Addicts, reveal yourselves

[goosmurf]

I happened to look at my Steam Account page today and was a little blown away about how much I'd spent in MannCo's store over the years. I wrote about it here http://moot.mooh.org/archives/2012/08/a ... story.html

Because I'd donated to the Japan thing and bought a bunch of keys/gifts I'd estimated that I'd spent $300-400. Turns out I was out by a factor of 2.

I'm curious - what do people *think* they've spent, and what have you actually spent?

In talking to a few friends pretty much everyone has spent more than they thought. Even folks who thought they'd spent nothing have shown up with $20-40 in their history.

Earlier in the day I was also pondering how much I'd pay for a TF2 server. Suppose that GON operated on a donation only basis what would you be willing to pay?

I had a look at Hypernia and GameServers prices and the typical charge is around $1.00-1.50/month. These are for profit services so that implies they are profitable at that price, noting that it *doesn't* include any admin effort. I thought I'd be happy paying $5/month. Then I discover I've basically been paying $15/month to Valve for the last 5 years...

[revengous]

spent $8.

like a boss.

[Ralph Wiggum]

$720.97 in the Mann Co. Store...and that doesn't include games I've bought which included TF2 promo items. With 1344 hours played, that's about 53 cents per hour. Not too bad and less than I expected.

Spent on hats, weapons, and keys...no gifting or anything like that. And I still HAVEN'T GOT A GODDAMN UNUSUAL HAT.

[Fireslide]

You're pretty much the perfect case study for how free to play can be profitable. Most people aren't rational when it comes to spending money. If someone asked if you'd pay $30 a month to play TF2 you'd tell them get stuffed and play something else. If someone asked you to pay $700 to play TF2 for two years, you'd definitely say get stuffed. If they say it's free and offer all these things you can buy, you do it without even realising, because it's just $10 or $20 here and there.

I think I've bought maybe 16 keys total and got nothing good, so never again.

[Ralph Wiggum]

TF2 was released in October 2007, so let's say for me that's $720 spent over 58 months. That works out to around $12.40 per month. Again, not too shabby and there are certainly worse things I could be spending my money on.

I go through love-hate periods with Team Fortress 2, sometimes I can't stand the game and swear I'll never buy another thing from the Mann Co. Store, then other times I'll snap up all the new items and promotional stuff.

[Mythor]

About 60c/hr, based on Steam's recorded hours which I know is under the actual amount.

Was already cutting way back on TF2 item buying but... definitely cutting further back. That's money I could buy other games with.

One thing to remember in all this is that not all of the money is going into Valve's pockets, depending on what people have bought. There's a lot of community created content in TF2 these days and so some of that money is encouraging people to add more cool things.
That's how I'm going to rationalise my expenditure, anyway.

[Ralph Wiggum]

C'mon Myth, don't be shy...give us your total

[Matty]

$177.23. Far less then I thought it would be, majority were the $19.99 server gifts as well.
Great game (still is), it deserved my money.

[goosmurf]

Bad luck Ralph!!

I can't speak for everyone but I view my spending as a voting mechanism. If I like something I'll pay for it even if I don't have to because that spend is a way of saying "I like this, do more of this thanks".

So it was a conscious decision to spend money in the MannCo store because I value the game and the never ending updates. Note that I've been playing variants of TF since 1996 so when people were saying the Polycount pack was too expensive my view was that I've already clocked up easily 3,000 hours of TF before TF2 so I had no problem forking over the $50 or whatever it was. The "problem" was that I kept that line of thinking going, $20 here, $20 there. I put problem in quotes because I don't feel it's a real problem -- at 30c/hour I'm hard pressed to find any hobby of mine that's cheaper.

I do agree if someone had said "pay $700 for 2 years of TF2" I'd probably be "no way". But that's the difference between something like a Foxtel subscription and giving people choice. No one wants the whole Foxtel package but they force it on you.

[goosmurf]

One thing to remember in all this is that not all of the money is going into Valve's pockets, depending on what people have bought. There's a lot of community created content in TF2 these days and so some of that money is encouraging people to add more cool things.
That's how I'm going to rationalise my expenditure, anyway.

Haha, I reckon that's actually really valuable too. The meta problem of monetising content, especially "indie" content, is something that few businesses have managed to get right. Another good reason to support TF2

[Ralph Wiggum]

Let's put it another way. Let's say your average single player game is 15 hours long (fairly generous number really) and costs $85 to purchase. That's around $5.60 per hour. As opposed to 53 cents per hour for TF2 for me.

And looking at some other games I've played:

1. Deus Ex Human Revolution - 61 hours played. I can't remember how much I paid for it but I bought it at full price on release. It's currently $34.99 on the Steam store so let's conservatively guess $60 on release. That's 98c per hour.

2. Alan Wake - 11 hours played. Paid $29.99 for it. That's $2.72 per hour

3. Modern Warfare 2 - 28 hours played. Paid $55 for it. That's $1.96 per hour.

4. Battlefield 3 - 185 hours played. $90 for ltd. edition + $50 for Battlefield premium. 75 cents per hour.

So again, TF2 provides damn good value for money. Even more so if you haven't bought much from the store.

[Clontarf[X]]

Spent $0 + the original cost of buying the game however many years ago.

I earned my medals.

[opposik]

I'm quite the opposite as I've actually made quite some money from this game. In total I believe I've made just under US$ 2,000 from selling hats but at the same time I've put in about US$ 200 into the Mann Co Store.

Then again, considering how many hours I have in this game, it works out to be less than $1 an hour that I've made from this game :\

[goosmurf]

I'm quite the opposite as I've actually made quite some money from this game. In total I believe I've made just under US$ 2,000 from selling hats but at the same time I've put in about US$ 200 into the Mann Co Store.

Then again, considering how many hours I have in this game, it works out to be less than $1 an hour that I've made from this game :\

LOL, thanks for sharing

Did you set out to do this as a money making exercise or do you just enjoy trading?

Would you have traded if you knew it would work out to be $1 / hour?

Can I ask how old you are and if you work a regular job too?

I'm curious because the basic skills in hat trading are applicable to a lot of real world fields where you can make serious money. http://moot.mooh.org/archives/2011/03/h ... world.html

[Bicketybam]

I surprised myself and yet I didn't. At first thought I would have estimated I spent about $600 when in actuality it is double that.

$1165. That works out to be just over $11 per week or about 0.41c per hour. Surprising yes but not overly concerned as being an ex-smoker I know at one stage in my life I spent way more then that per week with nothing but possible cancer in my future to show for it. All that money went up in smoke, literally.

With this I can at least get out and prance around (in game) with a lot of my different purchases each time, the money has been spent but the goods are still there, mostly.

I've said it before but this is what Valve hear when ever someone purchases a Mann Co. Supply Crate Key.

C'mon Myth, don't be shy...give us your total

I would have thought he would have a HUGE total but if we go with the 60c an hour and the total of hours played it is only a little more then my total.

And I still HAVEN'T GOT A GODDAMN UNUSUAL HAT.

I got one, but Ralph was my inspiration with that. I was trying to prove to him that I too could open crates as well and get nothing like he was crying about at the time, so I opened it in the server with him and got an Unusual hat.

But the way I see it with TF2 is I play it mostly every night, lately it has been less as I've been distracted by Anno 2070 but when that distraction is over I will go back to TF2. I've done the same thing with a few different games but TF2 is always there and that is worth every cent to keep me entertained.

If not playing the game I would probably be off somewhere else spending much more money on other things most likely and if not for those purchases I probably would have given up TF2 and gone off playing other games.