On The Value of Games...

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Money spent divided by hours played.

Quality of those hours played might vary a lot :) i've played only 3 hours of Stanleys Parable but i value those 3 hours more than my 200hours in CS:GO.

It always amazes me how inexpensive games really are, especially these days...especially with bundles, etc. Obviously some games are better than others and some are better values than others, but whenever I hear a friend bought a coffee at Starbucks for $5 USD, I think to myself, "I could've bought a nice unbundled wishlist game for that, especially during a sale...or two bundles worth of games, in which at least a couple are interesting to me."

Maybe I'd feel differently if I was more interested in AAA games. But there are lots of perfectly fun games with 10-plus hours of playtime that you can get for a couple of dollars.

I like to go to the money divided by hours ratio, which is a great way to intellectualize the concept, but in the end, how much I enjoy the game is also a factor. A short but amazing game is worth more than a long mediocre one.

I really don't know if a game was worth it until after I'm done. If the game had me hooked for a solid few hours where I wanted to do nothing else, it was worth it. If I managed to rake up 100+ hours because I keep coming back to it, it was worth it.
Price doesn't really matter

But when I'm an hour in and I'm already bored, then no. If I struggle with the tutorial, no. If I spend several hours trudging through frustration, no.
cheap doesn't really matter

And there are many games that lie somewhere in between - I'm enthralled for a few hours before I get bored (repetitive games), games that I spend hours on but have issues with. Games that I play but wonder why I'm still playing a mediocre game, etc.
I hope I didn't pay a lot for it

That being said, all my games are from bundles or deep-discount sales. with a few exceptions
Quite frankly, (a) my backlog is really big, and (b) I don't know if I'll enjoy a game until after I've played it. So I just don't spend a lot of money on games. I don't mind waiting 3 years for the price to come down

I have to agree that the length of the game influences my decision of whether I will purchase a title or not greatly. While I don't have a set threshold so to speak (because hype and other factors obviously have some influence as well), I just cannot see myself paying, for example, 15 euros for a ~45min game. Sure, I'd like to play it at some point but I cannot see myself buying something like that outside of a bundle or 90%+ discount unfortunately. On the other hand, ~30$ for Nioh (that was one of the two reasons I wanted a PS4 for) was not exactly a difficult sell for me, considering you can potentially get 300+ hours out of it.

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Generally I calculate the value of a game by a maximum of 1 euro per hour played. So for a game that is only 5 hours long, I would pay a maximum of 5,- , if the price is too high I wait for a sale. However if the quality of a game is superb, the value of the gameplay per hour changes. Like what DontBeSilly said about the Stanley parable. Which is one of the most amazing games I've ever played, that game is worth every penny.

I think some formula of $ per hour has to be the worst way to judge the value of a piece of media. Games are an art form, or at least they can be, so I refuse to judge their value by their playtime. Some very short games have stuck with me for a long time (Firewatch, Brothers, Valiant Hearts, Gone Home) and some long games that were reasonably enjoyable were nearly completely forgotten as soon as I finished them.

Bioshock may have been shorter but it's "worth more" to me than any Assassin's Creed game because it's far more memorable.

I don't count it in hours, every game got it's grindy parts.
I just try to gauge my feelings, and check the amount of entertainment I have got compared to the grind and price.
That's why I say away from any AAA games, they are usually filled with grinding.

I don't mind paying $16/$20 for a 5-hour game if it's really good. My problem is that I have so many unplayed games that I just don't want to buy any new ones cause I know they will just get added to the pile...

Loved the hidden potato. :)

"passive entertainment"

ooooooooo MY VOCABULARY IS EXPANDING

I've said this before but usually I aim at 1$ per every hour spent.
of course how much I enjoy a game also comes into account like others have said but I have 800 hours on terraria and only spent 10$ on it so at this point I feel like I should be able to play a game enough for it to be worth it.
so I think to imagin that $1/hr is only counting the hours I had fun.
case in point I bought the whicher 3 for nearly full price and got at least 140 hours of "fun" gameplay on my first playthrough and feel like it was totally worth it.
I'm not having as much fun in my second play-through but I'm still happy with it.

also +1 for having a backlog.
mine isn't as big as some but I do plan on playing every game in it so I'm hesitant to ever add anything to it.

If compared to some reallife activites even fullpriced games can appear to be cheap, on the other hand I think it highly depends on the enjoyment and connection a person feels while doing those activities.
I for example will be stingy with video games, even if they're like 5 Euro, while I can spend that amount on a single drink while I'm out with friends without any regrets. Someone else might feel the exact opposite.
I think the gaming market actually does a good job in regulating this though by radically reducing the price of games after they have been released for a while. That way people who are not willing to pay much for gaming can get their enjoyment, while people who value it highly get their games early and support the developers more.

oO 30 minutes left bump

i would say 1usd/hour entertainment is ok for me, however i dont think i ever reached or even got close to this ratio as i buy mostly bundles and i also inspect what i buying. Nowadays a lot of peps dont even check what they buying they just buy and they refund at 1.9hours while raging about things what very visible on store page. Even worse, their reviews stay on steam after refund. Most i ever paid was probably for mmo games, as there no time to wait for sale, swtor, wow, Everquest. Other than mmo i think the only game i ever bought on full price was Stellaris on release. There are so many games around so literally no point to buy any game on release, they will get on sale pretty fast and there are millions of other enjoable, quality games to play.