Are You Buying Fewer Games in this Bad Economy?
Gaming is an expensive hobby. Rule books, miniatures, maps and convention travel all conspire to empty a gamer’s wallet. While planning my Gen Con trip budget today, I wondered how much the current dire economic situation is impacting gamers. To satisfy my curiosity, I am running the very first Livingdice.com poll. The poll will run for one week, so encourage every gamer you know to contribute. Prevailing wisdom is that games tend to be “recession resistant” like movies. People will still spend on “fun” activites regardless of how bad the economy becomes. Is this the case for you or are you saving that cash for a rainy day?
Trask, The Last Tyromancer
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Depends on what kind of gaming your talking about. RPGing is very cheap compared to wargaming or video gaming.
My spending on RPG games has remained consistent I think. Spending £20 ($40-50) on a brand new book seems like a much more reasonable idea then spending £40-50 (±$100) on the latest video game.
Of course, a lot of the RPG books are printed outside of Britain and shipped here, and we might see them becoming more expensive as the pound looses value to the dollar and the euro.
Dammed pesky economy.
Its an interesting question…
I’ve definitely spent less on gaming as a whole in the last 4 – 6 months, but that is mainly due to me taking a break from warhammer 40K (very expensive). In the last 3 months I’ve bought way more RPG books mainly because I’ve grown interested in so many different ones right now.
Gaming’s as cheap as ever: Friends are everything is required. Dice and internet are helpful.
I’ll probably continue buying about one rpg book a year. I don’t even have time to play all of those, so buying more would be a waste.
I agree with the others. $8 / week for pizza for hours and hours of entertainment is still the best bargain I can think of.
I spend a little less, but not much less. I switched from my FLGS to Amazon (bad gamer, I know, but it’s so much cheaper!) and I no longer feed everyone on my dime, but I still do all the driving. Bleh. I spend maybe 20% less than I did last year overall. Not a huge decrease, but the poll went from ‘no change’ to ‘severe change’ to ‘no buying at all’ which left a lot of options out.
I actually spend more now then before. But that is mostly because of D&D 4E and all the new books and gaming opportunities because of it. However, unlike LiquidWeird, I have bought everything from my FLGS, even with the killer online deals. It is my favorite place to hang out and window shop, and gaming would not be the same without them. So I make it a point to go in there and at least buy something once a month (which happily corresponds to the 4E release plans).
I spend a lot less, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the economy. My wife gave birth to our first son back in September, so all the costs involved with raising him have put a dent in my entertainment budget and the time I can actually spend gaming is greatly reduced as well. I still buy the new Star Wars Saga release and the occasional pdf, but not much beyond that. I’ve been putting more money into video gaming lately instead as my group can more easily get together online for some quick Left 4 Dead action on the 360 than playing RPG’s.
I buy a good bit from my FLGS, but my insane White Wolf addiction demands a cost-effective solution. (I have every NWoD book in print to date. Don’t freak out, I love OWoD, too! I got a huge number of those books as well, and still play in a long-running Masquerade game. Sabbat ftw!)
FLGS for convenience, Amazon for my monthly purchase of 2-4 hardcover books.
My FLGS is huge, takes up three storefronts in the strip, with another, larger, location a few miles away. I don’t think they’re hurting THAT badly. They’ll tighten their belts, but they’ll be here on the other end of our economic woes.