Most Expensive Gaming Habit

[POS Industries]

Originally Posted by Ecurt

You're right about one thing: Buying a console and its multiple games is more expensive than paying for the subscription of one MMO. At the same time though, it's more expensive still to get what is considered to be a top of the line gaming computer, which constantly needs to be upgraded. The Commando Quad SLI for instance is $4110.

Top of the line is for the rich and ignorant. Mine's a $500, bottom-of-the-line Dell, and it runs WoW just fine. Maybe not amazingly, but it gets the job done.

[Noodlesis]

Originally Posted by krylo

Inspired by Ecurt, I'm gonna have to go with MMORPGs.

Ok, so you're paying like, thirty bucks for the game itself, right? Then you're paying about fifteen dollars a month, so in one year that's $180 in subscription fees. However, I'm not done yet.

Now, let's say you play for an average of twelve hours a day (don't lie, you WoW addicts, I KNOW how you are, this is going light on you), that's costing you roughly $380 a year on your power bill.

We're now up to $560 a year, plus the one time cost of thirty bucks, to bring it to five hundred and ninety dollars. And that's just your immediate monetary costs.

There's a whole lot of other costs, emotional, social, physical, and job related that come from a MMORPG addiction. People don't get enough sleep, let their health deteriorate, have less time for other people (less sex!), let relationships fall apart, buy money off the internet, lose out on performance reviews at work due to not getting enough sleep, etc. etc.

Honestly, given the overall loss, not JUST in money (though that's damn substantial too), nothing else even comes close.

Not to mention all of the pop, chips, and other munchies you have to buy. That, or move the fridge to your computer. Or get a laptop.

[Krylo]

Originally Posted by POS Industries

I'm going to have to say that, in many cases, the power bill from a MMO is a moot point. Nowadays, computers tend to be on much of the day as it is, and therefore using said computer to play WoW over, say, doing your taxes or looking at porn isn't going to make a bit of difference cost-wise.

Secondly, if you're playing like a coke-fiend, then you're probably making enough in-game money from your questing/grinding/etcetera that the need to pay real money to buy fake money isn't really going to be there, otherwise you wouldn't be playing so damn much to get the money that you need for epic mounts, gear, and other such things. Power-levellers and gold farmers typically make their money off the more casual gamers who, for whatever reason, just can't allow themselves to "fall behind" because they don't have the time to put into the game, in which case it's money spent on the absence of an addiction rather than to feed it. Of course, it could also be argued that these are addicts with less free time and an inability to just not play the game.

This entire paragraph is mostly wrong. It's the addicts who buy it because the casual gamers aren't stupid enough to buy fake money with real money. It takes an addicted point of view. And yes, you can play all day and still not have enough money to buy those purples, or epic mounts, or whatever the hell else people buy. At least not fast enough for these people.

As for the time you spend playing taking a toll on your life as a whole, that goes for any game. You all know you've spent at least one night of your life playing a game, any game, from dusk till dawn and probably into the mid-afternoon. The only reason that it's so much more noticeable with a MMO is that the game never ends.

Exactly. I may have played DQVIII all night once or twice, but then it was over and I was back to playing casually. With an MMORPG you're NEVER done, it NEVER goes back to casual once you're addicted. It only gets worse as time goes on. Losing two days to a game and then waiting a few months acting like a normal human being before losing another two days, as opposed to spending every damn day like that? Yeah, BIG difference.

But if you're losing your job and family over a game, regardless of what sort of game it is, I do believe that it's more evident of a larger problem.

I agree, however, the only games with documented cases are MMORPGs. And yes, there are documented cases. Like that Korean guy who played until it killed him. Literally. Normal video games can not reach such heights of addiction because they will end before such heights CAN be reached. And your table top and CCGs? Again, you can't reach heights of addiction that ridiculous, but this time because you need to be able to organize a social event around it.

Now, while I agree that that is a rather extreme case, you don't have to be 'extreme' to be addicted. I'll point you here: http://www.nickyee.com/hub/addiction/mapping.html Look at the charts. Look and be warned.

Further, it's very easy to let a game, regardless of what it is, affect your social life and job without realizing it. I never did say 'losing', simply affecting it in a detrimental manner. If you're staying up playing WoW or whatever until 2 am every morning, then yes, you ARE going to suffer on your performance reviews at work due to a lack of sleep, and yes you ARE going to miss out on promotions and raises. You probably won't be fired, but you're still missing out. The same goes for your social life (I also never said losing family), wherein you can easily end up putting extra stress on relationships with your SO due to spending more time playing a game than spending time with him/her.

However, if we're going to villainize WoW

I only mentioned WoW, what, once? And that's only because it's the biggest and most famous. I mean, I could have used Guild Wars or Gunbound or RO, but there's not as big a following for them.

A hardcore, overly addicted console gamer would pay far more money throughout a one-year span than a similarly pathetic MMO player, and the consequences of any game addiction would be equal.

Except the consequences aren't equal because you can't reach the same heights of addiction with something that is over in 200 hours of play.

To summarize, if Time = Money, then MMO players are among the least screwed.

Keep lying to yourself if you like. Just remember that admittance is the first step to recovery.

[Demetrius]

Drinking games... Think about it, alcohol is expensive, especially the massive amounts you need for a good game, then there are the medical bills, failed kidneys and hours you just lose. I spend about $100 a weekend just at my house and about $100 everytime I hit the bars, you can't play pool without a brew! So yeah all externalities included drinking games FTW.

[POS Industries]

Originally Posted by krylo

This entire paragraph is mostly wrong. It's the addicts who buy it because the casual gamers aren't stupid enough to buy fake money with real money. It takes an addicted point of view. And yes, you can play all day and still not have enough money to buy those purples, or epic mounts, or whatever the hell else people buy. At least not fast enough for these people.

Forgive me for debating the issue with myself there. I like looking at more than one point of view. I believe the propagandistic term for that is "flip-flopper", but I prefer "reasonable and objective". Since I came to about that same conclusion at the end, anyway, I'm just going to thank you for seeing my point and agreeing with me. Let's move on.

Exactly. I may have played DQVIII all night once or twice, but then it was over and I was back to playing casually. With an MMORPG you're NEVER done, it NEVER goes back to casual once you're addicted. It only gets worse as time goes on. Losing two days to a game and then waiting a few months acting like a normal human being before losing another two days, as opposed to spending every damn day like that? Yeah, BIG difference.

...

Except the consequences aren't equal because you can't reach the same heights of addiction with something that is over in 200 hours of play.

Yeah, but with a console gaming addict, you don't have just that one game. You spend two days straight beating one game only to move on to the next, which is another, what, sixty bucks? The addiction is still there, but with an MMO it's typically just confined to the one game, and a $15 monthly fee is way less costly than constant consumption of new games, or even rental costs to fill the need.

Now, while I agree that that is a rather extreme case, you don't have to be 'extreme' to be addicted. I'll point you here: http://www.nickyee.com/hub/addiction/mapping.html Look at the charts. Look and be warned.

Right back at ya:

Originally Posted by Understanding MMORPG Addiction

In the same way that one could be a social drinker and not be addicted to alcohol, it is clearly the same with MMORPGs. Just because someone plays an MMORPG does not necessarily mean that they will become addicted to it. And in the same way that people can be addicted to alcohol even though not everyone who drinks is addicted, it is clear that certain individuals can be addicted to MMORPGs even though not all MMORPG players are addicted.

I realize that it's not exactly the point we're dabating, but I'd like to address this statement of yours:

Keep lying to yourself if you like. Just remember that admittance is the first step to recovery.

Please do not hurl personal insults at me or anyone else just for taking an opposing view to yours. It's unbecoming. I happen to only play because it's the only way my old real-life friends and I are able to socialize since we've all become so spread out. Typically, I only get 2 to 3 hours on, get either bored, frustrated, or manage to accomplish my goal for the day and go do something else.

Like feed my internet porn addiction.

[TheSpacePope]

Like feed my internet porn addiction.

Now that can get fucking expensive!

[POS Industries]

Originally Posted by TheSpacePope

Now that can get fucking expensive!

Just don't buy into the paysites, keep some good antivirus protection up, never use Microsoft Internet Explorer, and, for the love of god, don't click the banners!!

[Mirai Gen]

To be fair, there's some damn good, damn safe payable porn out there.

Not that I've ever invested or anything. Just throwing that out there. I still stand by the idea that 40 k is the most expensive gaming habit.

[POS Industries]

And I'm going to go ahead and agree with pretty much everything Mirai just said. I would have to imagine 40k's gotta be pretty costly and time-consuming overall.

[Nikose Tyris]

Free and safe Torrent sites are the way to go on that note.

Magic, I've spent $2344 this year...

Building a computer + Buying 2 computer games, came out to $2356....

Tabletop RPG books, Free cause I DL'd them (but my collection would have cost me roughly 40-50 a book here in Canada, and I have 260 books DL'd just last month)

So, for what I ACTUALLY spend, I'll say Computer Gaming and MMO's are worst, but for practicality on what I COULD have spent if I wasn't a Downloading whore, Tabletop RPGs. Specifically GURPS. (YOU DON'T NEED 200 BOOKS TO GET YOUR POINT ACROSS.)