Movie ticket = $10 / 2 hours = $5/hour
Amusement park = $30 / 5 hours = $6/hour
Dining out = $20 / 2 hours = $10/hour
Video game = $50 / 20 hours = $2.5/hour
I don't own any of the latest generation video game consoles, but if I did, I'd certainly be buying a bunch of them via download for their sheer economy in giving me entertainment value.
That aside, where are you getting those arbitrary hours? 20 hours on a video game is extremely rare these days, especially if you're not one that goes for the torturous achievements or sports/multiplayer FPS.
Most (high budget, modern) games will run you about 8-10 hours. If my estimate is accurate whatsoever, that would run the cost/hour down to $5.00 - $6.25/hour -- the same 'value' as a movie ticket and amusement park.
I tend to use the metric of "$1 per hour of play" with a small caveot where AAA games are allowed to breach that by some appreciable amount, usually putting them up to $2 or $3 an hour. Any more and I don't really see the point in owning it.
Then again, I don't buy most "high budget, modern games". I buy a few of them, and from companies I trust. Dishonored should last me 20 or 30 hours at least. I'll probably see 40 or 50 from Forza Horizon.
What are you talking about? One recently released critically acclaimed game was The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, which players have averaged 75 hours of time on[0]. Even at $60, that's $0.8/hour.
And don't forget that unlike food or movie tickets, the price of a game goes down drastically over time. If you're willing to play older games, you can get them for almost nothing.
With Steam, I got L.A. Noire, a game released in May 2011 to pretty good reviews (83/100 on Metacritic for the PC version), for just $7.50 in July of this year. I've already played it for 43 hours (and still haven't finished it) - just $0.17/hour.
0: http://www.gamespot.com/news/skyrim-pc-players-average-75-ho...
The amount of time you need to commit to make it worthwhile is exactly the problem and introduces a high risk factor. If I see a mediocre movie, that's only 2 hours of value gone.
You're clearly doing something wrong then. I'm not a particularly big gamer, but by spending a minute or two online looking at review scores before buying a game, I've almost always been happy with my purchases.
> The amount of time you need to commit to make it worthwhile is exactly the problem and introduces a high risk factor.
I think this is less of a problem these days because you can get a pretty good idea of the quality of a game from online reviews, certainly better than newspaper-based movie reviews that people have relied on for the last half century (not that you can't find movie reviews online now as well).
For example, let's look at some of the highest rated games of all time list and see which ones I've bought and didn't feel I got my money's worth (just looking at the first page of metacritic top all time):
PS3: Assassin's Creed, Rock Band 2 (enjoyed Rock Band 1), Dragon Age: Origins, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare,
PC: Bioshock, Diablo 3 (big fan of Diablo 1), StarCraft 2 (big fan of StarCraft 1), Civilization IV.
Of course there are plenty of games where I did get more than my money's worth: Minecraft, Fallout 3, everything by Valve, GTA, WarCraft 3, Diablo, Elder's Scrolls, Baldur's Gate, etc etc. I'd say in any given year, there's probably at least as many games I've bought that were meh and just didn't grab me as there are ones that were amazing. That reminds me, I should probably send another donation to the Dwarf Fortress brothers.
It's not all about reviews, and not all games have demos on launch day (or even weeks later). Fact is, games are high-commitment (hours) and comparatively high-cost.
Your chart assumes that entertainment is fungible though. 5 minutes on a roller coaster is probably better than 2 hours of Flubber.
To make the chart accurate, you should have net value = (fun value - cost).
If you value novelty and variety for fun, then video games are the ticket (as long as you aren't sticking to Battlecall of Warfighter genre titles).
If so, I'm not sure how DF fits that description.
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Toady has been averaging $3-$4k/month lately:
Movie (Redwood City) - tickets $14, Popcorn+Drink - $8. + 15 minutes of commercial for 1:45 movie = $12/hour.
Dinner (at Flemings) - Entre $48, Drink $22, Salad $8, coffee $4, Dessert $7 - 2 Hours = $45/hour.
Video Game on my iOS Device - average $1.99, I've had some of them in constant rotation for 2+ years. Reasonably around 50 hours before I play them out Some only 20-30 hours, some 70 - though some (Field Runners, Slay, PvZ, MsPacMan, FlighControl, RopeNFly, Bloons, Galcon, Go) Have held my attention longer.. = $0.04/Hour.
I guess that's why I only go to Flemings once or twice a year, movies 8-10 times a year, and have spent $1000+ on the iTunes App Store in the last 4 years.
Not everyone can do it, but matinées are also great— you can see a movie for ~$5-6.
Hm, and this is topped by pen'n'paper roleplaying games, where a couple of rule books can last for years.
Decades, if you don't buy all new rulebooks every few years like most of the RPG companies want you to.
Eclipse is like $100 and I've only played it once for 6ish hours. Dominant Species also pushes a high price and I've played it 3 times. Ascencion was something like $40.
Good board games are EXPENSIVE; and so far the price-per-hour for me is still very high.
We've only had our copy of eclipse for a short while, and since it's a big commitment to get a group to spend 4 or 5 hours together we've only managed 2 games so far. Roughly 10 hours for 100 bucks seems expensive, but what if you divide that across a group of 5 people? Then it's already down to 2$ per hour.
Every time the game comes to the table it looks like a better investment. All depends how you account for it, and how many plays you get out of it before you move on to the next new thing.
I own about 100 bucks in Ticket to Ride Europe + 2 map packs, but we've probably played it for 100+ hours now...
On the other hand Battlelore sits unused because my friends don't dig it, so I'm at -$50 there =P
Also, no DRM that requires you to be connected to the internet at all times.
I only had an opportunity to play Eclipse once, so I don't know how much longevity that particular game has. But I never miss a chance to play Dixit, Neuroshima Hex or Dominion.
Good board games have no upper limit of how much you can play them. In contrast, many computer 'games' nowadays are story-based, and stories are almost always linear. How often can you read a (fiction) book ? With board games, you stop playing them once you're bored with them. There's no arbitrary limit.
I wish computer games returned back to roots (board games and pen&paper RPG games). The reason is highly value innovation and variety. With board games, rules are the distinguishing factor. By default, every board game tries to do something differently, if not by coming up with new things then by making a good mix of already known mechanics.
Prices here have not come down at all; services like Steam should let us buy games at US prices but most companies use regional pricing on Steam so we still have to pay more (and accounts get locked if you try to sneak around buying games from other regions)
Video game = $50 / 20 hours = $2.50/hour
A season of The Wire = $30 / 13 hours = $2.25/hour