The real cost of playing your MMO?

Just digging through my latest credit card statement, and I've just realised that I've been playing EVE for 4 years now.

I saw a copy on a shelf in Game shortly after release. I hadn't heard of it, and on the front cover it loudly proclaimed a quote from a review: "It's like a multiplayer version of Elite"

That was enough for me, and at £19.99 it was worth a punt. Got home, started reading the manual while installing the game, and was hooked. The universe was so vast, so complex, there was so much to do. I just got dragged in.

4 years on and I'm still paying a tenner a month for my account, still playing my characters and still having fun.

The sobering thought is - those 4 years have cost me £500, including the initial game purchase and the monthly subscription fees.

Facing with that reality, I'm sure many people would shout "Madness!".

Let's look at it a different way. That morning coffee you get each day, that costs you £2. You work 20 days a month, your morning coffee is costing you £40 a month.

If it's from Starbucks it's going to be rubbish coffee as well. Add that up over 4 years. You're telling me that 10 minutes a day drinking a bitter mediocre coffee, at a cost over 4 years of almost £2000, gives you more enjoyment than the 6-8 hours a week I spend escaping into EVE, having fun and chatting with friends?

A little perspective and things look very different.

People tend to make a big deal about the immersive and addictive nature of MMOs, and the 'frightening' long term costs. Then they'll go down the pub with their friends or drink some more crappy coffee (if it was *good* coffee then I can understand :-) - spending much more money for the same sort of escapism and social interaction.

Social interaction has changed - mobile phones and the Internet have given us a new social space, a new way of interacting, of being with the people we know.

Clumsy interactive environments like Second Life try to mimic real life for the more casual computer user, but for most of us, our online games are now are primary source of keeping in touch with friends who are all over the globe.

It's not wrong or bad - it's just different. Think about that one while choking down your bitter coffee ;-)

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