What is your ideal dollar to gameplay-hour ratio?

[Mr. Mike]

I don't care about the $/hr ratio on the games I play. I mean, if I pay full-price for a 5 hour game that is one of the most emotional, thought-provoking and inspiring games I've ever played and I come out of it thinking, "Man, I feel moved," then I'm not going to mind how much it cost me for the experience.

That said, I generally play the games I DO buy to death anyways; I'm a completionist unless I've been lucky and am bombarded with a glut of games.

 

[Frybird]

I think a dollar to gameplay-hour ratio is the worst way to rate a game. (Yes, worse than judging a game by it's cover)

I'd gladly pay full-price for a 10 hour game, but i'd still buy it if its less and still great (or has replay value). And on the other side, i'd rather steer away from a good 40 hour RPG if it bores me for 10 hours with fetch quests and mindless grinding.

 

[Rhayn]

Well, let's take a look on my Xfire list of played hours.

Fallout 3. 300 hours. 50 euros. That makes 16 cents per hour.
Dragon Age: Origins. 300 hours. 50 euros. 16 cents/hour.
Mass Effect 2. 210 hours, 55 euros. 26 cents/hour. I still play this game.
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. 150 hours. 5 euros. 3 cents/hour.

The list goes on. Most of them land under or around 1 euro/hour, apart from a few.

Resident Evil 5. 9 hours, 40 euros. 4.5 euros/hour.
Batman: Arkham Asylum: 8 hours, 50 euros. 6.25 euros/hour.

I regret buying those two games. They weren't bad games, well at least Batman wasn't, but a poor financial choice. I mostly buy games I know I can get a ratio around at least 1. As of late though I've bought a lot of older games that I got from bargain bins or Steam deals, not to mention I make very few impulse buys. I research a lot before I make a descision to buy a fully priced game.

And, as you could see, most my games that I enjoy are the hundred-hour RPGs.

TL;DR: 1 euro/hour is what I myself find ideal.

 

[scar-x-]

I'm a $3 per hour kind of guy.
That comes to about 20 hours for a $60 game for those of you who suck at math.

 

[Romblen]

I like finding games that are less than $1 per hour of game play. For the most part I succeed. I payed $5 for Day of Defeat Source and I have 177 hours of game time. I buy most of my games through sales on steam, so getting this is not uncommon.

 

[Amnestic]

While I don't know the exact translation into Dollars because I'm a cocky American who doesn't pay attention to the rest of the world( ), that's probably similar to what my Oblivion amount is. I've spent 1047 hours in Oblivion and I paid $30 for it. Hah. It's 2am and I just finished studying for an exam, so I'm not doing the Math now, lol.

Googles could convert it for you if you really wanted to know, but £30 is about $44.

As for your Oblivion, you're looking at just under 3 cents per hour, which is under 2p/hour in English monies.

 

[Fusionxl]

EVE Online is practically free, once you reach a certain level of self-sustainability ( assuming you don't mine in high sec or do shite missions ) you can buy Pilot Licence Extension ( PLEX ) cards that are basically ingame game time cards, except you get them from other players who bought them at certain sites for real money.

Yes, it's technically buying game money with real money, but it only works one way and even the RL poor people can toy around with internet spaceships. I haven't paid any subscription fees in real money in over 2 years and the PLEX cards really aren't all that expensive for veterans.

 

[squid5580]

I never consider it honestly. If the game was fun at the end of the day then I got my 60 bucks worth. If not then I didn't. 5-6 Bucks an hour does seem fair though. Since I would be paying about 10 for an hour and a half if I went to see a movie.

 

[darth jacen]

Ideally 1 to 1 just as far as a value standard is concerned but I really don't mind, as long as the game is good enough for the playthrough (which let's assume that any game worth getting has one play through of at least 8-10 hours) then you always get at least about 6-9$/hour which is fine by me.

 

[Scythax]

Well considering I've been playing Oblivion since it first came out and still am, at a rough rate of about 20hours/dollar, that's my bar. Never played Fallout 3 but that's just about the only game that could come close to topping that.

To me, a 20-30 hour long game is good, in a single play through, including all the running around and exploring/experimenting for the first time stuff.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Well, when I think about Fallout 3 and Oblivion... over three hundred hours on each.

16 cent per hour.

That's value.

 

[Eleuthera]

Ideally $1/hour or less. Anything more than that and I'll probably feel ripped off.

 

[SimuLord]

Allow me to point out that not only do sandbox RPGs (like Bethesda's body of work) do swimmingly on the hours-to-dollars ratio but also any game with an open-ended, infinitely replayable nature (city-builders, tycoon games, games like The Sims) have astounding value potential. I've lost count of the number of cities and trade empires I've built with a small stable of those sorts of games over the years.

 

[omega 616]

While I don't know the exact translation into Dollars because I'm a cocky American

1 dollar = 1 dollar. The OP posted in Dollars, it's us English that have to convert the cash.

you could use www.xe.com to covert it for you.

I was happy with PS2 prices but as technology goes up so does the prices, so I guess there about right now, with the exception of MW2 obviously.

So £40 for 10 - 15 hour game, seems good to me, might sound alot but a dvd costs about £20 and the average DVD is about 90 mins.

 

[weker]

i think this is wrong i think all games should be around £2.5 a hour and max £1 per hour. any game which isnt min i will not buy till it hits that sadly brutal legend was one of these

 

[Agayek]

I would consider anywhere in the range of $5-10 (though obviously lower is better) for a single hour of entertainment to be acceptable.

I am perfectly fine with paying $60 for a standard 10ish hour game. If the game happens to have multiplayer or some other form of replayability, I'm ever happier.

 

[Milney]

1:1. Nothing more, nothing less.

No I don't expect them to make a game with a 50-hour campaign, but I do expect developers to do more than simply slap together a ~8hour story-line. Be it multiplayer, co-op, special modes or simply an enthralling game that makes me want to replay it, I expect developers to make me want to play thier game rather than shelving it.

 

[Spectrum_Prez]

I would say around 50cents per hour. If a game costs $60, it better give me around 120 hours of gametime. Either high single-player re-playability or good multiplayer, either one is fine.