World Of Warcraft: Ding! The Final Cost.
February 20th, 2009
When I started World of Warcraft in August of last year, the daunting task of getting to the level cap of 80 in the soon to be released expansion Wrath of the Lich King was set before me. Having a roommate that is a day one subscriber to the popular MMORPG set the bar high as to how fast this task was supposed to be accomplished, but between school as well as wanting to play other games it has actually taken me quite awhile to reach this goal.
With the incredible value that Blizzard thinks that WoW is, I thought I would calculate the actual cost of getting to 80 for a casual player such as myself. Unfortunately being lazy is a bit more costly (And actually provides a bit better line of comparison for the cost to long time players to upgrade to new expansions) as I realize I could have bought the base game and expansion for much less then I paid for in a battle chest, but the lure of just downloading and playing was too much for me to get up and make a trip to Best Buy.
Base Game Cost: 21.34
Burning Crusade Expansion: 32.01
Wrath of the Lich King Expansion: 39.99
Monthly Subscription Fees* (14.99×4): 59.96
Total Cost: $153.30
*Note: While there may be some discrepancy between the time I have played and the number of monthly subscriptions used, Blizzard gives away a free 10 day trial, as well as including 14 days with the purchase of the game and each subsequent expansion, granting about 2 months of additional playtime.
While this may seem a lot, I suppose it is just a tad more then the cost of two Xbox 360 or PS3 games for the equivalent of almost 6 months of playtime. As you can see my playtime is almost at 13 days, which is almost kind of a sick number to stomach. Even some of the most in depth RPG’s I have played have only ever been around 100 hours, nothing near the 300+ that I have played of WoW. Breaking that down to a per hour cost, WoW is at about 2 dollars per hour, which is actually a pretty decent number in comparison to other games in the current generation. Delving deeper with some simple math over a 6 month period of time I was playing WoW for around 7 percent of the time (GOD THAT NUMBER IS SCARY), in contrast I was probably sleeping for 29 percent of the time, based on 7 hours of sleep per night, which is actually pretty gracious. The sad part about this number is it really means nothing in comparison to what long time players have invested in the game.
After reaching level 80 I was told by my roommate that this is only the beginning and that is time to gear up, run high level raids, battlegrounds and arenas. I responded with an unenthusiastic look and walked back to my computer to start grinding honor, in hopes of getting some decent gear so a guild would let me raid with them in Naxx (The Highest level Raid at the current Patch). Whether this endgame keeps my interest is in question, one thing is for sure, if you want to waste 7 percent of your life World of Warcraft is a great/cheap/horribly involving way to do so.
-Eric Wall
Tags: Cost, featured, Leveling, World of Warcraft, WoW
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February 21st, 2009 at 1:54 am
Yeah okay ew, I will never play this game. Granted I’ve seen that it takes more like 30% of some people’s lives, but this is the whole reason I can’t find myself caring about just one game. 7% is awfully pricey…
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Samich reply on March 18th, 2009 3:33 am:
I’ve been playing the game for 4 years. My total play time is probably close to…almost a full year on all characters.
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Jessica reply on February 12th, 2010 12:12 pm:
I was thinkn about what I spent on WoW since my account has been hacked and Blizzard doesnt give a shit!! I was inactive for about 2months then went to put time on it and had to merge it to a battle.net account….blah u all knw…well I was the Guild Master, a good friend of mine said that I have been online and he said I was “acting weird and wouldnt talk” then “my lvl 80 priest took out over 500 in gold and then this person kid everyone from my guild. But its not just the money…and all you other dedicated WoW players know that this is almost like ID theft in my real life!! All the time, and gold I put into my toons and making my guild, healing in raids and taking the game serious, like when I let someone die… Ya know I just WANT BLIZZ TO GET OFF THEIR ASS AND GET ME MY ACCOUNT BACK THIS IS PISSING ME OFF!!!! THEN THEY SAID THAT MY ACCOUNT MAY BE BANDED….WTF??? SOMEONE HACKED MY ACCOUNT AND BLIZZ IS GONNA PUNISH ME IF I CAN GET IT BACK AFTER THIS PERSON HAS STOLEN EVERYTHING
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February 22nd, 2009 at 2:45 pm
That number is actually quite impressive, though. It took me about a year to get to 60 pre-TBC. Not because I was playing casually, but because I was splicing up my levelling time with roleplay and PVP. I’m currently 77, but I dread to think what my /played looks like. :/
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February 22nd, 2009 at 8:02 pm
I’ve put nearly 6000 hours into WoW (5992 according to my Xfire profile) and I quit shortly after Burning Crusade came out. I purchased Collector’s Editions for both the regular game and TBC. I estimate that I spent about $233 between box costs and monthly fees across 2 years. Calculating out the number of hours I spent versus cost… it was about $0.03 per hour for me. I’d say that’s a pretty damn good price. I could have spent $50-60 per game, played them for 50 hours, and then moved onto the next one. That would have cost me a ton, though. I would have been spending at least $1/hour playing games, quite a large difference from $0.03/hour. On top of that, if I made any mistakes in purchasing I could have ended up with a game that just wasn’t fun, or not nearly as much fun as I was having in WoW.
So really, in the long run, MMOs are much cheaper than any other form of gaming. Sure, you have to pay monthly but what other game lets you get 6000 hours of enjoyment from it?
Jenni, why would it be a bad thing to spend most of your time playing one game compared to switching between games constantly? You just keep progressing, and never have to start over. Personally, I’m waiting for my perfect MMO to be released so that I don’t have to purchase another game ever again. Ok, so that’s not likely to actually happen, but I can definitely have a ton of fun playing MMOs for years at a time with minimal costs compared to regular gaming.
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Jenni Chasteen reply on February 23rd, 2009 3:05 pm:
It’s not really about getting more time out of more games for me… honestly I don’t see this as how much you’re spending per hour of gameplay… I see both the money spent and the time spent playing as a loss. I have enough hobbies that I neglect, and I have a hard time investing myself in a game. Anything I play I want to be able to walk away from and not feel obligated at any point to go back to. MMOs take out the fun of being able to play to let off some steam or to enjoy the artistic aspects of a game and turn it into a chore… nothing about that sounds enjoyable to me, and realizing how much of my time, energy and money is lost to a game like this just puts me off more.
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Scrybe reply on February 24th, 2009 3:05 pm:
I’m in agreement with Jenni here. I like to enjoy a game ‘holistically’ in a way. Cool graphics…check, fun gameplay…check…great story…check…interesting characters…check…challenging…check. But like Jenni I wanna feel okay with the fact that I don’t want to finish it or play it anymore and move on. It’s akin to sticking to one type of genre of books vs reading books from all over the map. I for one love sci-fi but I also like delving into other genres…playing around but always knowing that good ol sci fi is there waiting for me. WOW screams “committment” and that just doesn’t sound fun. I’m sure it actually is fun but in the end I think I’d be kicking myself knowing I spent 2000+ hours on one game when I could have spent 2000+ hours experiencing 20-30 different experiences instead. Or go outside. For a walk. Outside. That’s just too much time to invest in any one thing outside of family, religion, health and work.
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March 15th, 2009 at 2:04 am
Here are my stats:
Approx. $512 spent over a little more than 2 years (841 days exactly)
152 days played
$0.01 per hour of gameplay
$0.61 per day subscribed
18.1% of my life was spent playing. (Odd, as my rough calculations were getting 35%. I guess I can’t live up to the ideal.)
I don’t think you’re getting your money’s worth.
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January 4th, 2010 at 7:10 am
As I became a designer in the professional world I learned that the rules of design are suggestions that the novice designer should follow in order to play it safe. My professors would kill me if they heard me say this but, if there is a good concept behind your work and it’s done extremely well; the rules no longer apply.
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January 7th, 2011 at 12:53 pm
http://www.bittenandbound.com/2008/11/13/anand-jon-alexander-guilty-of-assaulting-models-photos/
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January 10th, 2011 at 11:50 am
http://www.grafixjam.com/wordpress/?p=85
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