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How does the cost of designer board games compare to other forms of entertainment?

This question doesn't seem to really belong here, but I'm an infrequent visitor so I thought I'd bring it to meta.

It doesn't ask about the play or development of a game, no how-to information, no information used to help me pick a board game vs. another board game.

Does it really belong?

2 Answers 2

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In my opinion, no.

I left it up for the community to weigh in on. I don't believe there have been any close votes yet.

I did find the top voted answer pretty useful though.

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  • I agree - to me, this is a question that is interesting to consider, but not a good fit for this format.
    – Dave DuPlantis
    Commented Feb 10, 2012 at 14:24
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As the asker, I have a biased viewpoint, but Yes.

  • The question is about board games.
  • The question is of a limited scope.
  • The question asks a practical, answerable question about a real world problem I have faced.

Who hasn't gotten reactions of astonishment when telling a nongamer the price, "$50 for a boardgame?! You know, they have videogames that cost that much." Many nongamers are used to Monopoly prices for boardgames ( > $20)

A nice metric like $ cost per hour of enjoyment is a practical way of swaying peoples belief that boardgames are not that expensive.

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  • your question posted was essentially "how does the fun/$ for games compare to other past times?" Wouldn't that make "How does the calories/hour for board games compare to soccer?" on topic? Also fun/enjoyment is pretty subjective. Wouldn't "Will my date like playing board games or going to the movies more?" be on topic too?
    – Alex B
    Commented Feb 10, 2012 at 16:39
  • @AlexB,I disagree that that is the question. The question essentially boils down to, how many games are you likely to get out of the price of a single board game. This gets at the heart of, are board games expensive. How many calories/hour does playing BG do you burn would be on topic. Will my date like playing BG would be removed for being too localized. Oh wait, you were being ironic, not serious.
    – user1873
    Commented Feb 11, 2012 at 1:44
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    If your question was supposed to be how many games are you likely to get our of the price of a single board game then I think you should edit your question to match. As written if the price of going to the movies goes up or down, the correct answer could change. As you proposed in the comments here, your question would age well and be on topic.
    – Alex B
    Commented Feb 12, 2012 at 5:33
  • Unfortunately, either version (the current one or the one Alex B proposed) is likely a question where every answer is equally valid, which is why I voted to close it. While the question addresses an important subject with respect to board games, I don't feel it's a question that a Stack Exchange site is designed to answer: asking how much value one could get out of a game is subjective (in terms of how much one might play it), localized (with respect to cost, both in terms of time and locale), or both.
    – Dave DuPlantis
    Commented Feb 14, 2012 at 14:47
  • @DaveDuPlantis, and yet only one answer has any significant upvotes, even though your claim is they are all equally valid. I guess that is the difference between theory and reality. Hard data can be obtained by people. They could estimate their average amount of plays per board game, and arrive at a $/hour figure (statistics, damn lies, and lies). Unless you can show that inflation has affected the price of boardgames dramatically differently than other forms of entertainment, you don't need to adjust for it. As for adjusting for locale, aren't you really adjusting for shipping?
    – user1873
    Commented Feb 14, 2012 at 16:12
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    Even if they did estimate average amount of plays, each person could come up with a different answer, and all of them would be equally correct ... and that seems to be the case. One person estimates $1 per player-hour, one uses burritos, one mentions intangibles, and one mentions a fixed number of plays. I don't believe you can look at any of those answers and say "That is not a valid answer."
    – Dave DuPlantis
    Commented Feb 14, 2012 at 16:38

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