The 2010 Gaming Expenditure Horror

The 2010 Gaming Expenditure Horror

I’ve been tracking which games I play, on my Gaming Diary, for 6 years now. It’s helped me realise how many different games I play, and how many I complete. This year, however, I’ve additionally started tracking the games I buy, and how much I paid for them – the aim being to scare myself into how much I spend on gaming.

Thing is, just knowing that it’s logged has actually made me more frugal with my spending. Not only did I decide early in the year to drop the £25 Rule to £20, but I’ve also been actively avoiding buying pretty much everything on release. Everything except that huge blip and rule-breaker that calls itself Fallout: New Vegas, at least. But more on that game another day.

You’ll notice I’ve also listed a few games with a cost of £nuffin. That’s because they were either genuinely free (lots of iPhone games were, and so was Guardian of Light on the 360) or were presents to me (therefore cost me nowt).

Game
Price
Platform
Ghost Squad
£7.00
Wii (US)
Rabbids Go Home
£12.00
Wii (PAL)
Rayman Raving Rabbids 2
£5.00
Wii (US)
Donkey Kong Barrel Blast
£4.00
Wii (US)
Lego Rock Band
£17.99
360
Batman Arkham Asylum
£15.00
360
Excitebike: World Challenge
£7.00
Wii (Ware)
Sonic and Knuckles
£5.60
Wii (VC)
House of the Dead Overkill
£7.00
Wii (PAL)
The Conduit
£11.00
Wii (PAL)
Monkey Island Chapter 5
£7.00
Wii (Ware)
Castlevania Rebirth
£7.00
Wii (Ware)
Mega Man 10
£7.00
Wii (Ware)
Dead Space Extraction
£9.25
Wii
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia
£11.47
DS
Castlevania: Rondo of Blood
£6.30
Wii (VC)
Guitar Hero: Decades
£5.00
DS
Handheld Famiclone/Wii Wheel
£19.12
Wii
Wii Sports Resort with Motion Plus
£23.61
Wii
Wii Motion Plus
£14.16
Wii
Outrun 2006
£2.95
PSP
Humble Indie Bundle (World of Goo etc.)
£6.77
Mac
Portal
£0.00
Mac
Bit.Trip Runner
£5.60
Wii (Ware)
Lego Indiana Jones 2
£0.00
360
Bioshock 2
£0.00
360
Mass Effect 2
£0.00
360
VSmile and 6 Games
£10.00
VSmile
Another Code R
£14.46
Wii (PAL)
Carcassonne
£2.99
iPhone
Crystal Maze
£0.00
IPhone
Forza 3/Metroid Trilogy/Okami
£36.90
360/Wii
Last Gladiators Pinball
£2.99
iPhone
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2
£2.99
iPhone
SimCity
£0.59
iPhone
Command & Conquer: Red Alert
£0.59
iPhone
Dragon’s Lair
£0.59
iPhone
The Settlers
£0.59
iPhone
Ultraviolet Dawn
£0.00
iPhone
21 Famicom, 6 NES games
£40.00
Famicom/NES
Grand Theft Auto III
£2.50
PS2
Monster Hunter Tri
£20.00
Wii
Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories
£2.50
PS2
PES6
£2.00
360
Prince of Persia
£2.00
360
Smackdown vs Raw 2007
£2.00
360
Namco Arcade Plug and Play Console
£3.00
Standalone
Xbox Live Subscription (12 months)
£27.99
360
Lara Croft: Guardian of Light
£0.00
360
Scott Pilgrim vs the World
£6.80
360
Minerva’s Den (Bioshock 2 DLC)
£6.80
360
Fallout New Vegas CE
£67.49
360
Band Hero
£6.67
DS
Brutal Legend
£6.67
360
Tomb Raider Underworld
£6.66
360
Happy Mrs Chicken
£1.79
iPhone
Monkey Island 2
£0.59
iPhone
Peggle
£0.59
iPhone
Spider: Bryce Manor
£0.59
iPhone
Myst
£1.19
iPhone
Spectrum Elite Collection
£0.59
iPhone
Peggle Nights
£0.59
iPhone
Sonic 4 Episode 1
£5.99
iPhone
DJ Hero
£19.97
Wii
Sonic 4 Episode 1
£10.20
360
Sonic 4 Episode 1
£10.50
Wii
Mirror’s Edge
£0.59
iPhone
Game Dev Story
£2.39
iPhone
Super Meat Boy
£5.60
360
Pinball FX 2 Core Pack
£5.60
360
Naughty Bear
£0.00
iPhone
Mr.AahH!!
£0.00
iPhone
Rage
£0.59
iPhone
Say What You See
£0.59
iPhone
ChuChu Rocket!
£0.59
iPhone
180
£0.59
iPhone
Rayman 2
£0.00
iPhone
Tron
£0.00
iPhone
Cave Story
£7.00
Wii
Harm’s Way
£0.00
360
Doritos Crash Course
£0.00
360
Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit
£0.59
iPhone
Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare
£5.10
360
Dead Money (Fallout NV DLC)
£6.80
360
Professor Layton 3
£0.00
DS
Dead Space
£0.00
360
Lego Star Wars: Complete Saga
£0.61
360
Mass Effect 2 DLC
£5.10
360
Sonic Adventure
£3.40
360

In all, I spent £590.32 this year. That sounds a lot, but I know for a fact it could quite easily be just one tenth of what it has been in previous years. Of course, no new consoles were bought in 2010, which helped keep the spending down a bit.

Lets look at a breakdown of where that £590.32 went.

So what does this all tell me? Nothing I didn’t really know, actually. I found it a little surprising that almost exactly one quarter of my spending has been on intangible downloadable software, for the iPhone, Wii (WiiWare, Virtual Console) and Xbox Live Arcade as well as game downloadable content (such as Undead Nightmare and Dead Money). However, almost 4 years ago I predicted that the next generation of consoles will have downloadable content as the primary distribution mechanism. Things are certainly shifting that way!

The real “tell” with this data will be when I run the same calculations for 2011’s figures and compare them! Stay tuned.

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