The value of videogames (or, why I think Untitled Goose Game was a rip-off)

I have a limited amount of time on this planet. I also have a limited amount of money to spend. Therefore, like any Homo Economicus, I have a rational desire to get the most value for money for my time-wasting distractions.

So, after months of memes, I bought Untitled Goose Game on the Nintendo Switch to play over the Xmas break. I baulked at the price - £18 - but figured since everyone else on Twitter enjoyed it, I would as well.

I settled down to play it one afternoon, picked it up the next morning, and was staggered to discover I'd completed it! I am not good at video games. I didn't look up any walkthroughs. The game is short, and pretty crappy value for money.

Goose is fun while it lasts. It's not-quite innovative, the puzzles mostly consist of move Thing A to Place B. It's charming and silly. I did enjoy it while I was playing. I suppose the best thing I can say about it is that the whole thing is too short to be repetitive.

(If you think you've read this blog post before, you're right. 5 years ago, after seeing the Internet fawn over a cutesy puzzle game, I wrote "Is Monument Valley Overpriced? Yes." I don't learn my lesson, do I?)

So, does the Goose experience represent value for money?

£/minute

£18 for 5 hours' of entertainment is about the same price-per-minute as a couple of cinema tickets to see the latest Star Wars movie. It's cheaper than going out for cocktails, or a fancy meal.

But it's vastly more expensive than reading a book. The average book I read tends to have a value of about £0.50-per-hour.

OK, but videogames are a different experience to other forms of entertainment.

Goose's £3.60/hour pales into comparison to any of the thousands of free games available on mobile. Many of them are just as fun and innovative. And, did I mention, much cheaper.

My wife plays a lot of open-world games on the PlayStation 4. A second-hand copy of The Witcher, Spider-Man, or any other recent AAA game costs around £20 and offers literally hundreds of hours of gameplay.

Novelty as value

There's another aspect - how much do you value original experiences.

I see the $/hr argument, but the novelty of the game - how memorable and accessible it is, compared to so many other games - makes it worth the premium to me. Ludic value

— Laura James (@LaurieJ) December 23, 2019

I'd rather go to a new restaurant than eat in the same place twice. As my Untappd data shows, I've never met a new beer that I didn't want to try!

Goose is novel. I've never played as a mischievous bird before. So, reluctantly, I accept the Ludic Value argument.

Shared experience as value

https://twitter.com/gothytim/status/1208729063780691968

And, I guess this is the real reason I see the new Star Wars movies on their opening day. I want to share the experiences with my friends. I don't want to have to dodge spoilers, I want to understand the cryptic memes,

So, this is the future. I can go and read "Moby Dick" for free, and maybe I'll be able to find some dusty social-network where people endlessly discuss Herman Melville. Or I can have a moment of zeitgeist which relies on a mass of people simultaneously experiencing novelty. That's (part of) the reason people buy new books, watch new films, and play new games - even when there's an infinite amount of better, cheaper entertainment.

It's football, isn't it?

I've never understood the sorts of sports fan who say "We won against Melchester!" - obviously they had nothing to do with it.

But they had a shared experience. One which evoked feelings of tribal loyalty, the drama of success and failure, and the soap-opera of personalities. The value isn't in the winning or losing - it's in the discussing with friends, reliving the good times, and feeling part of a community.

I guess I don't have that gene, so will go back to playing obscure, single-player games, with no community, for free.