The Cost Of Gaming Page 2

15 Sep 2009 at 11:13:31 by Jeff Hollis

While I reel under the weight of the fact that I've been paying almost two grand in subscription fees, let's talk about BlizzCon.  There have been four of those (in 2005, 2007, 2008, and 2009 if memory serves).  For various reasons, we didn't get press passes for the first BlizzCon, so that's $200 we paid for tickets. 

Of course, that's chump change compared to the schwag my wife buys at every single BlizzCon.  When you consider the various t-shirts, plush Murlocs, little plastic figurines, and all the other whatnot she picks up while we're there, I'm going to estimate that she drops about $150 on merchandise each time.  (Come to think of it, with all this shopping, how does she find time to do any interviews, much less write anything?)  That's a total of $600.

In 2008, Blizz flew me out to Seoul to cover their annual World Wide Invitational gaming tournament, or WWI.  For the unaware, WWI is basically a big BlizzCon in another land, with a bit more emphasis on the Starcraft and Warcraft tournaments.  Of course, that was all free to me.  However, I don't like to travel without the spouse (yeah, we're all joined at the hip like that), so I made arrangements for her to travel with me.  That cost me a cool $1200.  (In case you're wondering, we got to spend a weekend in Seoul, so yes, it was worth it.) 

Hmmm....what else?  Oh yeah, I bought my brother a WoW account.  $39.99 for the WoW Battle Chest (including the Burning Crusade, but not Wrath), and a few months of subscription fees before he decided he was too busy for WoW.  Those fees were another  $44.85.  Total = $84.84.

Oh yeah, I forgot the expansions.  One regular and one special edition Burning Crusade, at $49.99 and $79.99.  Add to that one regular and one special edition of Wrath of the Lich King, again $49.99 and $79.99.  Grand total?  $259.96. 

I just remembered that we picked up the WoW miniatures game.  That was $24.99, plus a pair of expansion packs (basically, more figures to play the game with) at $14.95.  That's a total of $54.97.

Oh, also my wife dabbled a bit with the WoW trading card game.  I'm going to estimate she dropped $14.99 on at least four of the hard cased “battle deck” thingamabobs, for a grand total of $59.96.  There was probably a bit more, but I don't specifically recall. 

Alright, that's all I can think of.  Again, please remember that I did do a bit of estimating and recalling from memory, but I think I came pretty close to getting things right.  Now, time to add up all the little numbers...give me a minute.

$4374.08

At this juncture, I have mixed feelings. Really, it boils down to two disparate emotional responses.

My first response:  this is a hobby, and my wife and I have had a great time.  We traveled, we did conventions, and we played a lot of video games.  Considering all that, while it's still a big chunk of change, it was all worth it.

My second response:  I have mathematically proven that I have no life, and I've dropped more than four grand, largely on the nerdiest kind of video game, an MMO.  Also...COULD ONE OF YOU PLEASE FUCKING KILL ME!!?!??!?  
Ok, ok, I kid.  But that is all we have for this week.  If you enjoyed this little write up, come and visit us over at Wandering Goblin.com, where we engage in this kind of tomfoolery (and lots of other kinds as well) each and every day.  For now, ciao!

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