Skip to main content

Approximately a years worth of gaming statistics

In a moment of boredom I fired up a spreadsheet to try and analyse how many games I bought last year, how much I paid for them and how many of them I have actually played. There is a bit of estimation involved because I am too lazy to go back over old credit card bills but in general I think my figures are pretty sound.

Please note I only include full feature games that I first acquired in the period from November 2009 to the present. I do include full featured games that I got for free but I don't include Flash games. I include mmorpgs that I either started or bought a paid expansion for during the year.

Level of play is a somewhat subjective measure. Zero percent means I never even played the tutorial. 100% means I finished the main campaign of a single player or I spent a substantial amount of time in multiplayer.

Please note that all of the games were legally acquired. I don't pirate games.

Number of new PC Games Acquired from November 2009 to October 2010:
Games from Steam:  28
Other Digital Downloads: 7
Mmorpg: 4
Hardcopy Purchase: 3
Total New Games: 42

Prices Paid
Number of games above €20.01: 3 (7% of total)
Number of games above €10.01: 9 ( 21%)
Number of games €10 or below: 33 (79%)
 Number of games that cost me nothing: 5 (12%)
Total Spend on new games: €392.00
Average Price per game: €9.33

How many have I played?:
Number of new games I have never played: 4
Number of new game I have played thoroughly: 13
Average play rate: 47%
Labels:

Comments

Stabs said…
First, you'll want to amend "not all of the games were legally required" - you clearly mean "note".

As for the statistics they're very interesting. 9 euros per game - can you explain why your games are so cheap? Also how much did you spend on MMOs in terms of subs, cash shops etc? Lastly do you see it as a problem that you never or briefly played so many games - are you too impulsively buying games you're not really going to play or is it still worth getting them to have a brief look?
1:54 pm
mbp said…
Thank you Stabs. That was a very unfortunate typo.

Your questions are good too:
1.I am a sucker for a game bargains. I rarely buy new releases and I keep an eye on on sales. This is not a new thing for me. Ten years ago I used to buy job lots of second hand games and I trawled the bargain shelves of my local game shops. Now-adays with digital distribution it has gotten much easier. Most games can be picked up for less than a tenner if you are prepared to wait between 6 months and a year after release. I also scored several excellent free games this year (Peggle Nights and Area 51 for example). I did buy three new releases at full price: Dragon Age, Borderlands and Battlefield Bad Company 2). Technically two of these were actually gifts (my wife wanted to buy me a game so I told here what to get me).

2. It has been a cheap year for mmorpgs because I haven't actually payed any subs. I already have a lifetime sub to Lotro so I just had to buy the expansion pack. I played DDO for a couple of months and only spent about €15 in the cash shop. The other mmos I played were Allods and Age of Conan (free trial ) but neither of them held on to me for long enough to get cash out of me.

3. I have actually gotten better than I used to be. I try not to buy a game now unless there is a real chance I will play it. The trouble is that there are so many good games around at the moment that I still end up being enticed to buy. If you look at the numbers you will see that I amn't doing too badly. There are only 4 games out of 42 that I never got around to even trying. Most of the games I have played for long enough to get a good flavour of. If a game really grabs me I can immerse my self totally in it for some weeks perhaps even a couple of months but that's about my limit. I don't really see that being a problem. I will never be a leet Counterstrike player or a top end mmorpg raider but the variety of games I do get to play makes up for it.
2:25 pm
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Android Tip 3: Sharing a Folder between multiple users of an Android device

Android has allowed multiple user logins for quite a while now. This is can be very useful for tablets which are shared by family members. Normally Android erects strict Chinese walls between users preventing them from using each others apps and viewing each others files. This is a useful security feature and ensures your kids don't mess up your work spreadsheets when screwing around on the tablet and should also prevent them from buying €1,000 worth of Clash of Candy coins on your account. Sometimes however you really do want to share stuff with other users and this can prove surprisingly difficult. For example on a recent holiday I realised that I wanted to share a folder full of travel documents with my wife. Here are some ways to achieve this. 1. If you have guaranteed internet access  then you can create a shared folder on either Dropbox or Google drive. Either of these has the great advantage of being able to access the files on any device and the great disadvantage of bein...
52 comments
Read more

Portal 2 two screen coop on one PC.

I mentioned before that I intended to try Portal 2 in "unofficial split screen co-op mode. Well split screen on a small computer monitor is a recipe for a headache especially when the game defies gravity as much as portal. However a minor bit of extra fiddling allowed us to drive two seperate screens from one PC. The Steam forums describes a complicated method of doing this that I couldn't get working so this simpler method which worked for me might be of use to someone. 1. First I followed the instructions in this post to get split screen multi-player working: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1847904 A minor issue not mentioned is that you need to enable the console from the keyboard/mouse options menu I am using keyboard and one wired Xbox360 controller as suggested. Getting the controller to switch to channel 2 was tricky at first but as Chameleon8 mentions plugging it out and in again during loading works. The trick for me was to do the plug / p...
1 comment
Read more

Lotro: The Forgotten Treasury

Throg joined a Kinship group for the Forgotten Treasury instance last night. It was an enjoyable change from the solo questing that the now level 55 dwarf champion has been mostly doing so far in Moria. Some members of the group had tried and failed to clear the Treasury before so we knew it would be challenging but we were lucky enough to have a well balanced group with Guardian, Minstrel, Lore Master, Hunter, Burglar and Champion (Throg). Throg (level 55) and the minstrel (53) were both below the 56ish level of the instance but the others were all higher so it more or less balanced out. [SPOILERs ahead] It is a well designed enjoyable instance set in a circular chamber with balcony around. As you enter, a boss absconds to a locked side chamber with his treasure leaving the fellowship to clear trash ringed around the balcony. Once the trash are cleared you have access to a puzzle which must be solved in order to open the locked door. Clearing the (including six mini bosses) also get...
14 comments
Read more