How many dollars per hour of playtime should a developer charge for a game?

[ZedClampet]

@Zloth is a big proponent of this method as are many others. So here are some questions:

1) So what is the number? $5 per hour of playtime?
2) What about for sandbox games that have no end?
3) Can we agree on a minimum charge?
4) Can we agree on a maximum charge?

Also, should we consider other things? For instance, if Scarlet Johansson and @Brian Boru set up kissing booths, and Scarlet will give you a peck on the cheek for $1, but Brian will go tonsil diving for a good 10 minutes for the same price, which one would you pay for? (sorry, Brian)

Translating the above example into video games, where something like Portal replaces SJ, would it be worth more than whatever you selected for answer #1? Obviously, if it's a bad game, you are willing to drop your answer to $0.00, so wouldn't you be willing to up your answer for something extremely good?

And, of course, there are many different kinds of developers out there. I forgive a team for picking a high price much more quickly than I would forgive a solo dev for choosing the same price. Do we consider how many mouths there are to feed?

For me, although I have, a few times, felt a little ripped off when I finished a game really quickly, I don't generally think in terms of playtime per dollar. It has to be a really bad ratio for me to start complaining about it. On occasion I've played some mediocre narrative adventures that I thought weren't worth it more for how mediocre I found them rather than how short they were.

So, anyway, my answers would be as follows:
For a full time development studio...
$5/hour of playtime
Minimum charge: $20
Maximum charge: $60

For a hobbyist dev team with 1 or 2 people
$5/hour of playtime
Minimum charge: None
Maximum Charge: $30

IDK, maybe cut those dollars per hour in half if the game is merely ok and perhaps double it if the game is brilliant?

Anyway, off the top of my head, that's as good as I can do. I'll continue to think about it.

 

[Zloth]

Well, the developer should charge an amount that will maximize their long term profits. Now, if you're asking what I'm willing to pay for in today's market, that's something I can answer!

Roughly speaking, $1/hour. A really fantastic game can charge somewhat more. At $2/hr, though, it better be absolutely amazing or I'm just going to wait for a sale.

It's very much a rule of thumb, though. My own time is valuable, too, for instance. A game with a 60 hour playtime but only 10 hours of actual fun isn't one I'll pay $10 for, never mind $60. In fact, you'll have to pay me quite a bit to play that game!

No min/max as long as the price is somewhat sane. X4 could have charged $150 for the base game alone and I would have bought it.

P.S. Diving into a vat of tonsils sounds stunningly unhygienic!

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Yea that's an interesting one!

Personally hours of play time per dollar is not a metric I consider. My own rule of thumb leans to paying more to a small team, the people who are making the sausage get more of the money there. I'm happier to pay for an interesting experience, although there would be limits.

Obviously smaller developers tend to charge less, so its not like there's often a 5 hour game anyone tries to charge €70 for. But I'd happily pay €30 for something really interesting that only lasted that long. The market wouldnt tolerate any small dev charging top dollar for really short games, because not many would take a punt on an unknown for AAA prices.

Actually €30 is about what I like to pay for AAA games, and how many mouths to feed a large dev has does not enter into my thinking at all. I tend to think the extra money mostly goes to executives and shareholders, so I'm much more likely to wait for deep discounts as I dont get any more enjoyment out of those games vs indies on average.

So basically although I don't pay attention to hours per dollar much, its already mostly priced into the market so I really don't have to.

 

[Brian Boru]

Only game I bought full price over $10 in last decade+ is Command & Conquer Remastered Collection for $20, with guessing well over 100 hours from it—and many more hundreds to come.

hours of play time per dollar is not a metric I consider

Same here.
Is it a game I want to play? Play time will be a factor in that, but only one in a number and not a main one.
Is it at a price I'm prepared to pay?
Yes + yes = Buy.

I also buy some indie games which I don't necessarily want to play, but want to reward a dev who's well thought of. Even non-indie, eg the first 2 Witcher games—which I had no interest in playing—just to say thanks for the great service GOG had given to gamers over the years.

C&C is one of my 2 most-played franchises, I worked it out for another post that I've spent ~$750 all told. Great value, considering thousands of hours of fun I've had with it over the last 27 years. Similar with Civ, some hundreds spent and also thousands of hours of fun.

On the other side of the coin, I probably have over 1,000 paid-for games I've never played, or only played an hour or 2. So you could say, terrible value there—mind you, all would have been seriously discounted years after release, or extras in bundles.

So yeah, $/hour is not a serious metric for me.

 

[Colif]

if hours of game play was how they worked out cost, I can't afford the games I play. It would temper my desire for endless games as I wouldn't be able to afford them. It would seriously dent my desire to play Arpg.

How would dev know how long someone might play some of these games? Do they just base it on the main story or add in potential total time it could take to do all side quests? Sacred 2 starting to look expensive.
Some of these games would need to be subscription based to keep paying the devs their $5 per one hour of play

Realistically it would only fly if it charge restricted to main quest the 1st time you play game. They shouldn't be able to charge for replays as then... do you buy games or just rent them? You don't own something if others can restrict your access to it.

I would still be playing Galaga and purposely avoiding the "stop the enemies firing" trick as getting to stage 256 would take too long.

 

[Pifanjr]

I think the most I've paid for a game is about $3/hour for Assassin's Creed 2, which I bought full price, is relatively short and I've never replayed, nor do I ever expect to.

Most games I buy are either far longer, bought on sale or I'll replay them at least once. Not counting games I bought I didn't like, as those were obviously not worth the price anyway.

I don't really care who made the game in how much I'm willing to pay. It only matters how good the game is.

 

[Colif]

So, anyway, my answers would be as follows:
For a full time development studio...
$5/hour of playtime
Minimum charge: $20
Maximum charge: $60

For a hobbyist dev team with 1 or 2 people
$5/hour of playtime
Minimum charge: None
Maximum Charge: $30

Price shouldn't be determined by how many people worked on games. I don't see AAA being any better than Indie, they don't deserve a minimum price when other teams don't get it. Their games should be judged on the same standards. I feel Indie teams care more about the product they make compared to Giant corporations who only want your money. Indie closer to what the big companies started as.

If an indie team puts in the effort, why can't they charge more for it? If anything, they have more to lose than big companies that put out broken games every year and maybe patch them afterwards.

 

[Alm]

I could see EA adding achievements that only unlocked after 200hrs of a live service game and then charging $200

 

[Slasken]

Price shouldn't be determined by how many people worked on games. I don't see AAA being any better than Indie, they don't deserve a minimum price when other teams don't get it. Their games should be judged on the same standards. I feel Indie teams care more about the product they make compared to Giant corporations who only want your money. Indie closer to what the big companies started as.

If an indie team puts in the effort, why can't they charge more for it? If anything, they have more to lose than big companies that put out broken games every year and maybe patch them afterwards.

I agree with all of this. Large publishers/developers care more about the dollars than the product they release, and the way they use microtransactions and lootboxes is proof of this.

 

[Ryzengang]

This is an interesting question and I've thought about it a decent amount, and I tend to be fairly at odds with the enthusiast community on this. If I'm being honest, I think a lot of enthusiast PC gamers in particular have borderline insane expectations for how many hours they want out of games. If you look at reviews for almost any indie game on Steam, you will see that a substantial percentage of negative reviews are about hours rather than game quality. I've seen this on $5 indie games, and it's preposterous. Game developers are not charities.

A few of my friends have a $1/hour rule, and I think that's highly flawed. For context, that new cat game Stray is about 4 1/2 hours long. The idea that a game of that quality should be sold for $4.5 is utterly ridiculous to me. I don't think game length is something to ignore completely, but I think it is focused on way too much. You simply can't expect every $60 game to be 60 hours long. That's just madness.

Of course, I have to highlight very clearly that, at the end of the day, how other people spend their money is ultimately up to them. People have to buy games when they feel comfortable doing do. I simply think that the enthusiast PC gaming community has been* so thoroughly spoiled on Steam that their sense of value has been skewed tremendously.

 

[Colif]

Extended game length doesn't make games better.
Journey is 90 minutes long. It doesn't need to be longer. if its price based on game length it should have only cost $7.50.
That is based on them only charging for 1 play through as well... I don't know how long I played that game so wow... if I had to pay for that time played, i would have played it endlessly for months.

I replay games, so the length of them only starts to bug me if its too short. Torchlight 2 story can be finished in 2 days but you can keep playing character in higher difficulties. So you see the same areas a lot and it can get a bit repetitive. Same applies to Diablo 2. If you play these games for the story, you are doing it wrong.

Lots of people consume games, they want their 60 hours to move on and buy something else. That seems like the majority of players to me. So if you buying lots of games, I expect you do want a certain amount of game. I remember an old snes game that I was just getting into, thinking... next map will be fun, and game ended on map I was on. Game over in 2 hours... I felt a little ripped off.

60 hour expectations leads to filler quests.

You can't make everyone happy. Why even try.

 

[Zloth]

A few of my friends have a $1/hour rule, and I think that's highly flawed. For context, that new cat game Stray is about 4 1/2 hours long. The idea that a game of that quality should be sold for $4.5 is utterly ridiculous to me. I don't think game length is something to ignore completely, but I think it is focused on way too much. You simply can't expect every $60 game to be 60 hours long. That's just madness.

Is it, though?

Yes, there are many costs to making a game that are "flat rate" - no matter the size of the game, you're going to need to develop a save system, a main menu, install/uninstall, and so on. That's going to push the price/hours ratio up for short games. Such are the economic realities of making a game.

But that's not my business. I'm looking to get the best bang for my buck. If I get Plague Tale ($40, 16hr), Stray ($30, 8hr), and Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice ($30, 9hr) then I get about 33hrs of gaming for $100. If I get Witcher 3 GotY, I pay half the price and get something like five times the play time. Or I could get Elden Ring for $60 and Solasta: Crown of the Magister for $40 and have about six times the hours of fun.

Yes, there's something to say about the quality of time you're getting, but SIX TIMES more quality? No. Forget it.

There could be a lot more to be said if you, shall we say, deeply crave variety (i.e., rarely finish a game more than 20 hours long) because you would never see most of those entertainment hours. That ain't me, though.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

I hate it when people try to show games by price per hour to try to make you feel guilty about complaining about prices. I don't think you can really compare it to movie ticket prices, like some people do.

So like I put around 200 hours into Skyrim. When it was new, I would have paid $60 for it, but no more. So that would equal out to about 30 cents an hour. But then I played Tomb Raider 2013, and it took me about 25 hours. By the same scale, that would be $7.50 for the whole game. Was Tomb Raider only worth $7.50 when it was new? Absolutely not. It was worth a lot more.

I like Zed's example of Scarlet J vs Brian in a kissing booth. It makes a lot of sense, but I don't even think that always applies. In my case it's not like Skyrim is Brian and TR is Scarlet. Skyrim was my favorite game. But TR was well worth the money, too.

With that in mind...

So, anyway, my answers would be as follows:
For a full time development studio...
$5/hour of playtime
Minimum charge: $20
Maximum charge: $60

For a hobbyist dev team with 1 or 2 people
$5/hour of playtime
Minimum charge: None
Maximum Charge: $30

I totally agree with this, except leave out the $/hour of playtime.

 

[Brian Boru]

I like Zed's example of Scarlet J vs Brian in a kissing booth

Okay, I was willing to let one deviant go… but now a second shows up. Mods, please come to the boardroom for a meeting of the Standards Committee.

PS I might be a bit late, Scarlett is being very enthusiastic—offered me $100 for an hour…

 

[ZedClampet]

Price shouldn't be determined by how many people worked on games. I don't see AAA being any better than Indie, they don't deserve a minimum price when other teams don't get it. Their games should be judged on the same standards. I feel Indie teams care more about the product they make compared to Giant corporations who only want your money. Indie closer to what the big companies started as.

If an indie team puts in the effort, why can't they charge more for it? If anything, they have more to lose than big companies that put out broken games every year and maybe patch them afterwards.

Just to be clear, I was including indie teams in the same category as AAA. The other category was for hobbyist/solo devs.

 

[ZedClampet]

Roughly speaking, $1/hour.

So you are willing to spend roughly the cost of chewing gum.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

Okay, I was willing to let one deviant go… but now a second shows up. Mods, please come to the boardroom for a meeting of the Standards Committee.

PS I might be a bit late, Scarlett is being very enthusiastic—offered me $100 for an hour…

If I were a single woman, you'd be my top choice.

 

[Zloth]

So you are willing to spend roughly the cost of chewing gum.

Willing? I'm willing to pay quite a bit more - but I don't need to, thanks to competition.

 

[Brian Boru]

If I were a single woman, you'd be my top choice.

How much per hour?

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

There could be a lot more to be said if you, shall we say, deeply crave variety (i.e., rarely finish a game more than 20 hours long) because you would never see most of those entertainment hours. That ain't me, though.

What if you deeply crave variety, and also finish many games of more than 20 hours long ?

 

[Pifanjr]

If I can get 100 hours of quality content for the same price as 10, I'm going to get 100. That's not to say the game of 10 hours needs to cut its price in 10, as long as there are enough other people willing to buy it.

There could be a lot more to be said if you, shall we say, deeply crave variety (i.e., rarely finish a game more than 20 hours long) because you would never see most of those entertainment hours. That ain't me, though.

That's what the Game Pass is for.

 

[Ryzengang]

Is it, though?

Yes, there are many costs to making a game that are "flat rate" - no matter the size of the game, you're going to need to develop a save system, a main menu, install/uninstall, and so on. That's going to push the price/hours ratio up for short games. Such are the economic realities of making a game.

But that's not my business. I'm looking to get the best bang for my buck. If I get Plague Tale ($40, 16hr), Stray ($30, 8hr), and Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice ($30, 9hr) then I get about 33hrs of gaming for $100. If I get Witcher 3 GotY, I pay half the price and get something like five times the play time. Or I could get Elden Ring for $60 and Solasta: Crown of the Magister for $40 and have about six times the hours of fun.

Yes, there's something to say about the quality of time you're getting, but SIX TIMES more quality? No. Forget it.

There could be a lot more to be said if you, shall we say, deeply crave variety (i.e., rarely finish a game more than 20 hours long) because you would never see most of those entertainment hours. That ain't me, though.

I certainly can't fault you (or anyone) for trying to get the best bang for your buck. I guess I would say it doesn't really concern me as much. Mind you, I do think this is a case of extremes being easy to evaluate vs a lot of grey area where it gets murky. At the extreme end, yea, I'm not paying $60 for a 5 hour game. I definitely care about price vs hours to some extent. I don't think it can just be ignored. But aside from extremes it gets much more difficult to parse for me.

Also, a lot of us have substantial backlogs and waiting for sales simply makes sense, regardless of how many hours the game is. No reason to rush out to buy games right away at full price when you have a ton to play (unless it's a really highly anticipated game).

 

[Zloth]

That's what the Game Pass is for.

THAT makes the whole calculation different! Suddenly, game cost and length no longer matter at all.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

At the extreme end, yea, I'm not paying $60 for a 5 hour game.

To be honest, the only two games I would pay $60 for would be a new Zelda game or a new TES game. Other than that, I'm probably not going to pay $60 for anything.

 

[Brian Boru]

the only two games I would pay $60 for

I could consider full price for C&C Generals 2 or a remake/remaster of C&C Generals Zero Hour—assuming early reviews were favorable.

Outside of that, possibly Supreme Commander 3 or a remake/remaster of Supreme Commander 2 Forged Alliance—but it would have to be the best thing ever.