Mathematical Musings on the Price:Entertainment Ratio
of Adventure Games
I have seen many a complaint on newsgroups and elsewhere on the Internet
regarding the lack of replayability of adventure games as compared to
strategy, sims, RPGs, and shooters. Frankly, I’m getting a little sick
of hearing it (whining never sits well with me–just ask my kids!), and
so I thought I’d bring to light some more relevant comparisons, that is,
by comparing the cost of some other cheap forms of entertainment with
the cost of an adventure game.
The following examples assume an average adventure game full price of
$50 and an average time to complete an adventure game of 20 hours.
An average movie lasts about two hours and costs $7, and that’s not including
the cost of the junk food. For your $50, you can see about 7 movies, or
gain 14 hours worth of entertainment. That would equal the entertainment
value of only the shortest of adventure games, plus you’d have to waste
all the gasoline and time to get to the theater, but keeping it simple,
you would get three extra movies’ worth of entertainment time by buying
an adventure game. On the other hand, you could rent Schindler’s List
at your video store 14 times at $3.50 per and be entertained until
the end of time, or at least until you have to go potty, instead of paying
the cost of one adventure game. That, however, would also assume that
Schindler’s List is inherently more replayable than an adventure
game.
An average hardcover book costs about $25 and takes about five hours
to read, so you could get two books for the price of one game and be amused
for 10 hours. (However, to be fair, an average paperback is about $7,
or about 35 hours for your $50, so unless you’ve got a nice long adventure
game, you’re better off with the paperbacks. Also, if you’re a slow reader,
you might be better off even with the hardcovers.)
Say you are a more active sort and choose to play some type of sport
instead of gluing your mug to your computer screen for the 20 hours of
adventure game playing. If you already have whatever equipment you need
and pick something that’s free to play, like driveway basketball, you
can be endlessly entertained for nothing, right? Wrong! One trip to a
massage parlor or chiropractor after playing for 20 hours straight equals
or exceeds the cost of one adventure game, plus it’s a lot less fun (that’s
assuming the masseur is not some totally buffed out Fabio-looking dude
whose hands you might want roaming all over your body … “I
can’t believe it’s not butt-aaahh” … er, I digress into my fantasy
life yet again–excuse me for a moment).
… All right, then, I’m back. Work–assume you are a top executive
at a Fortune 500 company. You’d probably only have to work a half hour,
or better yet, delegate for 30 seconds, to earn enough for one adventure
game. The return in terms of time spent would be forty-fold (how do you
like that turn of phrase? pretty swell, huh?). Then again, assume you
make minimum wage, which is, what? around $5 in the U.S.? You’d have to
work 10 hours for your 20 hours of entertainment. That might sound like
a pretty raw deal, but if that’s really the case, you’re probably reading
this on your parents’ computer, and maybe if you tell them it’s “educational,”
they will buy the adventure game for you, so you can’t lose.
The only form of entertainment I can think of that would entertain longer
for less money than a nice adventure game would be hanging at the mall
with your girlfriends and dissin’ all the geeky guys you see, and that’s
assuming you don’t buy that $350 Coach leather handbag you’ve had your
eye on for a while. Oops, I think I just confused the age groups, but
you get my drift.
In conclusion, next time you start complaining that adventure games are
too expensive or not replayable enough, just shut your pie hole! (Feel
free, however, to complain loudly and at length when a game is released
with a lot of bugs.)
