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Interested in hearing how you all define a wargame's "value for money".

I know there are different types/genre of games and gamers but is it simply a case of price of rules+models divided by model count or is it more complex than that? Does it involve;
- Simplicity/complexity of rules set
- Number of models required
- A starter set exists or not
- Hours you spend playing/gaming
- The community around the game

What's your rule of thumb for this and what game represents it best?

I'll spend x on an item and divide that by the number of hours I've spent using it.

Example...
Tyranid hierophant £250
15 hrs painting
10 hrs gaming
25 hrs total

£10/hr.

That's less than I earn per hour so not too bad.

Example 2....

X wing total spend £150
10 hrs gaming

£15/hr

That's less than I earn per hour so not too bad but worse.

Do you mean Wargaming? or just General gaming ie Board Games, RPG's, Card Games etc...


If you mean Wargaming, as this is primarily a wargaming site, my first thought is that gaming is only a small part of a bigger whole. Therefore if you are wargaming and not participating in the full depth of the hobby your value will always be less than someone who engages in more aspects. It's why I personally find Wargaming to be a really cheap hobby for what enjoyment it offers me as I model, paint, read fluff and play games, so I get huge value out of the hobby. I play or have played a variety of systems like Warmahordes, Malifaux, AoS, WFB, 40K and varied Ancients Historical rule sets. I don't play any of the other games I mentioned though.


Edit: I also divide the amount of hours I indulge in the hobby by hours spent and I've got it down to a few £'s an hour.

I consider quality and quantity of models for price and quality of rules...the fluff is dependent. for example, I enjoy playing AoS even though I think the fluff is utter garbage. I liked warhammer fantasy for its story but the rules needed love but I got a good number of good models for the price so I could play alot. I dont like prepainted games because I want to paint my own stuff. so its a bit of a combinations of things.

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:
I'll spend x on an item and divide that by the number of hours I've spent using it.

Example...
Tyranid hierophant £250
15 hrs painting
10 hrs gaming
25 hrs total

£10/hr.

That's less than I earn per hour so not too bad.

Example 2....

X wing total spend £150
10 hrs gaming

£15/hr

That's less than I earn per hour so not too bad but worse.

I don't consider the time I spend painting something to be worth any money at all.

The quality of the end product is what is worth money. A good quality kit that I'm going to spend 20 hours making look awesome is more valuable than a low quality kit that I'm going to spend 40 hours looking mediocre or 80 hours making look as good as the good quality kit looks out of the box.

I think it's value for money if I get more enjoyment from it than I would have gotten if I'd spent the same money on something else. I'm not concerned with how much time I spend using a model, as I don't consider that the end goal of a collection.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:
I'll spend x on an item and divide that by the number of hours I've spent using it.

Example...
Tyranid hierophant £250
15 hrs painting
10 hrs gaming
25 hrs total

£10/hr.

That's less than I earn per hour so not too bad.

Example 2....

X wing total spend £150
10 hrs gaming

£15/hr

That's less than I earn per hour so not too bad but worse.

I don't consider the time I spend painting something to be worth any money at all.

The quality of the end product is what is worth money. A good quality kit that I'm going to spend 20 hours making look awesome is more valuable than a low quality kit that I'm going to spend 40 hours looking mediocre or 80 hours making look as good as the good quality kit looks out of the box.

Why would you buy a low quality kit in the first place?

I've changed it to wargames as, yes, that's primarily what I meant. Though I do include pre-paints in that too.

Number of hours enjoyed multiplied by the average amount of enjoyment on a 1-10 scale, divided by the price rounded to the nearest dollar. (Not joking... I came up with that equation when I was sixteen years old and running D&D using White Dwarf's Monster Mark system... and it shows.)

The Auld Grump

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
Number of hours enjoyed multiplied by the average amount of enjoyment on a 1-10 scale, divided by the price rounded to the nearest dollar. (Not joking... I came up with that equation when I was sixteen years old and running D&D using White Dwarf's Monster Mark system... and it shows.)

The Auld Grump

The number of hours enjoyed as a ratio against the price is definitely my primary metric for value for money. It's probably why I don't mind the higher prices as much as some other people; I often spend 10-50 hours on a model that costs $8-$40 to get it painted, and then I still get some gaming mileage out of it. Space Hulk gives me a month plus of modelling plus the game's enjoyment, so it's a steal.

There are some exceptions to this, though. For example, I enjoy FW models, but a lot of the hours spent are in prep, which, though enjoyable, are less enjoyable than the later stages (plus the finished product is imperfect, at least under close observation). Therefore, the 10 extra hours to prep a FW model doesn't increase its value.

The other X factor is desirability. Something that is highly desirable has more value to me than something that's not, even if they're similar on paper. In other words, if I WANT a game, it's going to be more value(to me) than if it's something that looks cool that is an impulse buy.

Hmmm. The biggest single factor for me is price per model, after that it's quality of rules, and finally ability to actually get a game of said rules. Quality of models only really heavily factors in if the quality is very poor or the medium for the model is one I dislike (multi-part metal, restic).

Price per model and rules quality tends to put historicals ahead, but then the actual prospect of getting a game boosts popular fantasy games like GW, Mantic or PP offerings quite a bit. Recently, I've been finding the best "bang for my buck" actually comes from miniature heavy board games.

I don't really count time spent assembly or prepping models as value for money time, as I dislike it (And I'm bad at it!) I do include painting time, but for me that is roughly the same for all miniatures.

Seriqolm wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:
I'll spend x on an item and divide that by the number of hours I've spent using it.

Example...
Tyranid hierophant £250
15 hrs painting
10 hrs gaming
25 hrs total

£10/hr.

That's less than I earn per hour so not too bad.

Example 2....

X wing total spend £150
10 hrs gaming

£15/hr

That's less than I earn per hour so not too bad but worse.

I don't consider the time I spend painting something to be worth any money at all.

The quality of the end product is what is worth money. A good quality kit that I'm going to spend 20 hours making look awesome is more valuable than a low quality kit that I'm going to spend 40 hours looking mediocre or 80 hours making look as good as the good quality kit looks out of the box.

Why would you buy a low quality kit in the first place?

Lots of reasons. They all boil down to wanting a specific model or models and no one making a good version of it.

How long and how much enjoyment the product gives me. I don't find GW prices that wild when I spend dozens of hours working on a box to bring it to completion. Any playing time is just a bonus, as I'm primarily in it for the hobby, relaxation and sense of completion. Some kits are more enjoyable to hobby than others.

For me it is pretty straight forwards. Whatever the cost. if I enjoy it, then it has value for money.

How much entertainment I will get out of it for my money.

Games with low value (to me):

Infinity: no one around me plays it.
Dreamblade: nobody plays it anymore.
Star Trek/Star Wars mini games: escalating and seemingly never ending costs.

Games with a high value:
Sentinels of the Multiverse: I own everything required for up to five players at a time, the expansions legitimately aren't needed to play.
Warhammer 40k: my models are almost never rendered obsolete, and there are five to seven open/structured play nights with driving distance of me every week.
D&D/Pathfinder (and most RPGs) 2-3 core books are essentially all you need to play for decades.

The more I'll use something (based on how frequently I'll play the expansion/how much of a force it is/how good it is/how versatile it is/how much hobby time goes into it) and the more it'll change my game (a different style of play, etc.), the more I value it.

Plus the normal stuff like how cool the model is, but that's more a matter of desirability than value.

For me it's pretty simple - dollar spent to in game cost. I can forgive higher prices for models if there's far fewer needed to play an actual game.

For example:
Hormagaunts are 12 for $48au. That's $4au each.
Skeletons are 10 for $42au. That's $4.20au per model.
A Malifaux crew averages about $55au for 6 models, up to $75au for 8+ models or including large models. That's about $10au per model.
An Infinity starter averages $60au for 6 models. That's $10au per model.

However, those Hormagaunts don't even make up a full troop squad. Even if you don't want to run a full 30 due to footprint, 20 is a good size. That's two boxes. And that squad makes up what, 100pts from a 1500pt army? The skeletons, going by 8th edition Fantasy, are worse. You need 10 boxes of those to just make up the core of an army.

That Malifaux crew, with one or two exceptions, is 3/4 of a full sized crew. A single additional purchase can bring it to 50ss. Infinity starters hover around 1/3 of a full list (though this isn't a rule, some are less, some are more than 1/2), and you can make up the points to a full 300pt list with very few purchases.

Granted, Malifaux and Infinity are skirmish games so less models overall are needed, but the more I've looked into other games and systems, the more I've found how unique GW is in this. Simply on cost of entry, value for money for their games is very poor.

I really wish they've hurry up and get their Specialist Games back off the ground. But then, by that time, I might not find anything they do that I can't replace with something still even better priced. Just started Dropzone Commander, so there goes Epic.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Seriqolm wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:
I'll spend x on an item and divide that by the number of hours I've spent using it.

Example...
Tyranid hierophant £250
15 hrs painting
10 hrs gaming
25 hrs total

£10/hr.

That's less than I earn per hour so not too bad.

Example 2....

X wing total spend £150
10 hrs gaming

£15/hr

That's less than I earn per hour so not too bad but worse.

I don't consider the time I spend painting something to be worth any money at all.

The quality of the end product is what is worth money. A good quality kit that I'm going to spend 20 hours making look awesome is more valuable than a low quality kit that I'm going to spend 40 hours looking mediocre or 80 hours making look as good as the good quality kit looks out of the box.

Why would you buy a low quality kit in the first place?

Quantity has a quality all of its own.

There's a reason Mantic has made a huge impact - large scale 28mm fantasy requires lots of models. Their models aren't terribly nice, but when you'r putting down hundreds of them in an average game you stop looking at individual model details. Then you can grab high quality monsters and characters to really stand out.

It's everything for me and I look at things holistically. For example i include e amount of time I just spend making lists and playing around with costs, I include the friends and connections I have made, I include all of the little things like the enjoyment I get from the universe itself and how it plays out on he battlefield.

For me the price per model is not a good metric, if that were the case I would live on nothing but brown rice and chicken.

 Leth wrote:
For me the price per model is not a good metric, if that were the case I would live on nothing but brown rice and chicken.

The thread didn't say anything about value being the only factor in why you play, just how to determine value.

Additionally, comparing food against a wargame with the same values is a tad silly, since there's obviously other metrics to use for determining foods value.

I can, and do, play games with bad value for money by my own measurement.

How much fun could I have had with something else for the same money.

To use GW as an example, are plastic Imperial guard figures worth 2.7x as much fun as a Warlord Soviet infantry figure?

For the cost of the BRB, could I have had more fun with Frostgrave, Ronin & In Her Majestys Name?

 -Loki- wrote:

 Leth wrote:
For me the price per model is not a good metric, if that were the case I would live on nothing but brown rice and chicken.

The thread didn't say anything about value being the only factor in why you play, just how to determine value.

Additionally, comparing food against a wargame with the same values is a tad silly, since there's obviously other metrics to use for determining foods value.

I can, and do, play games with bad value for money by my own measurement.

It was an analogy, analogies will not always be perfect. Completely ignored everything else I said. I did not say anyone else's opinion was wrong

Yeah, value for money is always going to be subjective.

I get about the same enjoyment from a model regardless of it's origins, so model quality is not too big a deal for me. As long as it doesn't look offputting or come in an annoying medium.

PP models for example I no longer buy because they come in multipart restic with horrible mould lines, or multipart metal that even with pinning and greenstuffing, does not travel well. I like the looks of lots of them, but I am not willing to put in the prep and assembly time only to have the damn things fall apart. This is a real shame because the game is good and I could easily find players for it.

Value is always going to boil down to what the customer's end game is.

If they are gamers (my primary focus), then they are looking at (items are listed in my personal order of importance)

1. Is the ruleset solid.
2. Cost of entry to the game
3. Cost to build a competitive list
4. The gamer community size
5. Retailer support
6. Manufacturer support
7. Upkeep cost (continued purchases)

Appearance of the models is secondary to in game performance. I own a huge Menoth army but I'm not overly enamored of the aesthetic of the list, in particular, I quite dislike their armored troops and warjacks. Upkeep cost is an issue, but its very low on the list. The game would have to fail me on all the above metrics before upkeep cost is the straw that breaks the camel's back. To use WM/H as an example:

1. The ruleset is still (*mostly*) solid.
2. Cost of entry is a non-issue, army already owned
3. Cost of competitive list is a non issue, army is already owned.
4. My local gamer community has shrunk and my competitive streak has died down, so there is a divergence between like-mindedness between myself and the existing customer base... Since I've stopped playing, the value has dropped so much that I've stopped buying anything for WM/H even though upkeep is much less than starting a new system.

Let's look at it from a blended modelling / gaming perspective: For me, this includes Malifaux and Infinity. I used the same metrics as above, but added a "are the models cool" as a "no. 0" criteria. All the other items are important, but the models need to be cool.

From a fully painting/modelling perspective, the metrics are entirely model based.

1. DOES THIS MODEL FIT MY VISION FOR THE PROJECT.
1a. Can the model be converted (if needed).
1b. What additional parts are needed (if needed).
1c. Is there sufficient features to showcase the desired effect (NMM, OSL, open areas for blends/freehand)
2. What is the price for the project compared to costs of competing proposed projects.
3. Are there serious barriers to prep time? (i.e. gap filling, straightening parts, mold lines, sawing metal).

Other than prep time, you can see that I give "0" weight to the amount of time for painting and conversion. This is time that needs to be spent REGARDLESS of the purchase cost of the project. It is 1b (either need to buy another kit, or try and trade for parts) and 2 where Games Workshop really fails (unless you are dead set on modelling exactly what GW is selling, which is why cost is only no. 2). With PP, 2 is a problem, but being able to source most parts you need for a conversion through their parts store is a boon. With Corvus Belli and Wyrd, their models are almost totally non-convertable, meaning that you are really dependent on no. 1.

price,
combined with how much I want it,
combined with how fun it is to build/paint
combined with how fun it is to play
combined with how fun it is to read about in 'print'
combined with how fun it is to forum about online

Edit: combines with how well it can be substituted into something else I have already (eg use it's models with other rules, use it's rules with other models, plunder it's lore for other games etc)

so a game can provide me with value for money even if I will never (or rarely) play it (I fear wrath of kings may end up in this category)

and games I can play might never look good enough value for me to buy into (warmachine)

I am Dutch so i have the stingy gene, for me it is price and coolness factor, if the coolness factor outweighs the price factor then i will buy it, even though it has limits, i find lots of plastic kits overpriced for what they offer.

 Weyrell wrote:
Interested in hearing how you all define a wargame's "value for money".

Honestly? I don't put a "value" on a game. If I like it, I'll spend money on it. At some point, it's "too expensive," but there's not hard logic behind it. At this point, 40k is so bloatedly overpriced and the the yearly "price hikes for no reason" is astounding, to me. I doubt I will ever start a new army, at least not from a retail standpoint. But, if the urge to build a Wraithlord hits me, I'll buy one. Bottom line is, there's no concrete
metric used to determine what I deem a value or not.


Ghidorah