Say a simple (hours enjoyed playing)/(price of game) equation. How many hours (you enjoyed) per $ do you think is reasonable/expected? Or is there other criteria for you?
I feel like I’m on the upper end here. But to be fair I also tend to play things that has a lot of replayability. So I usually reach 100+ hours on my favorites eventually.
Eager to hear how others reason about it.
Edit: Added the enjoyed part. I agree with the comments that frustrating hours shouldn’t be included in the measure :)
I guess I take for granted that extended time spent in the game contributes more to the subjective value. Otherwise, why play? Of course there are a plethora of reasons to keep playing. But if we disregard that for now.
There are edge cases. E.g. a lovely small title that isn’t replayable and barely three hours long. That one could bring the average up a bit, depending on the price. But I’m not asking for a universal rule, rather where the ratio starts to hurt subjectively for people.
Or well, I guess what I really wanted to know is how people compare the price of games to other recreational joys. Especially considering the timespan of the compared activities. Though maybe a bit poorly phrased. :)
For me personally, I tend to compare it to movies. I have no problem going out and paying $15-20 to go be entertained for 2-3 hours. By that metric, a $60 game needs to keep me entertained for maybe 10 hours for me to feel like it wasn’t a complete waste of money.
As I alluded to before, I tend to also value how entertained I am during that time. A good movie or a good game doesn’t have to be long to be worth the price of admission. And conversely, there are games that I have more time into that I feel like were not worth the price (coughDiablo4cough) but I kept playing because of a combination of sunk cost fallacy and trying to find what all those other people thought was so good.