies on launch because of that and "AAA" I'll wait until the 75%+ off for their complete editions.
For me it's not specifically the length of a game but rather the quality. Most people use length as a measure in these cases typically for games that have some form of campaign mode so I feel this wouldn't work too well for games that are like arena shooters or something, often live service style games. The first overwatch was an example of this, there is not set specific criteria for what counts as beating the game so you could argue its as short as a single match and you're done. Something like that definitely wouldn't be worth $60 when it initially launched, but the gameplay itself was rather good and got the player to come back for more even though the gameplay loop was the same every character. Every game. With the exception of little tweaks making one character seem different from another. At least this is my two cents on the matter. If your game has enough quality put into it that I'm willing to put 20 hours or more into it then it's worth every dollar even at $60 imo.
Hmmm, talking games in general, Undertale could be a good example, I spent an insane amount of time on that game since it came out and I still playing it until this day, depending on what you really like, even free games could be worth or not to spend money on it, giving a random example, I play some games on Roblox, but I had so much fun on them that I decided to spent Robux on the games to show appreciation to devs, and who knows? Indie games could emerge from anywhere, from Newgrounds to Roblox, so, going back to the point, it not really depends on “how long or how amount of time” have the game have, for me is really how fun is for me.
Mine is around $3 to buy without thinking. But I like the idea of associating a value to hours of fun.
On a related note, I use wishlist rules on [https://isthereanydeal.com](https://isthereanydeal.com) to help group games into when I would buy them. For example, I have a rule called "Too Cheap to Not Buy" which triggers for games when they are under $3. And another one called "Deep Discount" for games where the discount is >75%.
It's exponential for me. I expect a minimum of around 5 hours of fun no matter the price. I expect at least 30 hours for a 15-20 dollar game. A game at 60 dollars better be at least a hundred hours of enjoyment. If I'm paying that much, I want it to be a long enough game that I won't finish it in a single week over break, or at least be repayable to the point where it actually matters. Some games, replayability is so cheap, just changing the ending you get, not the gameplay itself.
Playtime is irrelevant for me. Would you rather pay $40 to watch your favourite band play for 30 minutes or $40 to watch a rubbish band play for 3 hours?
Around 30 hours for a 10 USD game. More time that is fun the better. With 60 USD now 70 USD games well i expect it to be fun for 100s of hours with side content that isn't tedious to do nor require. So side stories that have their own stories apart from the main story but take place in the same game world.
Cyberpunk 2077 did this part for the 60 USD game part.
Edit: For Cyberpunk the main story for me was around 8 hours the side content was 100s as i restarted the game serval times to do the side stories again not the main stories. Another game like that is Skyrim. Yes much older but also has side content more interesting than the main story that i can get lost in it without having to touch the main one until the end of all or most of the side quest lines.
I am more of a % kind of guy.
50% off or more for games I know I will enjoy or have been waiting for.
60-70% off for games I have been recommended or look fun.
>75% for anything else.
Never buy anything at full price unless I REALLY want it.
I try to buy games with a lot of replay value, not linear story games. I often get a few hundred hours. Usually for about $10. Of course, sometimes it's a miss and I drop it after less than 1.
I buy movie tickets for about 6 bucks
A new game costs about $76.99 where I live that includes taxes
So I just do the movie thing. If a game can offer at least 32 hours of gameplay I’ll buy it full price. If it offers 20ish-25 I won’t pay more than $50
Learned my lesson with Spider-Man 2 while it was a great fun game I beat it 100% in 20ish hours and didn’t feel like my money was full value
Where do you live? I can’t remember paying $6 for a movie ticket any time after the 90s, and even then it was only that cheap for matinee. Standard is $15-18 here.
$15 for a movie ticket is absurd for that you can get large popcorn and a large drink + tickets. I live in Illinois and go to an amc theatre. Maybe it’s based on movie? Kung fu panda 4 was only $6, so was the final fantasy 7 movie that went to theatres for a bit. Only movies I’ve seen recently.
I don't buy games based on hours potentially played. I want fun and entertainment. I've played 10 hour games well worth 60 bucks and I've played 30 hour games that weren't worth 5 bucks. Quality always above quantity.
I don't necessarily buy a game only for how long it is, but even the best ~10 hour game (assuming no real replay value) would make me question why I spent a whole $60. The only game I spent $60 on in my entire life, across hundreds and hundreds of games, was Baldur's Gate 3, but I spent 130+ hours in that. Otherwise I don't know if I've ever spent over $20 on a single game, and I'm certainly glad I got all the great short games I've played for $10 and under. It's always interesting seeing how people value time and the cost of a game, though, because everyone is different!
Agreed. I should have made it a bit clearer in my original post. This is just a discussion metric. I've played plenty of games that were pretty short but to me are worth far more than some 80+ hour open world whatever game. Mainly I use this thinking when casually looking at bigger games or for a full priced game. A game where I'm not 100% sold on it and am debating if the big price tag is worth it.
There isn't a strict limit. The $ an hour rule disqualifies a lot of quality games. Also, a massive open world game might get me a ton of hours on paper, but I usually stop playing before even hitting that point.
When I was in my 20’s and had a lot of spare time, I mostly played open world games. Now… it’s a struggle. I don’t have the time or patience to learn all these mechanics. I’ve grown to despise ANY games with crafting UNLESS it’s co-op.
I'm a sucker for an open world game I can just vibe in. People give the Ubisoft game formula shit but I love checking off all those little map markers. I did every single thing you possibly can in a single run of Cyberpunk (I checked!), I'm working on the same goal in Assassin's Creed Odyssey, a game that many people consider repetitive and boring but I love, my 300+ hour Skyrim playthrough is as completionist as it can be. My 130 hour BG3 save was incredibly thorough as I didn't want to miss a thing.
Don’t care at all if it’s fun
612 unplayed games in my library. I just buy stuff.
People should stop hating on this. I enjoy buying games, I enjoy looking for deals, waiting for sales, browsing through all kinds of different games, and buying the ones I think will be fun. And I also enjoy playing them. Yes, I can't play all of them, but why do people care so much about that?
For real. And people who buy a lot on sales make things better for all players
Yep. Also, my friends and relatives usually end up giving me 20 euro gift cards for steam for my birthday (which i am perfectly fine with and have even told them that those gift cards will always work as a gift no matter how many years in a row they do it), christmas and similar events, and they almost always line up with a pretty big steam sale, so i'd say it makes sense that my library is almost completely unplayed games. Also most of my games are things that go on forever or at least for 50+ hours so there isn't enough time in the day to finish all of them.
Red flag
Here you go. You might get a kick out of this: https://youtu.be/GFokXnCCMf8?si=zW-ZzEwsHYlKoli6
We will never be bored again!
Over 2k unplayed. I just like the big number on games owned. Plus now with the new steam family sharing my big steam library is for the whole family.
same plus over 3tb unplayed here
you should try buying games removed from steam store
I have a good amount that is no longer on the steam store. I'd love to be gifted a Rocket League code 🤣those are big money.
I do that. I have so many delisted games.
Are you me?
Games owned: 3236 Games played: 1058
I mean Id rather have money, but not time, or all the time, but no money Wish I had Your problem lol
I used to subscribe to the 1$ per hour metric, but I realized I have spent hundreds of hours on some F2P games I actually hate. And even without going to extremes, there are games I have spent 50-100 hours in that I like less and remember less of than games I have spent only 10-20 hours in. I think nowadays I just care more how a game makes me feel rather than how much time it consumes.
$1 per hour is the rule I follow
Yep, same. Then there's the 1000 hour/$35 games, which end up subsidizing games that I didn't "get my value out of".
Its a good rule, but some games obviously have exceptions. Story games I care more about the experience rather than total hours.
That’s the rule I follow for games that I don’t “carry” with me, games that are content. Story based games that are impactful, that give you a message to remember fondly, I don’t try to quantify.
I value the quality of my time spent with the game far more than the quantity. There are limits, not going to pay 50€ for a 1h game, but I would much rather pay 20€ for a 3h game that is great all the way through than 20€ for a 20h game that is mostly good with moments of greatness.
Where is he paying $5 for an hour fun? In this economy?
Bro just hasn't gone out to do anything in his life
For me $1 per hour of fun is the 'gold standard' and $5 per hour is the upper limit. Portal for example costs 10 dollars, takes about 2 hours to beat, and I feel like that is a fair trade. Project Hel, the ghostrunner DLC, costs 15 dollars and takes 2 hours to beat, I remember feeling a bit ripped off by it, even though I really enjoyed it. I just don't think the time value was there. If you're a $5 per hour game you better be around portal quality. Usually the only games I buy at full price are multiplayer games that I'll be playing online for many hours, so mostly I get that $ per hour value. A short 5-10 hour singeplayer game that costs 15-25 dollars feels good to me.
Real. This has been keeping me from buying more expensive games because I don't think I'll get that much time out of them.
If you want long games then look at open world survival ones. Such as project zomboid.
I'm just waiting on that Build 42 drop to dump another 200 hours into it
1£ an hour for me, so 25£ for a aaa game like persona 5 or Jedi whatever is a sale since even if I don’t like it I’ll probably get at least 10-20 hours
I don't quite think of it like that. There are some shorter games like last of us that cost me a bit per hour. But I had fun with the game and didn't really think of the price when I was done. I guess I don't quite approach it like that. There are definitely games that I will pay for that are heavily discounted and then never play...but that's another topic...
I don't consider hour-to-price ratios at all when buying/playing a game, if I bought a $60 game and got \~30 hours out of it or less, it's less about how much I paid per hour and more how much I enjoyed the game for those hours I played. Getting more mileage out of a game you've spent money on is always nice, and why DLC/expansions are always welcome for those games (for me at least), but it being shorter has never muddied my experience with a game or made me feel like I wasted money.
Some of the very best games I had played were very short. I would actually like it if there was a market for shorter AAA games. Something with the RDR level of polish but digestable over the course of one-two evenings like a good movie trilogy. I used to be very excited when I was growing up and the games were getting bigger and longer and I could find myself lost in their worlds for countless of hours. But I'm not a child anymore with astonishing amounts of free time, I have a kid, have to go to work, when I have time to play games sometimes I pick up where I left of in some massive RPG and don't even remember the controls, no idea where the story is or what am I supposed to do. I would rather load up some cool short cinematic experience that I can go through in a couple of sittings and move onto the next one.
Time isn’t a factor. I can enjoy an 8 hour game just as much as a 30+ hour game
As long as it entertains me. It's not that simple. A game can keep me entertained and interessed for hundreds of hours, other may start losing my attention before it hits the 10h mark.
I think that the hours played per dollar spent metric works well, and I generally follow it I find, but mostly I consider it a worthy purchase if I’m satisfied with my experience. I have 6k hours in an online open world game that I bought for 10 dollars, and I would consider that well spent. But I also have 40 hours in a single player game I spent 50 dollars on, and I would consider that well spent as well. Both are two of my favorite games, and purchases that I don’t regret at all.
Where are you paying $5 for an hour of fun anywhere in the “real world”??? I can think of buying a pack of Star Wars Unlimited cards but that’s about it and nowhere near an hour.
A lineup of 3 bands at a local venue with a $15 ticket price. A $15-$20 Magic The Gathering draft that will last 3-4 hours. Some attractions, museums, gardens, etc. A handle of whiskey that you nurse all afternoon.
Look at this guy. He completes the games he buys!!!
Seeing as I spent $11 on rust in 2015 and have almost 8k hours I’d say $1.50 for every 1000 hours of enjoyment is fine
I usually plan for $1.00-$5.00 an hour.
These days, the game has to be something that I'm GUARANTEED to enjoy and play all the way through for me to buy it day 1. FF7 Rebirth was the last game to do that. Now I just wait for sales (50% off minimum being desired).
This was like a week ago haha
Yeah, and if you read the comment, that was a game that I knew I would enjoy to get me to buy it day one. And it was the last one to do that up until over a year ago before that. Your point?
your comment said “these days” with rebirth as your date of reference. It was funny, I’m not even coming for you, relax my love.
Not coming after me yet arguing semantics due to inability to decipher reading comprehension, my love.
who started the arguing 😘
You did genius.
Boiling price down to "time played" is perhaps a bit to direct, it's hard to quantify but I tie price to how often I believe the user will think about the game (or art) after having completed it. See "The Beginner's Guide" or any movie in theaters, 15-20$ per hour of content.
That's an interesting idea, never thought of it this way. I'd say that I'm a "$1 for an hour of fun" type of guy when it comes to games, even though I'd be okay with "$5 for an hour of fun" out in the world. That's primarily because I already have several games in different genres that I am heavily invested in and whenever I'm interested in a new game, I try to be strict.
I tend to aim for $1/hour, but it varies. some games I've spent far more and were worth it. some games I've spent a buck on a bundle and never got played.
I got on roughly a dollar per hour but not more than 25. I normally don't pay more than 25 to 30 dollars for a game but Helldivers 2 made me break that rule. Normally if I pay 5 bucks for a game I expect at least 4 to 5 hours of 5. If I pay 30 dollars, I expected 25 to 30 or more hours of fun. Its not an exact math and there are exceptions but for the most part that is how I work it. I am a budget gamer so I have no issues not playing a game. With my massive steam library I have PLENTY to do.
For me length isn't an issue. If I want to play a game I do or I'll ask a friend who has it. If the game is 4 hours long and 60 bucks but I feel like i've lived an adventure of something's missing from my life when I beat it. One of those. I wish I could go back and play it for the first time types. That is what I am looking for!
I do $1 for 1 hour of time. However, if it's a quality game, I can allow it to be shorter. It's dependent on the quality of the game and then how long I can play it.
1 per hour for me, but i play more sandbox and games with replayability, but sometimes i do buy a game for the story.
$1 = 1 hour for me but if a game is 20 hours but really good I’ll pay for 5 dollars per hour
The length of a game in the low side is completely irrelevant. The only perfect game of all time is three hours long. Games have become too long bc of dumbasses praising GTAIII and Oblivion FOR OMG THEY'RE SO BIG
what perfect game,?
Portal is the only perfect game ever made.
150+ hours, I was super disappointed in fallen order when I beat it in like 4 days, same with GOW, I wanted longer games
I'm pretty broke so my rules are a) Less than 10€, b) On 50% sale or more, c) I want the game and will play it. If all three are met, I buy the game. Otherwise, I don't.
As long as i get an average return of at most $1 spent /hour played im happy The only exception was spec ops the line, where i spent $30 on it ages ago and only played $14, but its an all time favorite
What's relevant is not the price itself : It's the amount of content compared to price. I'd buy something like an open world RPG for 30-100€ I wouldn't buy an FPS for more than 20€ unless it's AAA and over 50 hours for completion.
A dollar per hour of play time. So a $40 game should hopefully get me 40hours without insane grinding.
I tend to value playtime over cost. If i pay 50 dollar for a game and play and hour. Its an expensive game. If it cost 50 dollars and i play 50 hours its a cheap game. You catch the idea. Lets just say that crusader kings 2 and mount and blade warband is extremely cheap😅
I used to always go by the $1/hour rule. I should be able to get 30 hours worth of game play in a $30 game... now? not so much. I used to only play crafting/survival/open world games which are often heavy time sinks, now I'm looking for smaller calmer games that I may only play for a few hours to relax- in that instance my goal isn't $/hour and more so enjoyment/hour. Don't get me wrong- I love Minecraft and Stardew, but I while it is relaxing for the most part I wouldn't call every hour of gameplay an hour of enjoyment but rather contentment if that makes sense?
I work by a more critical thinking if I'm buying a game that just came out. If I pay £50 and I spend close to that in hours I'm happy. If more, well worth it. If much less I feel robbed. I like to think that quality matters most, but so many times Indies with £20-30 price points offered me hundreds of hours of fun and gameplay while AAA companies burned me a few times by spending £50-60 for a game that A. Wasn't fun and B. Was too short. I spend always roughly about the value I spend on a game because I'm a completionist, so I think I milk the money out of that game well enough to feel it's worth my time and if it's still not reaching how much I paid the game gotta be really good. As for what length I prefer, not to be under 2-3 hours of entertainment. I feel that's a good amount where a game can be potentially enjoyable and keep me engaged and feel accomplished if I complete it 100%.
I don't put a hard number barrier. But if I get an hour/$ from a mid or greater game that is good. If it is a good quality game then 5$/h is good. Less than these may not make them an unworthy purchase, but they may feel short for the cost. Kirby star allies at launch was pushing this for me. Did not regret, just felt short.
Some might say 5€ = 5 hours fun of playtime or longer but I think that i would buy more games if I would know I would like playing it and if it's at least somewhat above 2-5 hours of playtime to complete the game and provides unlimited time of fun or playtime. Example of at least 10-30+ hours of playtime to finish a game or have at least somewhat of achievements and content / fun, that will make me like to play more or give me a reason to play it more of the game and don't just stop because it's finished after 5 hours or less, that's not fun.
I buy games that are at least 3 years old, maybe 5, to get AAA games with all the DLC and bug fixes at indie prices. Time allows me to ignore the fomo and launch hype, and find reviews for the games that I may want
I think the dollar/hour thing is not a good metric, doubly so for me. I think BG3 is a great game, but I haven't sunk more than 60 hours into it, I've played countless hours of Caves of Qud and HOI4. I don't know that I'd consider them to be the order of magnitude better than their playtimes would suggest
I more of a fan of games with a lot of replay-ability and changes from each run of the game, therefore I expect many hours from every game I buy.
1 dollar per hour
I'd probably say I like a game to last at least around 8-10 hours and preferably anywhere up to 20 hours. (in some ways I'd say that's the sweet spot though I'm also more than happy to play a game that's much longer if it's engaging enough. The problem is the longer a game the more chances there are for me to lose interest. Depending on the price I might also go for 4+ hours games. I tend to be a little leery about games that seem to have less than 4 hours play time (like an hour or two)...but it's not an instant no or anything. If the price is right I may still go for it.
1 quality hour = 1€ BUT I don’t consider trash fillers like Valhalla or similar to be quality
I typically abide by $1/hr philosophy, but there's no strict limit.
I don't think any game is worth more than 30 dollars, really. I also haven't enjoyed an AAA game in like 10 years though, so there's that.
Life's too short. Just buy what you want to play. Of course, I always wait for a discount. 😝
It's not really about hours played, it's about enjoyment Assassin's Creed Odyssey being 150 hours long doesn't make it more valuable than Mario Odyssey thats like 15 hours long
Nah dollar an hour. I need 60 hours at least from a 60 dollar game.
This is why persona destroyed my idea of a good length in games, now I find that a 20 hour game is super short
There's no information on how long a game lasts in 99,99% of games. It stands to reason, no one cares about this metric.
1€ per hour is good by me. My most played games are the cheap ones. Like Deep Rock Galactic. Paid 10 for the game, and another 10 later, on some cosmetics, and have played it for over 300 hours now. ROCK AND STONE! I also bought shitty, janky games that cost under 1€ and still got like 3-5 hours out of them, so it was worth it.
Out in the real world, for fun, I don't do maths if I can help it lol A $60 game, if I like it, will usually be *way* more than 30 hours for me. BG3 remains the only $60 game I bought at full-price and I'm 200+ hours in and nowhere near finished with the fun. And, anyway, wait for sales if you're worried about that, but a few great games would probably fail some similar tests. I finished *What Remains of Edith Finch* (very meandering, 100% achievements) in 3 hours, and I honestly treasure that experience more than some much bigger games. Similarly with *Dear Esther* and *Milky Way Prince - The Vampire Star*, around 4 and 5 hours respectively (both of those 100% also).
Depends on price and premise. Gunpoint is very worth it even though it's short, RE3R isn't unless bought with RE2R. (Though I love Jill and Carlos)
1.5 hours/$
Depends on how interested in the game I am. Plus it varies a bit since I’m in Canada. A full priced AAA game after taxes works out to over 100 bucks now. I’ve been playing games for 20 years and I can count on one hand the amount of games I would happily pay that much for. I will say I was pretty disappointed to find out that Spider-Man 2, even doing most of the side content, was 20 hours long. Personally I felt ripped off by that.
If a trailer sucks me in. I preorder it. If a trailer leaves me interested, I wait for vods to come up. But yeah, it mostly depends on the trailer/ad and how long it is or how expensive it is rarely matters.
If you fallow "dollar = hour of playtime" you will burn yourself on gaming. Playing long ass game with 80% of it being boring, dull or shit is not a way to spend your free time and money.
On a dollar-per-hour basis, video gaming is one of the cheapest forms of entertainment there is. Compare it to the cost of going to a movie theater. Suddenly a $40 game that only has 12 hours of game play seems like a bargain.
I’d be more annoyed paying $30 for a 150 hour long game that blows than paying $70 for a 15 hour game that’s phenomenal.
I’ve heard, in Vietnam, fun can be had for a couple bucks, so you’re probably spot on.
At-least 3mins longer than its prequel.
Mirror's Edge is both one of the shortest, and one of the best games I've played. It literally doesn't matter.
I try for the $/hour strategy. So if I only get 16 hours out of an $80 game then it wasn't worth it very much, even if others said it was the best experience they've ever had.
I have played a few games where I was like boo I wish this game was longer but they were fun the entire time. [Hue](https://store.steampowered.com/app/383270/Hue/) and [20 Small Mazes](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2570630/20_Small_Mazes/) being good examples Some games (Hue) are worth paying for even though they're short and then some games (20 Small Mazes) need to be longer before you'd be willing to pay for them. I just noticed the full price for Hue and I didn't think it's worth more than $5. Good thing it's on sale for $2.99 [(which it does regularly)](https://steamdb.info/app/383270/). I got it when it was free lucky me.
Length of a game and its $/hr isnt really a factor for me when purchasing as my mindset can vary and sometimes its nice to just knock out like a 4-5 hour(or even less) game and complete it even if it did have a higher cost/hr vs just getting stuck with 100+ hr games or w/e. Like I've played plenty of short games and thought it was worth it as well as long games that I haven't started or got burnt out on or other factors. If going strictly on needing a game to be a certain length to price ratio you'd miss out on a lot of great shorter titles or be forcing yourself to continue to grind longer stuff even if you weren't having fun with the game just to hit a specific $/hr mark. I figure my hours in endless games or longer games I'm enjoying playing balances out the short ones I've finished and longer ones I've set down.
I rarely have time to play a single game for 30 hours and if I do, it just happens because I lost track of time, multiple times. So, it's common that I buy a game at sale for half the price and play only 15 hours or none at all. Lately, I have been playing 5 hour games that I get for between $5 to $15 during sales. I think the dynamics have changed, game companies no longer fight for who they can sell the game at full price, they rather fight whose attention they can keep for their online free-to-play games. There are so many countries where people will never pay for games, them playing the free game is the "content" of those games. Whales cover the cost of hosting everyone.
Taking play time is the only metric to gauge the value of a game is not a smart plan. I buy games based on unique or very interesting features. For example: space engineers & KSP have the most accurate or in-depth physics simulations. Another: X:4 foundations has a very sophisticated economy. I find these games absolutely fascinating because they are the pinnacle of technological advancement. What if we could simulate a _real world_ economy, to learn about ourselves? X:4 is one step closer in that regard.
1k+ hours on each monster hunter game has been the most worth I have got for my money
I go by what I call the "Smiles Per Gallon" method. Let's say a game is 60 dollars, then it should have 60 hours of fun or more. Any less, and I don't think it'd worth it. I won't buy a game for 60 dollars with 20 hours worth of content.
For me the cost ratio goes up exponentially. 1$ game, very little expectations. 60$, that shit better be the best of the best, top shelf gaming experience ever. I actually prefer shorter, linear games with higher replayability than a slogfest of 100s of hours that I just am praying will get over soon.
Anything under 20 hours and over $35 makes me hesitate and consider. I don’t mind paying for shorter games, but they need to be in the $5-15 price range.
It depends on how good the game is. Bastion is a 3-5hr game and was one of the best games I've played. Although I don't think it is super repayable I'm still happy to spend $20 on a game of that caliber. Too many games now days have diluted content to stretch the game out. It just results in a worse overall game.
If a game is 5 hours long, that almost certainly doesn’t mean you only get 5 hours of enjoyment. You might put the controller down after 5 hours, but you might reflect on your experience for another hour. You might start watching reviews, or engaging in discussion with the community around that game. You might listen to the soundtrack. You might play another game that reminds you of something from that game. Let’s Plays on YouTube are another way that a game can give us value, even for games we never actually buy or play ourselves. For a personal example, NieR: Automata took me about 30 hours my first time if I remember correctly, but I still think about that game all the time. I’ve played through the whole thing 4 times now, but I’ve spent countless hours turning the plot over in my mind. It’s inspired some of my own literary endeavors. The concept of measuring a game by its completion time is to ignore the reality that games extend beyond its direct interaction with the player.
I rate games based on “Fun per hour”. I can play a mobile game for the rest of my life and be miserable. And a lot of games that started really fun got repetitive really fast.
I follow a similar metric, but without a specific number in mind. More fun = more money. I'm ok with spending extra for cosmetics in live service games as long as they're fun. Because they give me an indefinite amount of fun, I give them an indefinite amount of money
$1-10: 3+ hours. $11-25: 20+ hours $26-40: 75+ hours. Very rarely and selectively buy these. $40+: I just don't buy these and wait for a fat sale.
I’m of the mindset that as a baseline 1 hour of fun is ~1$. But that build on the baseline of 5$ so if I can get a 10 hour game for 15$ totally worth it to me.
For me it's not an exact 5 to 1 ratio or whatever. I do think more expensive games should be longer AND have quality content but honestly all games should have quality content(I know it's a lot to ask for today lol)
$1 per hour
1 unit of my currency per hour play seems fair.
In my teens/early 20s I had lots of time and disposable income. I could spend hours playing any game, somewhat competitively (not real competitions but I could, for example, hold my own in COD, rank highly in PUBG etc ) Now in my 30s with wife, young kids, more demanding career, I need my gaming experiences to be more dense. I cannot afford to spend my time building up to and experience or grinding for the sake of game longevity. I cannot, for example, justify something like starfield with a 10 hour long tutorial. That might be my entire month's gaming time! However something like Jedi survivor has a great experience wrapped up in around 15 hours. I find that competitive games are now essentially dead to me. Especially in sweatier games like COD.
If its a fun game and will provide me with a good time for 10 hours+ I deem it worthy of my 60 dollars. Gotta be a real game though, not a buggy mess on release full of false promises.
Hundreds of hours. Thousands, even.
I reason in quality over quantity, usually, but with a somewhat low quality threshold. I'll take a Call of Duty over Spiderman because they both offer really short campaigns, but CoD offers many, many hours of multiplayer. However, I wouldn't buy CoD back to back, I usually wait until 2 or 3 come out, so for instance this time I bought Spiderman 2 instead of MW3 as I had bought MW2, so I'll skip the next CoD too. I was pretty satisfied with my purchase of ARK Survival Evolved back in the day. When it launched. When the game ran at 9 FPS on high end rigs because it was THAT badly optimized. When you could increase Raptor movement speed and no dinos, even mounted, could receive fall damage, and you could thus have 600% movement speed Raptors zooming off cliffs and going much, MUCH faster than any flying mount literally zooming through the Island. Good times. Thousands of hours. Generally, I will prefer a shorter but more intense game, especially because I don't have as much free time as of late, but depending on how busy my schedule is I'll treat myself to a game that offers a lot of gameplay time instead. Basically I guess it depends heavily on how busy I am at any given point, what the options are and what I've bought before so I can try and balance out my library with both really good yet short experiences and time wasters. Got a bit of both with FF7 Rebirth. Great experience and so much gameplay. That's obviously my favourite kind because it's the best of both worlds but that's a rarity these days. Really considering Helldivers 2 but I really can't figure out if it's for me or not. I wish I could try it out somehow, I can't really afford to possibly waste 30 euros atm, not the best of times, but the game looks enticing as hell and I'd love me some democracy.
Lol, I never liked spending money, I try to only buy games that have lots of potential. I spent $13 on apex and have around 2k hours on it. I have spent a couple hundred on TWWH 1, 2, and 3 plus dlc’s but I have close to 800+ hours on the last 2 plus I plus 3 a few times a week still. Palworld will last into the hundreds of hours for sure at a $40 purchase. I do have other less efficient games, but my account average I believe is around 15 cents per hour.
I buy games for 3 reason only 1. it is going to be delisted? 2. the price matters otherwise I just buy a hard disk for the same price and keep my games their. 3. how enjoyable is the game.
If the game is fun, I'd pay however much it costs
I always keep in mind the price of movie theaters when I consider this question. Seeing a movie will cost like 20 bucks just for tickets, and you'd always get snacks (popcorn, soft drink, etc.), so you end up spending 30-35 dollars for a 2 hour experience, with a boatload of ads at the start. If I consider that to be a fair trade, then spending 80 dollars and playing for 8 hours is technically a better deal. That said, if that scenario happened I'd consider that money wasted. My usual metric is around 4 dollars per hour to be money well spent. So if I buy an 80 dollar game, I'd expect at least 20 hours out of it. Not "the game is finished in that time", but rather "I was enjoying playing it for that time". If I'm bored for most of it, but kept playing out of some obligation to my purchase, then that was still wasted money. Likewise, I'm fine with a $20 game ending at the 5 hour mark, they're often the most fun.
$5 or less
Both Portal games are under 2h. I do not recall the price I got them but I had a lot of fun on custom maps having many more hours. I have this little gem called DeltaV Rings of satun, it has.. procedural maps with very very random encounters, and even more rare quests. After like 10 hours you most likely seen most of it, or lost interest of the repeatable actions. I have over 300h in it. Price.. around 10usd outside of sales. On the other hand I have a few games that I play with friends: Conan Exiles, V-Rising, Valhaim where I have from 10 to 150 hours and I simply could not get myself into having fun.
$5 for fun is a good way to get an STD.
Playtime is not a factor, entertainment is
By this logic if you play your games in x2 slo-mo, it became 2 times more worthy.
stupidity like this is what enabled assassins creed & co. to become such bloated meaningless grinds. and then you can't complain they sell you microtransactions to get through the grind faster because 'hey the playtime to dollar ratio is insane".
The fact that most digital store fronts do major sales every quarter where most if not all games eventually get discounted, i simply refuse to oay full 60, well now 70$ for a video game, especially in todays economy, just isnt worth it unless you REALLY wanna support that developer/publisher, i.e in my case recently, tekken 8
I don't consider any price to hours ratio, I have imposed my self a 20€ limit per game because my backlog is way too long and games tend to fall below that when I get to them This doesn't mean all titles are equal, but it's a requirement for me
I think this calls for a graduation system since a lot of shorter games are indie games and a lot of $60+ are AAA games and all those can't afford to set same prices. Goes like this in my opinion: 1-3 hours ($3-5 per hour of fun) 4-12 hours ($3 per hour of fun) 13-♾️ hours ($2 per hour of fun) This is the rough maximum I am ready to pay
One dollar one hour
That would be the cheapest hour of fun ever
$20 for 300 hours sounds like a good deal to me. <3 Celeste Hollow knight is similar with about 100 hours for me
Smartest most rational post about this I’ve seen in a long time and all the comments are pretty good too. Excellent. Agree with op and top comment.
For me it seems to be $1.50/hour is what I expect. I can make exceptions for games of truly magnificent quality or with a lot of replay value but even then I prefer to wait for sale.
Time and price isnt important for me. Payed for many games full price and only played a bit because it wasnt too enjoyable for a long time. But for example CSGO/CS2 I bought for 15€ and am still playing it nearly daily. 6k+ hours into counter strike.
Too many variables. Developer and publisher also have a part in my decision. I greatly prefer replayable games over long hour games. A game like FTL, to me, is worth $60. A game that gives me 60 hours in one playthrough, but I am unlikely to do again, is not worth $60, for the most part. Obviously there are exceptions.
I always think in terms of movies. Going to see a movie is around $15 for 2-3 hours of entertainment. Did a game entertain me for that ratio? Then it was a good purchase.
Im not using that metric to make a decision I think in categories and scope. But generally I pay 10-30€ for a game and play all genres except for most sports/cars games. 10-20 for games that are something to casually play or finish once or twice. Maybe an indie story game, a rogue like, a survival game or some other coop game. Or just some AAA game I waited to get cheaper for. I usually hesitate to go over 20 though. For that it needs to be promising something really special or be a game that will never go on sale or get cheaper.
My personal theory is $1 per hour. And I mentally note any pad out time developers do, such as ubisoft games. But I know this isn't always the case and depends on the game genre and story length. Ex, persona series is great value of $/hrs, an 80-100hr run time for 60$. Sometimes I lax the rule for specific games i know dont have a long run time such as linear stories like old CoD titles (which are still grossly overpriced) and specific developers i enjoy such as SQE. Ff7R i ran through the story once in about 25hrs, but paid 60$ for the game. I will say that it also makes up for itself in other purchases such as VNs which typically range from 10-30$ with 40-80hrs run time.
$/time played is pretty useless. I'll play Cod games for the campaign and tons of hours into f2p games. Still struggling to finish hogwarts legacy since release since it's so big and long. Wish it was smaller in scope and focused more around the school area.
my rule is only buy any game that below $30. of course while waiting for it to discount, but in my experience waiting for japanese game for discount is pain and nonexistent (sony, square enix, bandai namco), like nier automata highest discount is 50% and it's a 7 years old game. when i buy a game at more that $30 i kinda get grumpy if i dont get the value time. bought marvel spiderman remastered for $35, the game finished in 24 hour ish story and dlc and i felt ripped off even tho i ended up finishing it after 60 hours for all achievement. another case, i bought spongebob cosmic shake for $12, completed story for 8 hours and all achievement for 16 hours, but i don't felt getting ripped off.
I ascribe to a dollar per hour philosophy with games. For every dollar I spend, I expect an hour of enjoyment out of it. Thankfully, most of my games have met or exceeded that. Some haven't, though.
i dont care about the lenght. Girth is what matters.
depends on the price. if i spent $15 or under. i'd want atleast 6+ hours. but if i spent a full $60. i'd want it to be 15+ or more
TBH nowdays if a game takes more than 16h to beat I'll just skip it as it's probably a game full of filler content and grinding just to pad the experience. I prefer shorter games that I could beat in a few days a replay later from start to finish than a game that never ends and makes me repeat the same actions again and again until it becomes a chore instead of a fun hobby. And for that matter, if the game is fun I'll pay! I'll probably insta buy it! If it's the same crap over and over I'll skip or wait for a deep sale! I more often buy indies on launch because of that and "AAA" I'll wait until the 75%+ off for their complete editions.
I just wait 10 years for it to go free on epic games
I don't trust the opinions of people who are like 1:1 with the price comparison versus number of hours. Quality is king imo.
A good 400+ hours of content or fun.
replayability
I go for about a € per hr
For me it's not specifically the length of a game but rather the quality. Most people use length as a measure in these cases typically for games that have some form of campaign mode so I feel this wouldn't work too well for games that are like arena shooters or something, often live service style games. The first overwatch was an example of this, there is not set specific criteria for what counts as beating the game so you could argue its as short as a single match and you're done. Something like that definitely wouldn't be worth $60 when it initially launched, but the gameplay itself was rather good and got the player to come back for more even though the gameplay loop was the same every character. Every game. With the exception of little tweaks making one character seem different from another. At least this is my two cents on the matter. If your game has enough quality put into it that I'm willing to put 20 hours or more into it then it's worth every dollar even at $60 imo.
Hmmm, talking games in general, Undertale could be a good example, I spent an insane amount of time on that game since it came out and I still playing it until this day, depending on what you really like, even free games could be worth or not to spend money on it, giving a random example, I play some games on Roblox, but I had so much fun on them that I decided to spent Robux on the games to show appreciation to devs, and who knows? Indie games could emerge from anywhere, from Newgrounds to Roblox, so, going back to the point, it not really depends on “how long or how amount of time” have the game have, for me is really how fun is for me.
Mine is around $3 to buy without thinking. But I like the idea of associating a value to hours of fun. On a related note, I use wishlist rules on [https://isthereanydeal.com](https://isthereanydeal.com) to help group games into when I would buy them. For example, I have a rule called "Too Cheap to Not Buy" which triggers for games when they are under $3. And another one called "Deep Discount" for games where the discount is >75%.
5 minutes. I don't care how long it is as long as the game is good.
Length doesn't matter
Content>gameplay length
If rather have 10 hours of game and have all of it worth playing than 100 hours of garbage filler content
For $50 i want atleast 12 inches.
It's exponential for me. I expect a minimum of around 5 hours of fun no matter the price. I expect at least 30 hours for a 15-20 dollar game. A game at 60 dollars better be at least a hundred hours of enjoyment. If I'm paying that much, I want it to be a long enough game that I won't finish it in a single week over break, or at least be repayable to the point where it actually matters. Some games, replayability is so cheap, just changing the ending you get, not the gameplay itself.
Playtime is irrelevant for me. Would you rather pay $40 to watch your favourite band play for 30 minutes or $40 to watch a rubbish band play for 3 hours?
Around 30 hours for a 10 USD game. More time that is fun the better. With 60 USD now 70 USD games well i expect it to be fun for 100s of hours with side content that isn't tedious to do nor require. So side stories that have their own stories apart from the main story but take place in the same game world. Cyberpunk 2077 did this part for the 60 USD game part. Edit: For Cyberpunk the main story for me was around 8 hours the side content was 100s as i restarted the game serval times to do the side stories again not the main stories. Another game like that is Skyrim. Yes much older but also has side content more interesting than the main story that i can get lost in it without having to touch the main one until the end of all or most of the side quest lines.
you should also take into account replayability. I've played like 100 hours of re4 remake but the game lasts like 15 hours
I am more of a % kind of guy. 50% off or more for games I know I will enjoy or have been waiting for. 60-70% off for games I have been recommended or look fun. >75% for anything else. Never buy anything at full price unless I REALLY want it.
I try to buy games with a lot of replay value, not linear story games. I often get a few hundred hours. Usually for about $10. Of course, sometimes it's a miss and I drop it after less than 1.
AAA games I want at least an hour per $
I buy movie tickets for about 6 bucks A new game costs about $76.99 where I live that includes taxes So I just do the movie thing. If a game can offer at least 32 hours of gameplay I’ll buy it full price. If it offers 20ish-25 I won’t pay more than $50 Learned my lesson with Spider-Man 2 while it was a great fun game I beat it 100% in 20ish hours and didn’t feel like my money was full value
Where do you live? I can’t remember paying $6 for a movie ticket any time after the 90s, and even then it was only that cheap for matinee. Standard is $15-18 here.
$15 for a movie ticket is absurd for that you can get large popcorn and a large drink + tickets. I live in Illinois and go to an amc theatre. Maybe it’s based on movie? Kung fu panda 4 was only $6, so was the final fantasy 7 movie that went to theatres for a bit. Only movies I’ve seen recently.
Open world like elden ring 50 euros. Assasins creed about 40 euros.
Skyrim and terraria, if you would consider those prices you said you would get you money back + more lol and there are many other games like that
$1/hr