Cost per Play Is One Measure of a Game’s Value
I mentioned a while ago that I like to calculate the cost of a game based on how many times I’ve played it. Until recently (July 5, to be exact), I’d only done so randomly and approximately and in my head. But the other day (July 5, to be consistent) I decided to work it out on virtual paper (a Google spreadsheet, to be specific).
I’m a board game geek, so I keep a record of all my plays over at the Board Game Geek site. I actually calculated 54 of my games – those that it was easy to find a current price for. I’ve posted 21 of the results below in cost-per-play order from the cheapest to the thusfar most expensive.
What you’ll see in the chart is a little misleading in some cases. The cost of some of the games has changed (usually gone down) since I first started playing them. Some of the games I didn’t actually buy; they were gifts…and not always gifts from immediate family members either. Some of the games have been played more times than shown; the stats here are only the plays I’ve been personally involved in. But with all that said, it’s still interesting to see how one game compares to the other and how inexpensive a game can be per play.
Game Curr. $ Plays $/Play $-Rank Play-Rank $/Play-Rank ============== ======= ===== ====== ====== ========= =========== Agricola $49.00 359 $0.14 4 1 1 Tichu $12.00 65 $0.18 53 7 2 Carcassonne $20.66 81 $0.26 38 4 3 Slide 5 $6.12 21 $0.29 54 22 4 Alhambra $35.00 95 $0.37 17 3 5 Lost Cities $17.00 46 $0.37 47 12 6 Attika $30.00 71 $0.42 26 5 7 Qwirkle $16.40 38 $0.43 48 16 8 San Juan $22.10 48 $0.46 36 11 9 Mystery of the Abbey $51.00 98 $0.52 3 2 10 Carcassonne: The City $35.00 57 $0.61 16 9 11 For Sale $15.00 24 $0.63 52 20 12 Pillars of the Earth $39.36 60 $0.66 9 8 13 Aquadukt $17.00 25 $0.68 46 19 14 El Grande $46.00 66 $0.70 5 6 15 Carcassonne: Castle $20.50 29 $0.71 39 18 16 Hacienda $31.75 43 $0.74 19 13 17 Ra $36.88 49 $0.75 13 10 18 Puerto Rico $31.00 39 $0.79 22 15 19 Travel Blokus $17.00 20 $0.85 45 23 20 Ticket to Ride $38.00 39 $0.97 11 14 21
Remember that these statistics were calculated for 54 games. That’s why some of the numbers are higher than 21. For the cost rank, the lower the number, the higher the cost of the game. For the play rank, the lower the number, the more times the game has been played.
The most expensive game I own is Le Havre. As of July 5, I had only played it 31 times for a cost-per-play of $1.88, so it didn’t quite make my arbitrary cutoff for the list above.
I leave it up to you to make what you will of the numbers. The one thing I can say is that, despite an initial cost that sometimes seems high, board games that you like are among the best products you’ll ever spend money on.
You get a lot of “bang for your buck” over time, and you get the enjoyment of playing them with friends and family as icing on the cake.
I agree that games can ultimately be cheaper than they appear, but clearly you are playing game a lot!
I have a copy of Le Havre that cost $70. I’ve had it for about 4 months. It’s been played 3 times so far. At the moment that makes it $23 per play.
Now certainly I will play the game many more times in the coming years, but at this rate it will take a decade for that game to be pennies per play.
Yes, Bryan, we really got hooked on Agricola and played virtually daily for almost a year. That schedule got interrupted last July when my son challenged me to play all my games in one month. These days we tend to play more Le Havre, since it’s newer, but we still haven’t worn out Agricola.