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[atyourservice]

There are more expensive hobbies like golf, go-karting, art collection, sneaker collection, polo, or classic car restoration. There are less expensive hobbies like most casual team sports, reading, gardening, photography, cooking, cinemagoing and small DIY craft projects. Gaming falls somewhere in between. Where do you class it?

At its most expensive you'd be paying for
- Base hardware
- Controllers/Keyboard+Mouse
- Extra storage
- Headphones and other peripherals
- Games
- Collector's editions
- Microtransactions
Subscriptions for online play(console exclusive)
- Electricity cost of running hardware + display + surround sound system
- Others I can't think of right now

These are all subjective definitions, of course. Expensive is relative to your socioeconomic class. Income level. Per capita gdp. So on.

Another factor would be the floor argument. i.e. the floor of a hobby, or the hobby at its cheapest, should be used t determine whether it's cheap or not. the issues is that the cheapest you can get for games is around the cost of an old gameboy or psp. Overall less than a phone and can still be considered hobby gaming.
To that, I say focus on the typical modern gaming experience. Mobile, Console, or PC only. That already sets a baseline of hardware cost

On the whole though, regardless of your personal wealth level, is gaming an expensive hobby for the average person?

 

[AV]

You can get old used hardware and games dirt cheap. Or buy a new console and only play F2P. Gaming's as expensive as you want it to be.

 

[Radical_3d]

I laugh when people say that 40K is expensive. I have a 2K nids army for about 450€. That’s a bargain tier hobby!

 

[Pegasus Actual]

Cheap AF

 

[RPCGamer]

Completely depends on what you're trying to play. I think a lot of these F2P or GaaS games are popular purely because the barrier to entry is low enough you can basically play a lot of them on cheap hardware. If you're trying to play games that are ultra realistic however, that's where it can get really expensive.

Sony and xbox would do well to remind themselves of this tbh. Consoles were not about chasing the best of PC. They were a cheaper.

 

[Allandor]

It can be both.
If you always want the newest of the newest it can get dann expensive.
If you just want to have fun, it can be really cheap.

Most of the time (just like often in this forum, or any other gaming focussed forum) Fomo is strong with us, that makes it expensive.

 

[Rentahamster]

It's both. It depends on what games you play and how you play them.

 

[Mownoc]

You can spend £3k on a high end pc or you can spend £150 on a used series s. Gaming can be cheap or expensive. It's up to you.

 

[Insanemaelstrom]

It's relative. It is more expensive than a lot of sports, while being cheaper than something like racing

 

[Zathalus]

It can range from playing League on your cheap second hand laptop all the way up to having custom gaming rooms with ultra rare collectables worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

 

[Cakeboxer]

Like most other hobbies: Can be cheap, can be exoensive. Depends on your requirements. If you have none, go console

 

[Schmendrick]

Depends on what you make of it. It can get addictive and go from very cheap all the way up to extremely expensive.

 

[Killjoy-NL]

Imo, it's rather cheap.

A PS5 Digital costs €450 (€400 at launch) and this gen will last for like 8 years?

And the standard price for a game is €80.
Let's say the average singleplayer game lasts anything between 12-20hrs.

Ordering a pizza for 3 costs about €50 over where I live.
So €80 for even 10hrs of playtime is pretty cheap relative to something as basic as ordering a pizza for 3.

That's not even talking about multiplayer/live-service games.

And I don't buy all games that release each year, so all-in-all... gaming is a pretty cheap hobby overall.

Edit:

Let's not even start about f2p games.

 

[Gonzito]

Expensive, specially if you like to have the latest pc technology

 

[Kumomeme]

it is expensive hobby overall.

but there is work around through that. like used market, buy games at right window, alternative good quality but cheap gaming gear etc.

it is not cheap hobby, but there is lot of option available.

 

[Holammer]

Cheap, even if you splurge it's still peanuts compared with the time & money working on antique or classic cars. Replacement parts will cost you an arm and a leg.
Building a model train set is a huge investment in time & money as well, the locomotive alone cost between 400-700€.

 

[acidagfc]

It is fairly cheap, but unlike other hobbies you have nothing to show to outside ppl for your effort and money spent. No one gives a fuck about your PS trophies.

Physical games can be collectibles, but then the hobby becomes really expensive.

 

[Little Mac]

Super Cheap. Go get into cars, boating, golfing, jujitsu, cycling ... For the hours (years) of enjoyment provided, even getting a LG OLED and a PS5 Pro (Around $2K total) is super cheap compared to alot of hobbies. Only hobby I have cheaper than that, besides Gaf, Netflix or reading, is resistance training at a local community rec center (gym membership is around $360 a year).

 

[acm2000]

as someone who basically just uses game pass for my gaming, its about as cheap of a hobby as you can get.

 

[Xyphie]

Depends entirely how you play. Plenty of people just play Fortnite/Apex/Valorant/CS2/OW2/Dota/LoL/WoW/PoE/Minecraft/Whatever and pay like $10-20 for a Battlepass or subscription once in a while, that's very cheap. If you buy two $70 releases a week which you then keep on the shelf after finishing it's very expensive.

 

[hinch7]

Depends on what you go for. With a massive amount of hardware capable of gaming and free to play games. To thousands of games, numerous subscriptions, DLC's and expensive MTX's for the whales out there. But relatively speaking its a fairly cheap hobby; even if we look at high end PC's and consoles. Like they are nothing compared to most physical activies and sports. Then you have cars, figures and models (Warhammer for example), merch collecting, cards etc

 

[Tsaki]

It's incredibly cheap; it's almost laughable. You can get a base PS4 and enjoy years of great games, either through -90% sales on the digital store or by buying used physical discs. It only feels expensive when FOMO kicks in, making you feel like you need the latest thing in the highest quality. Avoiding spoilers can be an issue, though, but mainly for those of us who actively visit gaming forums. Someone who isn't as tuned in likely wouldn't have many problems with it.

 

[Randall365]

Depends - if you have a gaming laptop, gaming PC, must get the latest new console and play the latest releases, it is certainly not cheap. However, if you put 100 hours into a game and go a while without buying hardware then it is amazingly good value.

 

[ArtHands]

Frankly speaking I wouldn’t mind forking out $100 for PS5 games like Wolverine or Ghost of Yotei.

 

[YOU PC BRO?!]

Simple. Its a mixture of both depending on your preferences.

Physical => Cheap *unless you keep all your games
Digital => Expensive *unless you are willing to wait for price reductions and special offers
Digital subscription (i.e. Game Pass, PlayStation Plus etc.) => Cheapest but limited to the games available on the service

 

[Mr Reasonable]

It's a spectrum. I bought my TV to play games on, might have bought a cheaper one had I not been concerned about how games looked.

I buy games before I have finished the last few I started.

I buy premium consoles and peripherals. I bought all 3 consoles this gen.

Gaming for me could be 4 or 5 times what others pay.

I spend more on guitars though.

 

[Generic]

Expensive. I don't need a console or a high-end PC to watch Netflix.

 

[Branded]

Expensive. I don't need a console or a high-end PC to watch Netflix.

Yes but people who have "Netflix" as their hobby are boring af.

 

[Nankatsu]

Personally it's expensive, yes.

I had a phase where I liked to collect the ultimate editions of my favorite games at the time. Fast forward a couple of years and yeah, I shouldn't have done it.

Haven't bought a single ultimate edition this generation yet, and honestly, don't plan to.

If you stack that to premium equipment, it tends to be quite expensive.

But then again, it only becomes more expensive if you allow it yourself.

 

[RoadHazard]

You can make it expensive if you really want to, but overall it's pretty cheap.

 

[Generic]

Yes but people who have "Netflix" as their hobby are boring af.

Still, I don't need a console or a high-end PC to watch movies/show.

 

[FreeY$L]

Its the cheapest hobby there is, a console costs 500$ brand new, you can get games on discount all year round. Try cycling, you could easily drop $3k on an entry level bike, not to mention the other gadgets you can obtain if you’re serious about tracking your progress.

 

[Pasta la Vista]

I've never considered playing video games a hobby.

 

[RCX]

Its cheap. My friend I payed £60 for Mortal Kombat 2 on the SNES back in the day.

Inflation adjusted thats £125 (or $165 for the Americans) now.

 

[CompleteGlobalSaturation]

There are more expensive hobbies like golf, go-karting, art collection, sneaker collection, polo, or classic car restoration. There are less expensive hobbies like most casual team sports, reading, gardening, photography, cooking, cinemagoing and small DIY craft projects. Gaming falls somewhere in between. Where do you class it?

At its most expensive you'd be paying for
- Base hardware
- Controllers/Keyboard+Mouse
- Extra storage
- Headphones and other peripherals
- Games
- Collector's editions
- Microtransactions
Subscriptions for online play(console exclusive)
- Electricity cost of running hardware + display + surround sound system
- Others I can't think of right now

These are all subjective definitions, of course. Expensive is relative to your socioeconomic class. Income level. Per capita gdp. So on.

Another factor would be the floor argument. i.e. the floor of a hobby, or the hobby at its cheapest, should be used t determine whether it's cheap or not. the issues is that the cheapest you can get for games is around the cost of an old gameboy or psp. Overall less than a phone and can still be considered hobby gaming.
To that, I say focus on the typical modern gaming experience. Mobile, Console, or PC only. That already sets a baseline of hardware cost

On the whole though, regardless of your personal wealth level, is gaming an expensive hobby for the average person?

With the cost of hardware (upgrades) it's a fairly expensive hobby.

PC games are relatively cheap.

 

[RoboFu]

Super expensive compared to other hobbies, you guys are in denial.

 

[Laptop1991]

Well top end PC's cost more to build especially the GPU's and the AAA games cost more than in the past, if you want to buy them, and the consoles are now costing more than they use to, so i'd say more expensive!.

 

[Daneel Elijah]

Expensive. Don't get me wrong, it is cheap for the value it gives you back, but gaming expenses are IMHO bigger than most vices(drinking and smoking)for many people. You can get it for really chap, of course. But this is like saying you can play sports outside in abandoned locations with a 10 year old ball. Most people in developed countries don't do that.

 

[Felessan]

No single answer.
Can cost thousands $ per month (gaas whales)
Can cost pennies (f2p or cheap indies on entry-level notebook/mobile)

Dispersion of money spent on gaming is huge between various types of gamers

 

[Sintoid]

It does have a really low entering budget request and maybe it's one of the problems afflicting gaming market

 

[HerjansEagleFeeder]

It's both. It depends on what games you play and how you play them.

This. It all depends on your own financial situation, how you play, what you play, what tools you use to play etc.

For some people, a 2,500 USD GPU is a negligible expense, while for others seems totally insane to even consider buying just to play some games. This will obviously be different for everybody. I personally, for some weird reason, are relatively insensitive when it comes to the cost of hardware products and parts, yet I find it outrageous when a piece of software costs 80 euros or more

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Anyone who thinks gaming is an expensive hobby obviously doesn't have any other hobbies

Don't @ me you know I'm right

 

[Felessan]

Super expensive compared to other hobbies, you guys are in denial.

Genshin girls tends to disagree, they don't spend money in-game, only out of game. And entry is essentially free

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

Cheap. You can play F2P, a subscription service and choose any platform from mobile to NASA computers. It was expensive in the early days, not today.

 

[midnightAI]

Frankly speaking I wouldn’t mind forking out $100 for PS5 games like Wolverine or Ghost of Yotei.

People will scoff at that (and will at this), but adjusted for inflation games are cheaper now than they were on the SNES, adjusted for inflation those games were over £100 (many retailed at between £50-£60 back in the early 90's)

Gaming is much cheaper now than it was back then (the 90's), hardware can be expensive, sure, but even that aligns to those prices (roughly)

(that doesnt of course mean I want game prices to increase, just saying in context you can see why they increased game prices up to £70 as they were stagnant at £50-£60 for many years))

 

[balls of snow]

Cheap hobby. Games are on sale all the time and many can offer up to 100 hours a pop.
Imagine being a sports car enthusiast.

 

[Robb]

I’d count it as expensive.

 

[StueyDuck]

It's expensive for an easily accessible hobby that requires no barrier for entry. (Basically anyone can play a video game)

But with regards to other hobbies that are more specialized, focused etc. It's not too bad.

 

[Tokio Blues]

Expensive if you are a pc gamer.

 

[Radical_3d]

Expensive if you are a pc gamer.

Console gamers with a TV that cost more than a PC…