One of the reasons games are on an upward trend is that the consumer cost per hour is such a high value–games, particularly subscription and virtual-goods social games–are a lot less expensive than many other types of entertainment. Here’s a breakdown:
- Borrowing a book from library: free (taxpayer supported)
- Playing a freemium/social game: free to pennies/hour
- Cable Television ($71/mo, 153 hours/person/mo., 2.54 people/household): $0.18/hour
- Playing World of Warcraft 10 hours per week: $0.35/hour
- Playing Call of Duty for 30 hours ($60 retail): $2/hour
- Seeing a 2-hour movie for $7.95: $3.98/hour per person
- Upper Bleachers Red Sox ticket ($12) for a 3-hour game: $4.00/hour per person
- Average US Family Vacation (AAA data: $250 per day): $10.41/hour
- 2-hour Broadway show: $50-$150 per hour
It’s hard to beat the cost per hour of games, which is one of the reasons games are growing in popularity: they’re cost-competitive with television while being far more immersive, social and engaging. And yes, the 153 hours/month is the average number of hours watched per month for people in the United States — gamers, as a group, probably spend far less time in front of the television.
One thing the above chart excludes is the cost of hardware, but you’d need to amortize that across all of your uses. For most people, this will come down to pennies per hour for computer usage (likewise, the television usage doesn’t include the cost of the TV or home theater). Similarly, I didn’t include energy and transportation costs. For a computer game, the energy costs are going to be minimal (pennies per hour). For some of the types of entertainment, the energy costs could be rather substantial–driving to a movie could easily drive up the cost of seeing the movie by double (or more!), if we use the IRS’s rate of $0.50 per mile for fully-loaded automobile transportation costs.
Sources for Data Used Above
- IRS auto mileage rate in 2010
- Nielsen data on average television watching
- 2000 United States census data on people per household
- Centris research on average cable television bill
- World of Warcraft subscription data
- Fenway Park (Red Sox) ticket prices
- Analysis of AAA data on vacation costs
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