Prices of Entertainment compared

[BeardyHat]

Libraries are free in Finland and the UK, not sure about the rest of Europe, seems its a mix from a quick search. Sucks to pay for a library! I always assumed they were free all over the world.

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I go up and down on it. Prices for games have basically gone down over time in real terms over time, but it does still seem a lot to drop a full 70 on a brand new game.

Fact is you dont need to do that anyway as 95% of games will be 50% off within a year or two. You pay the premium if you are willing and able, otherwise just wait a bit and play something older in your price range. With Epic and a PC you can dine for free, or you can grab a lot of really good games for less than 10 each whenever theres a sale on any store, and a lot of those games have as many hours as the new hotness anyway.

Thus: Hype.

If marketers hype something up enough, it's easier to get people to dump money on the highest purchase price.

Cost doesn't equal value. This thread is about how much you pay before you know if you will get any value. The initial cost.

Value is an unknown until you have it. It is subjective. You can use it to determine if cost is worth it but you don't know for sure until you try.

It is much easier to figure out now with internet than before. So many blind purchases. Hard to know if you still be listening to album that week, let alone years later. Now if you wanted to buy music, you could choose a streaming service that lets you buy the albums at any stage... so listen before buying. Shame games companies don't offer that.

This is what I love about Bandcamp; I find new music all the time, listen to it and decide I'm not interested in it any further and I never had to drop a single dime. That said, I have spent a lot of money on Bandcamp in recent years, because I'm always finding something new to love.

Games are just generally so low value to me these days. Music I can at least listen to while I'm doing something else, such as driving, but games must be focused on to be used appropriately. And with the massive size of my PC library, not even counting all the emulation I also do, a new game has to be doing something really eyecatching for me to spend an appreciable amount of money on it, given I have very limited income as a stay-at-home parent. Any time a new game comes out and I start feeling the anticipation over the internet, I start combing through my library to see what I have that's similar and will give me an experience that sounds the same.

Everything else, I don't mind dropping money on. New book? Buy it (after a sample, of course). New Restaurant? Hell yeah, let's do it. Everything else just has such a higher value proposition because I either don't do it a lot, don't have a lot of it or I can work it into the rest of my life fairly easily without disruption. A game has to be really good for me to set aside extra time for it and there really aren't many.

 

[Colif]

This is what I love about Bandcamp; I find new music all the time, listen to it and decide I'm not interested in it any further and I never had to drop a single dime. That said, I have spent a lot of money on Bandcamp in recent years, because I'm always finding something new to love.

Up until this year I bought all my music on CD. It was getting hard to find new music as most artists don't get them made anymore.

I was slow to adjust. I had all my CD's copied to my PC, and for about 20 years my biggest concern was that the drive it was on would die. I eventually found Google play music and it allowed me to upload all my albums to it (which due to my pathetic upload speed of .23 Mbps meant it took several months to upload it all) and I listened to them until Google changed that service to only play songs and I didn't want that at all. About same time I got faster internet speed, and uploaded all my music to Onedrive as well as copying all my music onto a 256gb USB stick. Those 3 locations was enough to stop me worrying about music.

I mostly listened to the same music on PC I had for all that time, and buying any new CD's I could find from the few bands I still bought music from. I had ignored music streaming services as the idea of not owning my music didn't appeal to me. It was getting better headphones that caused the change. Now I don't see it any different to watching videos on Youtube.

Musics value is impossible to measure. I probably have records I bought in the 1980's that I still listen to. Though not the originals. How many times do you have to buy an album before you own it? Some records used to get worn out, we had a few copies of "Bat out of Hell" in the 70's. Music can be timeless,

New book? Buy it (after a sample, of course).

The sample ability would have saved me money in the past. I have bought the same book twice before, as they changed cover... some Stephen King books are just longer versions of shorter books... sucks when you realise you know the story before it happens.

Internet makes a lot of purchases much safer now. Not as many blind purchases unless no one reviews the items. Less chance of stuff ups.

 

[Pifanjr]

I just realised I have bought multiple board games that cost €40+. I think Gloomhaven was about €120. Though we split the cost with a friend of ours, that's still €60 and while we got quite a lot of hours out of it, we haven't actually finished it and I kind of doubt we will ever play it again.

Similarly, the last game we bought we've only played once and quit halfway through, which was well over a year ago I believe.

So I'm completely willing to pay that much for something even if I don't know how much I'll actually play it.

 

[Brian Boru]

we had a few copies of "Bat out of Hell"

You hide rare snippets of good taste very well—RIP TeamFoal, you were unique.

I have bought multiple board games that cost €40+

Same here, they are definitely expensive compared to digital—like all entertainment mediums. Ours are all packed away for years now, don't have space to play 'em

 

[BeardyHat]

I mostly listened to the same music on PC I had for all that time, and buying any new CD's I could find from the few bands I still bought music from. I had ignored music streaming services as the idea of not owning my music didn't appeal to me. It was getting better headphones that caused the change. Now I don't see it any different to watching videos on Youtube.

I still don't care for streaming and prefer (digital) ownership.

I hate not being in control of what I want to listen to and when and even moreso, hate the thought of potential ads while I'm listening. Though I'm not sure if they would work or not between uBlock and PiHole.

 

[BeardyHat]

Same here, they are definitely expensive compared to digital—like all entertainment mediums. Ours are all packed away for years now, don't have space to play 'em

We really would like to buy HeroQuest, but struggle to play anything that takes more than maybe 45 minutes.

My family really loves King of Tokyo, for example, but I really don't care for it. Far too much randomness, I find.

 

[Colif]

hate the thought of potential ads while I'm listening.

So far the only services with advertising between songs are: Spotify, SoundCloud, Pandora, and SiriusXM and they all free. You get what you don't pay for.

I see it mentioned on Apple Music and Amazon Music as well.

I don't see any mention of it associated with Tidal. Perhaps they make enough off subscription payments and aren't as greedy.

Expect if their user numbers dropped, they might look at it.
Qobuz lets you buy digital copies of their albums, I used them for a few weeks, but their music discovery options are limited. Tidal made it easier to remake my collection based on bands I chose.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Thus: Hype.

If marketers hype something up enough, it's easier to get people to dump money on the highest purchase price.

True, but Im not above buying a game full price, usually that means its a sequel to something and all the other stars align at once (time to play it, great reviews, great WoM). Theres no reason not to wait really, but theres also no real reason to own a gaming PC in the first place, so swings and roundabouts.

I just realised I have bought multiple board games that cost €40+. I think Gloomhaven was about €120. Though we split the cost with a friend of ours, that's still €60 and while we got quite a lot of hours out of it, we haven't actually finished it and I kind of doubt we will ever play it again.

Not sure what edition it is, but the one Im playing at the moment apparently cost north of €200 although that might be local pricing. We started partly because my friend got a bit obsessed about buying Frosthaven and wanted to calm those urges. Of course, now I could also be more easily coerced into splitting the cost of Frosthaven at a later date so I guess I got played