[Gaming] Would you pay per hour?

[deafboy]

As much as I love gaming there are certainly a lot of games that I wouldn't be willing to pay full price for.

 

So for a minute, let's assume you had two options with gaming.

1)  Pay X amount per hour of game play

2)  Pay full retail price (no sales).

 

Would you ever opt to pay per hour for a game?  If so, what would you be willing to pay?

 

Was talking about this today and there are a lot of games in my Library that I've only played for a couple hours because the game just wasn't my style.  Then there are other games I've played for hundreds of hours.  So if it was possible, you could essentially demo the game by paying by the hour and if you really like it and you see there being significant value with the game you could pay full retail for the game.  But if you don't find much value in the game you can pay for however much you want essentially.

 

It essentially comes down to, how much do you value an hour of entertainment?

[Paralectic]

Nope, I would never pay per hour.

I've paid per month for Runescape for 9 years long, that wasn't a problem.

 

For MMORPGs I'd pay monthly and for any other game I'd pay a retail price and not per dag/month/hour or anything.

[AlwaysFSX]

I always look around first to see if the game is worth buying first then I buy and play them through the end.

[Theblasphemouscoffee]

I would never pay per hour. I don't like the way in which supscriptions to games work and i would prefer to pay more upfront

[Vitalius]

Depends on the game. 

For shooters or other things that I feel like I can knock out in 10 hours or less (campaign primarily), I'd probably pay per hour based on my enjoyment of the game (and being honest of course). 

For games I feel I would want to play over and over (if I had time), I'd just buy them at discounted retail either via Steam, used, or some other legit, but cheaper option.

[JAKEBAB]

If u want to demo a game theres these sites like the piratebay and u dont have to pay anything..... i know its amazing isnt it.

[Wano97]

Depending on the price/hour. I would certainly pay a price per hour, and if I like the game a lot just pay the retail price

[deafboy]

If u want to demo a game theres these sites like the piratebay and u dont have to pay anything..... i know its amazing isnt it.

 

So even at $0.10 you'd still rather steal it?

[slashes_2_asses]

So even at $0.10 you'd still rather steal it?

Yes!

[Rashy]

Pay per month is fine, pay per hour?! what. no i would not

[Ruostunut kokis]

Pay per month? Maybe.

 

Pay per hour? Never!

[deafboy]

How is pay per month any different though?

[Vitalius]

How is pay per month any different though?

Well, they are intrinsically different payment schemes. 

Pay per hour, if you never play, you pay $0. 

Pay per month, if you pay, you may never play. 

Pay per hour is something you control more than the guy you are paying.

Pay per month, the onus is on you to actually play during that month. 

Between the two, I prefer Pay per hour. However, most of the time, pay per month games are the type of games you spend loooots of time on, so the $/hour is lower than if you were to pay per hour anyway. 

[SirReallySam]

It's a cool concept but I personally would like to own it forever...

[Tigerbomb8]

Third option.. Pay per hour up to cost of retail game.. 

[deafboy]

Third option.. Pay per hour up to cost of retail game.. 

 

 

So like a rent to own?

I'd definitely agree to that.  That's pretty much where the idea came from for the thread.  But coming down to how you'd break it down.

[Paralectic]

I would like to get paid/hour to even play CoD Ghosts ;-)

[D4RK]

.

here is what will happen in the long run, if pay/hour method is implemented.

players will pay for few hours for some games that they think they can finish the story/campaign fast, this starts to be a common thing between the player, and the developers end up stretching the story/campaign with useless stuff just to make u spend more time so they get more money, which is bad ofc.

 

"the above works only if the rate/hour is low/ acceptable, which is why u would go for that method in the first place."

[MetEishYa]

here is what will happen in the long run, if pay/hour method is implemented.

players will pay for few hours for some games that they think they can finish the story/campaign fast, this starts to be a common thing between the player, and the developers end up stretching the story/campaign with useless stuff just to make u spend more time so they get more money, which is bad ofc.

 

"the above works only if the rate/hour is low/ acceptable, which is why u would go for that method in the first place."

Or they charge $60 for the full game with 60 hours gameplay and $3/hour if u choose that option, they will never make it that it is in favor of the customer.

[Theo]

So even at $0.10 you'd still rather steal it?

It's not stealing, me pirating a game doesn't mean that another person doesn't have the game anymore

[ShiverMePenguins]

It's not stealing, me pirating a game doesn't mean that another person doesn't have the game anymore

Yes it does. It means you are stealing from a business. You are stealing from artists, coders, designers, producers, leads, c.s reps, and more.

 

Piraters come out with these thought up statistics that not paying for a game is ok, because they wouldn't have bought it otherwise. Going by that same logic if I go to a restaurant and not pay its ok, because I wasn't going to go eat out if I had to pay for it.

 

 

Just because YOU try to rationalize things to make yourself feel better at night doesn't mean you aren't a thief.

[Vitalius]

Yes it does. It means you are stealing from a business. You are stealing from artists, coders, designers, producers, leads, c.s reps, and more.

 

Piraters come out with these thought up statistics that not paying for a game is ok, because they wouldn't have bought it otherwise. Going by that same logic if I go to a restaurant and not pay its ok, because I wasn't going to go eat out if I had to pay for it.

 

Just because YOU try to rationalize things to make yourself feel better at night doesn't mean you aren't a thief.

That analogy fails on varying levels. 

Stealing implies that whatever was taken is no longer in possession of the original owner. That's not how computers work. If I were to torrent something, I'm not taking it from someone else, I'm making a copy of that thing. They are sending copies of the bits that make up the media they have to me. They lose nothing. I lose nothing. The industry only loses something if I am doing this because I don't want to buy it, but would if I couldn't torrent it. 

There are varying reasons I believe piracy is perfectly acceptable in certain situations. Part of the reason I don't pirate video games is because Steam makes them so cheap and easily accessible. Part of the reason I almost exclusively pirate movies is because they are expensive and difficult to watch on release. 

 

Gabe was completely right when he said it was a distribution problem, and he is a prime example of what the other industries should do. Make it cheap and widely available. If they would, they'd be making money hand over fist like he does.

If your response to that is "Then just don't watch them.", you've defeated the purpose of me not pirating them. Piracy "hurts" the industry? Me not consuming the media at all hurts the industry more I would argue. At least in that instance they get word of mouth about their movie. If I neither watch it nor pirate it, they get nothing. If I watch it, and pirate it, they get word of mouth or "free advertising".

I'm not willing to watch it and pay for it, because I am the one hurt in that instance by their customer disemboweling prices and practices. 

If you say "Well, hate the distributors, but you are still hurting the content creators." [All those people you listed that we are apparently "stealing" from.] 

 

This is the Internet. 

 

Distributors are the ones causing this debauchery, and the content creators have no excuse other than a lack of knowledge for finding a better way to sell (distribute) their content. And the Internet fixes that too (Google). 

[Scionyde]

My knee-jerk reaction to this is “Oh god no!”, but to be honest, if it was roughly <$0.50/hour, I’d probably be spending less money on most of the games I’ve played. There’d still be a handful of games I play constantly where I’d get better value by paying just the retail cost (GW2, Crusader Kings 2, etc.) but for a lot of the non-sandbox single player games I play, a cheaper pay-per-hour model would work out better.

 

That’s not to say I’d prefer that model. I’d probably turn neurotic about alt-tabbing to check something online while gaming, and I’d probably build up an extreme loathing for Nvidia/AMD for their splash screen intros. I think I might still find the current model more favorable.

[Trail Mixorz]

I have over 2000 hours combined between CSS and CSGO, no way I'm trying to pay per hour for that haha

[angrylemon]

depends what game, but i would prefer to own it