Total cost of gaming

Bickaxe · 8 Jul 2021 at 11:11

Bought a SNES with money saved from my paper round and was mostly a console gamer until 1999 (had an Amiga 600 as well) when I bought my first PC.
Complete new system every few years along with new monitors and peripherals now and again. There are always games but I tend to use key sites rather than going directly to Steam although this is relatively recent.

Between 25-30k I would think in the last 30 years.
I don't feel guilty about it though as its my main hobby. Other people spend similar amounts on their hobbies over a long period of time and I use mine everyday. Its even helped me find work which a new camera lens or shiny exhaust can't do.

dave28 · 8 Jul 2021 at 11:15

Been gaming since the mid 1980`s and believe me it was not cheap back then.

Must be over 15K maybe over 20K even, its hard to tell

Sedgey123 · 8 Jul 2021 at 15:56

hard to say - spent 3.5k on just my tower alone in September last year but that was a big splurge after not updating for 5+ years

SPG · 8 Jul 2021 at 16:13

maybe 5k in 10years

Mainly down to a monitor failing so bought a widescreen, then the GTX 580 in SLI couldn't run the monitor so ended up with 1080TI, the odd SSD failing not bad really i guess. But i balk at the prices for hardware now. I refuse to pay the over-inflated cost for the PC market due to crypto i would sooner go without.

UTmaniac · 9 Jul 2021 at 07:01

Easily ~£5k on five(?) PCs from 2001 to 2014. My last PC died two years back, now I timeshare my partner's one from 2014, I don't game enough besides flutters on Rocket League to justify a new system and other devices like mobile can do web browsing.

d_brennen · 9 Jul 2021 at 07:32

Mostly PC gamer here. I use my PC for work and stuff aside from gaming, so the way I see it, it's only the cost of GPUs and games themselves over the years. I'd have a fast PC and nice monitors anyway so...

Compared to other hobbies I have, this is quite cheap

Brok · 9 Jul 2021 at 09:26

So just counting the big ticket items (systems, laptops, monitors, consoles) I got to about 23k since the late 90s in hardware. Games themselves is impossible to calculate really but lets say 200 at an average price of £20 = another 4k. So 27k over 22 years which is about £1,200 a year.

M1k3H · 9 Jul 2021 at 10:09

I spend about £2k every 7 years on PC building. I spend about £100 a year on games.

I spent about £600 for my switch and switch games.

Taking everything into account that is roughly £385 on PC gaming a year, and £85 on console gaming a year (assuming I buy a console every 7 years, which seems reasonable).

Totalling £470/year.

tyler_jrb · 9 Jul 2021 at 14:19

Every game console and pc inc games over the years. Difficult to calculate.

Must be touching £20k if not more.

Ive had the vast majority of games consoles and built and tinkered with a fair few high end pc’s over the last 10 years.

However I don’t tend to spend/play as much as I used too. Spend probably £1-2000 over the last 2-3years.

EdwardTeach · 9 Jul 2021 at 14:45

Over the last 10 years probably a bit north of £3k on pc and console hardware (wii u, ps3, ps4, ps5 vita, psvr). I havent upgraded my PC for at least 5years, I am planning to next year, which will probably be at least 2k.

Games, no idea but probably £2-3k.

I consider it good value in terms of hours of enjoyment. There will be some games that I buy and never play, but there are others I have got a lot of value from, so it evens out over time. I am much much more cautious with my game purchases now. In the early days of steam sales I used to buy so many games for the "future" and then never get round to playing them. I try and only buy games that I will be able to play in the very near future these days.

StrongSad · 9 Jul 2021 at 15:34

I dread to think.

However, the first computer I paid for myself was an Amiga 1200, £400 or so and my first Pentium PC was a £1400 prebuilt in 1995/96 on drip.
Since then pretty much been paying for new hardware as and when it came out. All the voodoo cards, The monster 3D, ATI, Matrox, Most Intel and then AMD. I also spend thousands on MS flight sim, from addons, Flight hardware and constant system refreshes, GFX card upgrades etc. Built PC's for the Kids as hand me downs as and when I changed socket's
I have slowed down with upgrades in the past 10 years or so. Had an i7 860 from launch, i7 4790k (died on a Christmas day) so went Ryzen 1600x (that died and was swapped by AMD), then Ryzen 3600, GFX cards for those, ATI 6950, NV 970 (returned to OC as part of the 3.5Gb debacle) 980, 980ti, 2070 super. The 980ti cost me £140 and 2070 cost me £200 new with the sales of my old cards.
The difference from then to now is online auction sites where you can sell to upgrade. That has offset the rolling price a lot. Before that, I used to have hardware in draws and boxes everywhere.

Adding in the ram, HD's over the years not to mention, Modems, Sound cards, Monitors, CD roms, DVD Rom, cases, Power supplies, it is bloody endless when I think about it.

However, that was and still is my hobby and as I am now retired through MS, my PC is an escape from where I am with my illness progression.

So yeah I have no idea how much but I am not really counting, in the 10's thousands I would imagine but it has been a wild and tremendously fun ride.

regulus · 9 Jul 2021 at 17:41

Don't really know. A few thousand over the years? Just going by my CPU. Bought 2nd hand off OCUK around 2012 from MM. Moved to NZ in 2014 and kept it until 2016-17 when I bought the 6700k 2nd hand along with new motherboard. I still have that. Brought my 5870 with from the UK and upgraded to 1080gtx whenever that was released. I still have that.

Bought a 1440p widescreen in 2016. I still have that.

Bought new case in 2014. Still have that. Keyboard and mouse replaced in 2016. Still have that.

Guess I don't really upgrade much, and when I do, it's generally 2nd hand stuff.

lokiss · 9 Jul 2021 at 19:12

VR in it's current form will rinse you if you hooked in. Flight sims, racing sims become a thing again that demand the highest hardware specs and the best visual quality headsets, not to mention the outlay on the sim gear that becomes a must as you delve further in to it.

All told with just Overclockers over the last 21 years, probably around 15K. Dabbled with computer fairs around the mids ought's though so a few thousand more, not to mention recently where it's been source from anywhere with available stock, and VR HMD that OC don't stock.

Expensive game, but really thundering down the racetrack in VR in a rig is living the dream.

ne0 · 10 Jul 2021 at 01:25

Thousands. But the wife, kids and house get all they need and more so who cares.

m4rmite · 10 Jul 2021 at 08:13

Way too much.
But i never got in debt for any of it and only when i could afford it above other things.
My first computer was a C64 for £299 in 1985 ish, my parents bought that so i can't take the credit for that one.

Now, if i could live without eating I'd be rich

azazl187 · 10 Jul 2021 at 08:22

Mr Badger said:
So you don't chain smoke a packet of fags and knock back a bottle of spirits during an evening gaming session? Amateurs!

I don't smoke the fags but I certainly drink while I play, especially on Warzone although that game is so toxic and full of hackers right now

arknor · 10 Jul 2021 at 11:08

I used to upgrade a lot in the early days when pc parts were cheap and technology evolved at an insane pace with tons of new games coming out constantly etc.

My first PC was a p3 633mhz slot A and I ended up going to a computer fair a few weeks later for a better motherboard and graphics card, because store bought pc's were total cack back then.

my current pc is 5+ years old but it seems no games come out I want to upgrade for. (980ti which is still capable for 1080)
In total I probably spent less than 5-6k and happy I didn't upgrade for cyberpunk

As soon as pc games basically started being programmed around console specs pc technology started moving at a snails pace compared to how blisteringly fast it used to be.

there were almost constantly new directx hardware features being added, you needed a high enough pixel or whatever (vertex?) shader version or you couldn't even play the games.

seems like only resolutions got higher, AA got better, FPS got higher, frame rendering times got better, but actual graphics barely moved in 5-10 years. (gameplay and AI even got worse?)
developers seem to just be waiting for new generations of consoles.

remember crysis was known for it's graphics.... the last crysis game doesn't even look good imo

oldestgregg · 10 Jul 2021 at 11:46

It does feel silly sometimes when I think about it as its a lot of money but the little one and the house is looked after so who cares. I dont drink or smoke and its my only hobby. This year I bought an RTX3090 which was £1700, an LG CX 48 which was £1100 and an Acer CG437KP which was £1100 but sold the Acer. Maybe spent another £1500 on my 10900k before Xmas and then the PS5 and Xbox series X which were another £1000-ish. Games on top of that but other than replacing my Samsung QLED with another LG CX and maybe a VR kit, Im pretty much covered for a while now. A lot came out this year and last with the consoles so my spending isnt usually this high. Probably talking £20k since I started PC gaming in 2006?

Mr Badger · 10 Jul 2021 at 14:03

arknor said:
I used to upgrade a lot in the early days when pc parts were cheap and technology evolved at an insane pace with tons of new games coming out constantly etc.

My first PC was a p3 633mhz slot A and I ended up going to a computer fair a few weeks later for a better motherboard and graphics card, because store bought pc's were total cack back then.

my current pc is 5+ years old but it seems no games come out I want to upgrade for. (980ti which is still capable for 1080)
In total I probably spent less than 5-6k and happy I didn't upgrade for cyberpunk

As soon as pc games basically started being programmed around console specs pc technology started moving at a snails pace compared to how blisteringly fast it used to be.

there were almost constantly new directx hardware features being added, you needed a high enough pixel or whatever (vertex?) shader version or you couldn't even play the games.

seems like only resolutions got higher, AA got better, FPS got higher, frame rendering times got better, but actual graphics barely moved in 5-10 years. (gameplay and AI even got worse?)
developers seem to just be waiting for new generations of consoles.

remember crysis was known for it's graphics.... the last crysis game doesn't even look good imo

The heady days when upgrading from 486 to Pentium, Pentium 2, Athlon 64 etc. gave big gains. I used to allow myself a complete new system every three years until the Q6600 which I used for much longer and then the 2500K which I'm still using now!

oldestgregg · 10 Jul 2021 at 15:13

Mr Badger said:
The heady days when upgrading from 486 to Pentium, Pentium 2, Athlon 64 etc. gave big gains. I used to allow myself a complete new system every three years until the Q6600 which I used for much longer and then the 2500K which I'm still using now!

What kind of GPU have you got the 2500k paired with? Q6600 felt like a massive upgrade at the time!