{"id":687,"date":"2006-09-16T02:24:18","date_gmt":"2006-09-16T06:24:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/2006\/09\/16\/cost\/"},"modified":"2006-09-16T02:30:01","modified_gmt":"2006-09-16T06:30:01","slug":"cost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/2006\/09\/16\/cost\/","title":{"rendered":"Cost"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Lots of my friends complain about \u201cmonthly fee\u201d games, so Jonathan\u2019s reaction to paying $14.99 a month for World of Warcraft is pretty consistent with most gamers I know.  Yet one by one they put down their FPS gun sites and slowly migrate to WoW.  Here\u2019s my simple analysis of the cost issue.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve puchased two or three games since World of Warcraft was released.  Civilization IV and Out of the Park Baseball cost me roughly $49 and $29, so $78 total over a year.  I generally purchase WoW in six month chunks because it\u2019s cheaper, but let\u2019s say I pay the full $15 a month.  That\u2019s $180 for a year.  The first year it\u2019s minus $15 since the first month their is no fee.  I paid $49 for WoW, so that\u2019s $214 a year for one game.  Grand total for my gaming expenditures this year was $292.<\/p>\n<p>The total is MUCH less than what I normally spent on games prior to WoW\u2019s release.  Let\u2019s look at a slow year.  Throw in a Madden, Galactic Civilizations, Football Manager, some random space game, a FPS to try out and quickly get bored with, and what is the total cost?  If we assume a $45 price for each game, that\u2019s $225 just for five titles.  Since console games are more expensive than PC titles, it would be even more expensive.  Note \u2013 since my wife reads this blog I will only publically admit to purchasing five games a year.  These are, shall we say, conservative estimates.<\/p>\n<p>Is the extra $70 for WoW worth it?  I don\u2019t watch TV much during prime time anymore.  I Tivo everything with my DVR and watch what I want when I can fit it in.  I\u2019ve never played a game so much for so long a period of time.  For my online baseball games I may spend an hour or so looking over rosters on occasion.  I do spend time three days a week running a baseball sim for an hour or so.  Otherwise, I am playing WoW.<\/p>\n<p>So I think I am getting much more out of my gaming dollar today.  There\u2019s really no comparison.\u00a0 When you enter the WoW-universe, gaming habits change.\u00a0 People think they will play WoW plus buy a bunch of other games, but you won\u2019t.\u00a0 There simply aren\u2019t enough hours in the day.<\/p>\n<div class=\"addtoany_share_save_container addtoany_content_bottom\"><div class=\"a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_ addtoany_list a2a_target\" id=\"wpa2a_1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.addtoany.com\/share\" onclick=\"__gaTracker('send', 'event', 'outbound-article', 'https:\/\/www.addtoany.com\/share', '');\" class=\"a2a_dd addtoany_share_save\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-content\/plugins\/add-to-any\/share_save_171_16.png\" width=\"171\" height=\"16\" alt=\"Share\"\/><\/a>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\nif(wpa2a)wpa2a.script_load();\n\/\/--><\/script>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lots of my friends complain about \u201cmonthly fee\u201d games, so Jonathan\u2019s reaction to paying $14.99 a month for World of Warcraft is pretty consistent with most gamers I know. Yet one by one they put down their FPS gun sites and slowly migrate to WoW. Here\u2019s my simple analysis of the cost issue. I\u2019ve puchased &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/2006\/09\/16\/cost\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Cost<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"addtoany_share_save_container addtoany_content_bottom\"><div class=\"a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_ addtoany_list a2a_target\" id=\"wpa2a_2\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.addtoany.com\/share\" onclick=\"__gaTracker('send', 'event', 'outbound-article', 'https:\/\/www.addtoany.com\/share', '');\" class=\"a2a_dd addtoany_share_save\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-content\/plugins\/add-to-any\/share_save_171_16.png\" width=\"171\" height=\"16\" alt=\"Share\"\/><\/a><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}