Value for money in games

Ettick

United States2434 Posts

November 13 2012 23:13 GMT

I am writing this feeling rather displeased at a few games I've bought recently. They are Borderlands 2 and Guild Wars 2. They both suffer from the same design decision that has caused me to stop playing them after 22 and about 30 hours respectively. That design decision is making side quests (or events in GW2) necessary to do the main story line quests. I really enjoyed the main story in both of the games, but I found side quests in both of these games to be extremely boring, repetitive, and trivial feeling. This caused me to not like playing them and to do the only reasonable thing I can do if I am doing something I don't enjoy, which is to stop doing it. The main reason I did not enjoy them is because in both I was extremely under leveled for the main quest, so I died repeatedly while trying to complete it. I mean at least it is actually semi-possible to kill things out leveling you by 4 levels or more in Borderlands 2, but it's pretty much impossible in GW2 from my experience. I'd give GW2 a 5/10 and BL2 a 7/10 for overall enjoyment. It's kind of odd how they are both RPGs that are open world, just like Oblivion, and yet I like Oblivion thousands of times more than both GW2 and BL2 combined.

The ratio for BL2 and GW2 of hrs played/$ is .367 and .5 respectively for me. That's pretty fucking poor compared to some other games that I've played.
+ Show Spoiler [list of games that have a higher ratio…] +

TES 5: Skyrim 56/60 = .933 (6/10)
Saints Row 3: 57/60 = .95 (8/10)
FTL: Faster Than Light: 13/10 = 1.3 (8/10)
TES 3: Morrowind 22/10 = 2.2 (9/10)
TES 4: Oblvion 75/25 = 3 (11/10 not a typo)
Diablo 3: 124/60 = 2.067 (8/10)
WoW: 1500/540 (played for 3 years @ $15/mo) = 2.778 (10/10 for BC, 9/10 for WotlK,

for Cata)
Forza 3: 200/3 = 3.33 (10/10 would seriously bang)
CS:Source: 102/20 = 5.1 (9/10)
Orange Box :151/20 = 7.55 (9/10)
Gmod: 453/5 (bundled with CS:S) = 88.6 (9/10)

And that's not including F2P games.

Just for fun I'll apply the ratings to them now for a sort of "total enjoyment" ratio

GW2: .5*(5/10)= .25
BL2: .367*(7/10)=.2569
TES 5: Skyrim: .933*(6/10)= .5598
Saints Row 3: .95*(8/10)= .76
FTL: Faster Than Light: 1.3*(8/10)= 1.04
Diablo 3: 2.067 (8/10)= 1.6536
TES 3: Morrowind: 2.2*(9/10)= 1.98
WoW: 2.778*(9/10)= 2.5002
TES 4: Oblvion: 3 *(11/10)= 3.3
Forza: 3 3.33*(10/10)= 3.33
CS:Source: 5.1*(9/10)= 4.59
Orange Box: 7.55*(9/10)= 6.795
Gmod: 88.6*(9/10)= 79.74

Buying disappointing games has caused me to me weary of what I buy in the future. I will probably never buy a game on launch again like I did with GW2 after riding the hype train. As a high school student with no job, $60 is actually quite a lot of money and I can't just go throwing away money at games that don't give me good value. This has caused me to not buy most games that I want to play that have recently come out to avoid disappointment.

Chef

10810 Posts

November 13 2012 23:22 GMT

One of the good arguments for BW was that it was $10 for more or less infinite entertainment ^^

I dunno if I'd make a habit of making stats with number of hours played vs dollars paid, but it's a sort of interesting figure to see lined up here. I find your criticism of the game having tedious mandatory side-quests is more compelling, but will be buried by people too interested in the numbers you've generated. That's a bit of a shame.

For example, I might rate FFIX pretty well, in terms of overall enjoyment and in terms of $/h value, but the random encounters get really tedious and boring and substantially increased the number of hours played. If I didn't play that game with friends, just chatting during these boring sections of the game, I'd have probably quit early on. In that sense the $/h value is inflated, even tho it isn't reflected in the overall rating of the game, so it's still misleading.

Ettick

United States2434 Posts

November 13 2012 23:27 GMT

On November 14 2012 08:22 Chef wrote:
One of the good arguments for BW was that it was $10 for more or less infinite entertainment ^^

I dunno if I'd make a habit of making stats with number of hours played vs dollars paid, but it's a sort of interesting figure to see lined up here. I find your criticism of the game having tedious mandatory side-quests is more compelling, but will be buried by people too interested in the numbers you've generated. That's a bit of a shame.

For example, I might rate FFIX pretty well, in terms of overall enjoyment and in terms of $/h value, but the random encounters get really tedious and boring and substantially increased the number of hours played. If I didn't play that game with friends, just chatting during these boring sections of the game, I'd have probably quit early on. In that sense the $/h value is inflated, even tho it isn't reflected in the overall rating of the game, so it's still misleading.

I guess I wanted to make a benchmark to sort of prove the point that BL2 and GW2 weren't a good use of my money lol
It is pretty flawed if you take inflated numbers into account, which is probably why Gmod is so high up for me since it was like all I played one summer and I don't really play it that often anymore.

Cyber_Cheese

Australia3615 Posts

November 14 2012 00:18 GMT

man that seriously confused me, and i just figured out why
its hrs/$, not $/hrs, unless a lower score is better?

Ettick

United States2434 Posts

November 14 2012 00:22 GMT

On November 14 2012 09:18 Cyber_Cheese wrote:
man that seriously confused me, and i just figured out why
its hrs/$, not $/hrs, unless a lower score is better?

Maybe I should have looked through this a bit more lol, caught my typo. Supposed to be hrs/money yeah lol...

surfinbird1

Germany999 Posts

November 14 2012 00:34 GMT

On November 14 2012 09:18 Cyber_Cheese wrote:
man that seriously confused me, and i just figured out why
its hrs/$, not $/hrs, unless a lower score is better?

Exactly. Clear definitions in math are mandatory!

eviltomahawk

United States11135 Posts

November 14 2012 01:21 GMT

I personally got a ratio of 4.166666 for GW2, but it's just me.

Ettick

United States2434 Posts

November 14 2012 01:28 GMT

On November 14 2012 10:21 eviltomahawk wrote:
I personally got a ratio of 4.166666 for GW2, but it's just me.

Everyone has different tastes I guess. Like I actually enjoyed D3 a bit as opposed to most other people...

Silentness

United States2821 Posts

November 14 2012 01:45 GMT

I wish I never bought Guild Wars 2. Initial release was fun... then again it's the same feeling you get going on a first date. After the 2nd... 3rd date you just want to choke a bitch. That's how I felt playing GW2. Seeing a hundred people doing newbie quests was pretty entertaining. Now the game is like a ghost town... $60 wasted...

WoW, BW, and SC2 were priceless though. I got many years and loads of fun out of those games. Even with WoW's subscription fee it was loads of fun. I wouldn't touch WoW with a 10 ft pole now though... it's getting stale.

PrinceXizor

United States17713 Posts

November 14 2012 02:48 GMT

#10

This has got to be the first instance i've seen where a gamer complained that he couldn't just breeze through the main storyline and that it got too difficult without taking time to get stronger in game.

Thats typically exactly what many gamers want in games. and the whole scaling the world around you thing (oblivion style) is what gamers hate. Huh. to each his own i guess.

Ettick

United States2434 Posts

November 14 2012 03:03 GMT

#11

On November 14 2012 11:48 PrinceXizor wrote:
This has got to be the first instance i've seen where a gamer complained that he couldn't just breeze through the main storyline and that it got too difficult without taking time to get stronger in game.

Thats typically exactly what many gamers want in games. and the whole scaling the world around you thing (oblivion style) is what gamers hate. Huh. to each his own i guess.

I don't like grinding, I've played WoW and D3 enough. I want a different game for a change.

red4ce

United States7313 Posts

November 14 2012 03:29 GMT

#12

Your perception of certain games seems to be skewed by the fact that you did not pay the original retail price for certain games. A couple years from now you will be able to buy Borderlands 2 for $20, but to me that doesn't make it any better or worse than when it originally came out.

Thereisnosaurus

Australia1822 Posts

November 14 2012 09:08 GMT

#13

Get into F2P son, it may cost you more over the lifetime of your play, but damn if you won't get good hours/dollar.

Free to try, get into it enough and start chipping in cash to give you more play options. I've ended spending like $200 on league but I'm pretty sure I'm up to something like 500 hours played. 2.5 hours a dollar works out pretty good, better than the 10 dollars an hour you get with most AAA games these days, and I only bought in because riot deserve my money for what I'm getting.

If you don't like Moba, try tribes ascend or battlefield F2P or one of the billion others out there. Steer clear of MMOs, they tend to be of lower quality than iterated round F2P games. There's more content, but it's nowhere near as polished.

Recognizable

Netherlands1552 Posts

November 14 2012 09:39 GMT

#14

Same as you man, I played Skyrim for 30 hours, diablo 3 for 25 hours and BL 2 for 20 hour. Singleplayer games are all just so easy it's silly, I get bored of them really fast. On the other hand I have 110+ hours on CS:GO and it was only 15 euros :/

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