So, Daniel owen was told to lower his expectations for new GPUs because "people only play esports games" if they're buying the 5060. And he touched on something that I think is valid, and that I feel should be discussed as well.
First of all, let me just say that I agree with him, a new $300 GPU shouldn't ONLY play low system requirements esports games. It should run ALL games. Historically, the 60 series cards are mainstream gamers' bread and butter, and as he pointed out, this GPU is gonna be put into systems costing well over $1000. While savvy builders like me will know that you can build a rig for far cheaper than that, a lot of people just buy what they find in stores, and yeah, it's a reasonable expectation IMO that a $1000 rig with a $300 GPU should not only run today's games well, but run games well into the future. a new GPU released today should still be viable in 2030. By then it should be getting long in the tooth, but yes, a new GPU should probably run games acceptably for 4-6 years, and these new 8 GB GPUs probably won't, given that you're starting to need to run stuff on medium, if not low, to get acceptable framerates.
And again, the answer to this is that most people who buy those only run esports games anyway. But as Daniel pointed out, yeah, they do, but that isn't all they play. The reason they spend most of their time on esports is because that's where most of the value is. And this touches on where I want to go into my own commentary. I've talked a lot about the value of games recently, and my distaste over the higher prices for crappier quality stuff that's been happening recently. I dont like this new era of $450 nintendo consoles, $700 xboxes and playstations, $300 entry level GPUs, and $80 games. Quite frankly, this is getting too expensive, and being an avid gamer myself, I'm feeling the pinch here and feel like I'm being priced out of the market, full stop.
Which is why I wanted to discuss how I prioritize what games I buy given my limited budget, and why that will lead to me prioritizing esports games.
Here's the thing. If you can only buy so many games, and you have to choose between a bunch of titles, only being able to buy some of what you want, you're gonna have to prioritize what you buy and don't buy. And one way to do this is by the sheer amount of content available, and the replay value of such games.
Generally speaking, I look at gaming purchases from a perspective of hours per dollar. How many hours do i get of value for my dollars? And ideally, I would prefer to spend at least 1 hour per dollar, if not more.
This is why, when I showed my spending habits, multiplayer games got more leeway with the amount of money I was willing to spend on them. Because if I can buy the new battlefield for $40-50 on sale, and I get say, 200+ hours out of it, that's like 20-25c an hour. That's good value. Same with COD. I'm willing to pay $45-50 for COD every year because I know I'll be playing it for far longer than 45-50 hours.
But take doom the dark ages. It's what, a 10 hour game, maybe a 15 hour game if I'm being generous? Actually it seems to be 15-20 if I look it up on how long to beat. That's a little better than i thought. So we might be talking around $5 an hour or so. That's still a lot, compared to an esport. if I only spend $200 on games a year, do I really wanna put so much money in something that gives me so little value? I can get through 15-20 hours in like, a week of game play. What am I supposed to do the rest of the year, just replay the same levels? Again, this is why value buyers spend more time playing counter strike, or valorant, or split gate 2, or in my case, stuff like COD, delta force, battlefield, etc. There's simply more value to be had there.
In a sense, single player games are becoming more of a luxury. They cost a ton at launch, and unless they get cheaper over time, their value proposition never increases. Most of my cheaper buys that bring down that average to like $20 or so are cheap single player games from years ago. But again, with game prices going up, and sales getting increasingly more shallow, I find myself buying less. Borderlands 4 at $80 is a little iffy. Even if it's a solid 40 hours of game play, do I really value it enough to spend $80 on it? Quite frankly, the only kinds of games I'd be comfortable putting that kind of value in are bethesda titles. For as much crap that starfield gets, I put 160 hours into it while paying like $47 on sale. Fallout 4, I might have paid $60 for that back in the day, 472 hours in steam according to my account. Ya know? Some games are worth paying close to full price for and many...are not.
I just heard outer worlds 2 is gonna be like $80 on launch. Why? It's fallout lite. IIRC my first play through was 20 hours. It was a nice game, and given I paid $30 for it, it was worth it at the time for a fallout lite experience, especially given I've played it through multiple times. Even then, 83 hours, with DLC, and I probably replayed it like at least 3-4 times. It eventually got its value for $80 in, but only because I played through it like 3-4 times. But, you might say, you probably played through fallout 4 at least that many times. And indeed I did. I lost count of how many play throughs I did of that. However, I will say this. my first play through? It took 100 hours and it kept me busy for literally months. I got VALUE out of that game.
But some of the games that are trying to charge $80...arent worth $80. a 40 hour borderlands game is ideally worth around $40 for me. If you wanna charge $80, you better be giving me 80 hours of content, and not just content, but GOOD content that actually keeps me engaged. SOme games offer way too much content but by the time the game ends, I'm just like ugh, can it be over? Looking at you, say, far cry 6. $45 game, it had 60 hours of content, but by the time you got to the end of it, it felt so repetitive i never touched it since. It was a good game, but it shouldve been like 20-30 hours like the others. At 60 it's just...too much, and it just felt drawn out.
So that's a consideration too. Not all games necessarily can justify having more content either. More content isnt better if your game gets boring or repetitive. So yeah. That's how we "poors" prioritize our game purchases. We decide, okay, which gives us the most value for the money, and most of the value is in multiplayer titles which are often, cheap, free, or even if expensive, will keep us occupied for a very long time. Single player games charge top dollar and then half the time its like 10 hours of content. Okay, so I blow through that, now what? Even if it's like 20 hours, or even 30, 40, or 50 hours, depending on the qaulity of those hours, the game might not be worth a purchase. Because then you gotta consider the quality of those hours. A series like halo or doom might be shorter but i might be more willing to invest in them simply because i REALLY like the game play and am willing to pay a higher price even if the game is short. Then some other games might offer more content, but if the content is generic, repetitive, or the core game play loop isnt that good, it still might not be justifiable. So it's not ALL content per hour here. The quality of the content matters somewhat too.
Either way, that's how us value buyers think. We buy 60 cards because it's what we can afford, and I'm sorry, even $300 is a lot for a GPU. it is. I'm tired of pretending it isn't. We treat $300 GPUs like we treated my original $80 entry level GPU from 2008 that barely ran games. And it's sickening. Yes yes, inflation, but stuff hasnt inflated THAT much. And then we only buy a few games a year, and we spend most of our time on multiplayer games because that's where the value is. We need to stop acting like every gamer is a bottomless pit of consumption where we can spend an infinite amount of money on graphics cards and then buy every $80 title out there. No. We prioritize. We look for the best value. And when the market starts demanding more than we can give, we get angry and start writing angry comments and blog posts about it on the internet. Again, you're not getting more money out of me. You're encouraging me to be more choosy with what I do buy, and a lot of these companies are gonna have to learn the hard way that higher prices means I consume less. It's supply and demand. You cant just charge an infinite amount for stuff because then some consumers will be priced out of the market and won't buy. Charging more than people are willing to pay means you'll actually make less money. That's just how markets work.
With the way things are going, something is gonna have to give, and for me, I'm simply gonna be buying less in response to the price of everything literally going up. That's just economics for you.
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