Do you think video game collecting is expensive?

[tripredacus]

It depends on how you spend the money. Any hobby can be expensive if you let it. I spend a relatively small amount on items than most I think. My price-per-item that I pay is probably close to $1-3.

[hoshichiri]

When it comes to nerdy hobbies, there are far more expensive ones out there than video games, like Magic The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, or cosplay.

While you're spot on with the other two, I'd put MTG as much cheaper than videogames. You can get a pauper scene going for less than the cost of a single videogame. Two starter decks are also less than one videogame. Granted, if you want to hit up Friday Night Magic or other similar events, it gets quite pricey to be competitive... but just as one doesn't have to play videogames online or in tournaments, you can easily just take up cheap casual MTG with friends.

I'd call gaming expensive, if for no other reason than the initial buy-in is expensive. Whatever your preferred device, be it console or PC, you're looking at several hundred dollars to get a machine to play games on. Now, once that's done, it gets far less expensive to maintain (especially if you're ok with questionably legal software)- but considering that, at a minimum, you need to buy the electricity to run your machine, (as opposed to paper MTG, Warhammer, or cosplay) I'd say its a pricier way to go.

Regardless of your choice of hobby, the important thing is to stay within your means. If you cant afford $60 new games, buy older games on closeout or used titles. If you cant afford current gen, buy last gen. Don't collect retro, emulate it. Just remember that none of these things are necessities and you're not entitled to have any of it- so enjoy what you can get.

[rayne315]

i definitely do not consider video games to be an expensive hobby unless you buy every game full price. heck if you take enough time in your collection you can get ~90% of all games ever made for under $5 a piece.

[sworddude]

When it comes to nerdy hobbies, there are far more expensive ones out there than video games, like Magic The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, or cosplay.

While you're spot on with the other two, I'd put MTG as much cheaper than videogames. You can get a pauper scene going for less than the cost of a single videogame. Two starter decks are also less than one videogame. Granted, if you want to hit up Friday Night Magic or other similar events, it gets quite pricey to be competitive... but just as one doesn't have to play videogames online or in tournaments, you can easily just take up cheap casual MTG with friends.

I'd call gaming expensive, if for no other reason than the initial buy-in is expensive. Whatever your preferred device, be it console or PC, you're looking at several hundred dollars to get a machine to play games on. Now, once that's done, it gets far less expensive to maintain (especially if you're ok with questionably legal software)- but considering that, at a minimum, you need to buy the electricity to run your machine, (as opposed to paper MTG, Warhammer, or cosplay) I'd say its a pricier way to go.

Regardless of your choice of hobby, the important thing is to stay within your means. If you cant afford $60 new games, buy older games on closeout or used titles. If you cant afford current gen, buy last gen. Don't collect retro, emulate it. Just remember that none of these things are necessities and you're not entitled to have any of it- so enjoy what you can get.

That's the thing though many people do go in the competitive route since otherwise the fun might be less to most i could imagine. It's all fun and games to get former sets wich you can play with your friends but othwerwise for most it is competitive or nothing going with the trend.

Vintage magic the gathering however is super expensive nothing cheap about that more expensive than the top tier retro games and since were talking about retro games you'll have to go the vintage magic the gathering route. Not the old thrown away sets route since to be fair the ps3 xbox 360 route are also very cheap.

[rayne315]

When it comes to nerdy hobbies, there are far more expensive ones out there than video games, like Magic The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, or cosplay.

While you're spot on with the other two, I'd put MTG as much cheaper than videogames. You can get a pauper scene going for less than the cost of a single videogame. Two starter decks are also less than one videogame. Granted, if you want to hit up Friday Night Magic or other similar events, it gets quite pricey to be competitive... but just as one doesn't have to play videogames online or in tournaments, you can easily just take up cheap casual MTG with friends.

I'd call gaming expensive, if for no other reason than the initial buy-in is expensive. Whatever your preferred device, be it console or PC, you're looking at several hundred dollars to get a machine to play games on. Now, once that's done, it gets far less expensive to maintain (especially if you're ok with questionably legal software)- but considering that, at a minimum, you need to buy the electricity to run your machine, (as opposed to paper MTG, Warhammer, or cosplay) I'd say its a pricier way to go.

Regardless of your choice of hobby, the important thing is to stay within your means. If you cant afford $60 new games, buy older games on closeout or used titles. If you cant afford current gen, buy last gen. Don't collect retro, emulate it. Just remember that none of these things are necessities and you're not entitled to have any of it- so enjoy what you can get.

That's the thing though many people do go in the competitive route since otherwise the fun might be less to most i could imagine. It's all fun and games to get former sets wich you can play with your friends but othwerwise for most it is competitive or nothing going with the trend.

Vintage magic the gathering however is super expensive nothing cheap about that more expensive than the top tier retro games and since were talking about retro games you'll have to go the vintage magic the gathering route. Not the old thrown away sets route since to be fair the ps3 xbox 360 route are also very cheap.

yeah common alpha and beta cards in MTG generally go for between $5-50 a piece... when i was in college i found a lot at a garage sale that cost me $50. it was a shoebox filled with practically nothing of value but a lot of REALLY old sets so i took the chance on it and ended up walking away with ~80 common alpha cards, ~20 beta cards that were only lands, and about 15LBS of other cards. i ended up selling those 100 cards for around $800 to a card shop (so they probably had a face value of around 2-3k).

for me i never really got too into MTG. i played it all the time with my friends but never went to FNM

[emporerdragon]

What I was referring to for MTG being expensive was more for the focus on keeping up with the meta and the competitive scene. Each new set shakes up the meta, forcing players to change up their decks to remain competitive. And that's not even factoring in set rotations, where entire expansions get removed from tournament legality. You also have to look at the microtransaction-esque nature of the game, where a person buys 1 or 2 packs every so often. Those little purchases do add up to quite a bit after a while, but you don't notice it as it's just a few dollars here and there instead of large amounts at once (unless, of course, you've already gone full bore and are buying full cases or individual high value cards).

A person can certainly buy just a few cheap, garbage cards/starter decks and get a MTG experience, but it will never be anywhere near what the regular game scene is like. And at that point, it'd almost be better to have just gotten a more self-contained card game like Dominon or Smash Up for the money instead.