Poll: Is playing video games a poor mans hobby ?

[Nalgas D. Lemur]

Steame DEALS . Not steam as a whole . Buy a game at full price counts , buy a game for 2$ doesn't count , thats what a deal is.

Yes. That is what a deal is, and that's exactly why I pretty much only ever buy things during them. Something like 90% of the money I've spent on games in the past few years (not 90% of games I've bought, but 90% of the actual dollar amount) has been during Steam sales. Possibly a larger amount than that. The last time I did the math, the average price I'd paid per game had dropped below $6, and I know it's gone down even further since then. If you're discounting sales on Steam and other similarly ridiculous bargains, that eliminates nearly my entire purchase history from the past few years, which includes dozens of games.

 

[archaicmalevolence]

I'd say maybe $100-$200 average nowadays on games, though I guess it could be much higher on certain years like this one perhaps. But I won't spend above $500 in a year on games. I only earn about $5000 a year as it is; working part-time, for only about 6hrs a week.

 

[SilentCom]

Well I'm poor and gaming is a hobby of mine...

Seriously though, not just poor people play video games.

 

[Danceofmasks]

*Sigh*

Ok, it's possible to PC game as a hobby for nothing. Zero.

'cos say you're going to college or you have a PC for the internet or whatever, you can still play games.
There are hundreds of games for free.

Admittedly, a lot of them are sub-par flash games, but then there is a lot of awesome as well.
Team Fortress 2. League of Legends. Quake live.
Dozens of MMOs if you're into that sort of thing.
Hell, I still play Puzzle Pirates (they just put it on steam recently, too).

Some older games were released as freeware.
Betrayal at Krondor and Mechwarrior 4 comes to mind. There are more, I just don't remember.

Also, check this site out.
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-pc-games.htm

Ok, gaming may put a dent in your wallet if you give a damn about what marketing tells you, but marketing costs money that is paid for by your purchases.

 

[endplanets]

Gaming can be really expensive or dirt cheap.

You can just play Free to Play and get TF2, Dungeon Fighter Online and others and never pay a cent. Add free flash games to the mix too.

You can buy old systems and used games. I have a PS3 and guy lots of old PS2 games dirt cheap. And you can also get cheap Download games of Xbox Arcade (Buy "Streets of Fury" for 3$ that game is great) and PSN.

Or you can go all out and spend thousands on new games, fancy controllers, all 5 bullshit DLC for COD and peripherals. And if you have a PC you can spend 5 Grand on just a few computer parts.

I am more the second group. Few new games, but lots of old ones.

 

[Uncle_Brainhorn]

With my budget, I allow myself $100 a month to spend on what the hell ever. Some months, I spend all $100 on games. Some months I buy no games.

This year I'm buying at least two games a month from September to November.

So it's hard for me to pin down what I spend.

If it matters, I prefer to buy new games to support developers.

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

Hm. I've been buying/playing/liking video and computer games for thirty years and counting now. I think they're splendid fun, and I do enjoy a couple of gaming weekends every year. We just did an orchestrated coop run on Dead Island, and I believe we've easily seen everything over the course of two weekends.

Compared to kite surfing, boar hunting or parachuting, playing games should be a comparably cheap pastime.

But I do believe some folks manage to overdo it. Some guys I know always have the latest titles for every console there is. Some even preorder for the next, what, six months or so. It is always these poor fellas that don't have enough money for holidays, proper food, that new car they need or whatever it is they should get instead of all those games, really. Some of them are actually rather big earners, but still they don't manage to put anything aside. Too much money? Taxes not due for another six months? Easy, get a 3DS!

Incidentally, it's also only these guys that keep every single game, no matter how useless and crap it is. With all their different characters and lifestyles, they're basically hoarders when it comes to games. Even if they had no jobs, they'd need a couple of lifetimes to play through all the games they've amassed. When I am not careful enough and I end up owning a crap game, and I find out while i play, I usually stop playing immediately and I have the game disc burned/run over/cursed/disintegrated/blown up. These folks are either OC'ing on their gaming or they have insane amounts of optimism, hoping it will get better (which, of course, it never will)...

Oh, and about half of them suck terribly at any team-based or strategical online gaming. One got sucked into our WC3/SC2 vortex and ordered himself Starcraft 2. So we all went to his place when his parcel arrived. We set everything up, and he insisted he'd play against the best SC2 player available. Needless to say, he lost terribly (humiliating zergling rush) and that was his one and only game of SC2 he ever played. We still got drunk and had a splendid time, but mentioning Starcraft 2 now just feels wrong around the guy.