So the big question.....

[Sunnyknight]

Over all the time you've been gaming....

 

How much money have you spent in total? This includes expansions and in game item payments. Have been chatting with friends, family and co-workers over the past week or so... when finally my cousin asked me the big question... 'have you totaled it?'

That's when i began thinking about it... and it's scary. Like really scary... what i could have done with this money instead... *£$%!!!!!!!!!

 

I'd say since 16, (i'm now none of your business!).... i've spent around.... £7 / 8000+?.... this is of course excluding building pcs.

 

Not sure if you'd call me an addict... i have a lot of hobbies and spend quite some time fulfilling those.... so..... how about you?

 

Do you dare venture into the world of... tears....?

[sted]

lots but dont want to work it out its like the cash lost in car depreciation never work it out you will only wish you haddnt

[LiamH]

Will be lots here, but I always look at it as money well spent (most of the time)

 

If I spend 50 quid on a game that grants me weeks of entertainment its a much better buy than 5 cinema tickets.

 

Sure i could have paid for a few holidays with the money I have spent but that's only a few weeks of entertainment compared to years of gaming.

[3s-gtech]

With the advent of Steam, not that much really. It adds up over 20+ years of gaming, but I've always bought second hand unless it's an essential purchase or for PC. Probably a couple of thousand total, max.

[ZeroHour]

Over all the time you've been gaming....

 

How much money have you spent in total? This includes expansions and in game item payments. Have been chatting with friends, family and co-workers over the past week or so... when finally my cousin asked me the big question... 'have you totaled it?'

That's when i began thinking about it... and it's scary. Like really scary... what i could have done with this money instead... *£$%!!!!!!!!!

 

I'd say since 16, (i'm now none of your business!).... i've spent around.... £7 / 8000+?.... this is of course excluding building pcs.

 

Not sure if you'd call me an addict... i have a lot of hobbies and spend quite some time fulfilling those.... so..... how about you?

 

Do you dare venture into the world of... tears....?

 

You think you are bad with 34 steam games (plus rest obviously), I have over 200 currently so consider how many others out side steam I could have too.

[Grey-gear]

As a quick guess I think I spent over £6000 on gaming in my life time, I'm not going to count it out as I know it will be more.

[tmcd35]

I don't want to add it up! I started gaming around '86-'87 with £2.99 budget cassette games and magazine type-ins, later Amstrad Action came with full games on covertapes - a kind of precursor to PS+. I've owned several gaming computers and at least one console per generation since SNES, more than once being a day 1 purchaser. Even so far as getting HD-DVD for 360 day one, then selling it all for a PS3 18 months later. To make matters worse I've since gotten into Retro gaming so have a few retro consoles laying around and have spent a bit starting to build a collection.

 

The worse statistics are going to be around 7th Gen music games - Singstar, Rockband, Guitar Hero, Rocksmith. The reason I sold the 360 ad bought a PS3 was so I could import a copy of Rockband 1 with full instrument kit a year before it was released in the UK. The money I've spent on DLC for Singster, Rockband and Rocksmith is very, very, very scary.

 

Rocksmith as been the biggest single layout of any game I've ever bought into. 2 full disc based games, tons of DLC, 2 audio cables and I've bought 2 brand new guitars especially for it. A £350 Yamaha bass and a £600 Paul Read Smith.

 

I'd be very surprised if the grand total of PC's, consoles, games, magazines, peripherals, etc, wasn't in the tens of thousands of pounds range by now.

 

And no I don't regret a single penny or wonder what else it could have been spent on.

[simpsonj]

I'm not sure it's the money that I cringe at (though I strongly suspect with the amount of games, consoles and PCs I've bought over the last 20 years I must be near £15,000...) it's the amount of time. As Steam has an evil tendency to tell you how many hours you've spent on a game, I've plugged in 300 hours or so on three Football manager games alone, and I've played FM before Steam came along, and even Championship manager before that. Then I think of the RPGs and JRPGs and the numbers go skyward very rapidly...

[Sunnyknight]

My computer hobby/addiction started at around 10yo with a CBM VIC20 to this present day with far too much tech.

 

I think all things considered its been money well spent and would probably do it all again.

 

These days I think its quite a cheap hobby if you dont drift into the cutting edge stuff. I remember buying a Quantum 105MB HD for over £120, and buying 4 MB of memory for the same amount running Win3.11. Stuff today is very much cheaper.

 

My cousin said the money i spend on pc and games is like a cup with a massive hole in the bottom. The water is my money.

 

However, if what you say is true... id have a gtx titan z.... but even i wouldnt spend 1100 on a gfx card... maybe 700.... not 1100....

 

Hardware is v expensive in my eyes these days.

[featured_spectre]

Xbox Original + 40 games, ~ £1400

PS2 + 80 games, ~ £2100

Xbox 360 + Xbox 360 Slim + 120 games, ~ £2400

Xbox One + 12 games, ~£700

PC Components + peripherals over the years ~£4000

PC Games over the years (physical media games) ~ £3000

PC Games over the years (digital media games) ~ £1200

 

Total ~£15000

 

*edit*

 

Almost all of my library of games and consoles were all bought on or very near to release.

Edited November 12, 2014 by featured_spectre

[sonofsanta]

Surprisingly, only £283.29 on Steam, according to my Account page (https://store.steampowered.com/account/store_transactions once you're logged in). Man, I have done well at sales.

 

That's not including money spent on Humble Bundles or retail games, mind. Considering I've been buying PC games for what, fifteen years, the real value is much, much higher. Plus money spent on consoles and games - PS3, 360, Wii, PS2, GCN, DC, N64, DS, Gameboy, all of which I still have - we're well into £5k territory, not counting money spent on building PCs.

 

And if you start factoring in how much my parents spent on subscriptions to Amiga magazines for me back in the day (at one point I was getting Amiga Format, Amiga Action, Amiga Power and The One every month. Lovely, lovely coverdiscs!) then it goes up even more.

 

But considering how much enjoyment I've had over the last twenty-five years, since I first got that Amiga, and that all those years tinkering is what's led to this career, I'd say money well spent. I reckon it's still cheaper than photography as hobbies go.

[featured_spectre]

oh bugger, forgot about the Wii, N64 and such like, thats another £3k easily...

[Dos_Box]

I shudder to think how much I have spent since 1982 when I got my first computer (ZX81).

A lot TBH, including consoles and computers before the 'PC era'.

I too think things have become a lot cheaper these days and hardware such as processors and GPU's have a lot more longevity than beofe.

if you go back 14-15 years you would have to update amost your entire PC on an annual basis to stay current. These days a resonable spec will last you 5 years with very little (or nothing) to add/upgrade over that time.

[LeMarchand]

Dread to think, but I've bought 7 games since the weekend. Admittedly cost me a <£16. Thank you/Damn you Steam + GoG!