Is TTRPGing an "Expensive Hobby"

[overgeeked]

It's not deceptive. Your argument about wages applies to literally every consumer good.

Inflation applies to every consumer good. Real wages applies to paychecks and the buying power of those pychecks compared to inflation. Real wages do not keep up with inflation. The buying power of a dollar today is less than it was a few years ago. More than what only talking about inflation suggests. Dealing with inflation but not real wages is only looking at half the picture.

 

[Mannahnin]

Less affordable to them. An expensive hobby in their experience. All of this is subjective.

Some of it is subjective. $52.83 being more than $49.95 is not subjective. (or cheaper on Amazon, or $24.99 for a print on demand AD&D DMG on Drivethru right now, or $7.50 for BFRPG, or free download for 5E Basic, or...)

TTRPG, if you want to save money, is a dirt cheap hobby compared to most. And we're positively swimming in ways to do it even cheaper nowadays.

Inflation applies to every consumer good. Real wages applies to paychecks and the buying power of those pychecks compared to inflation. Real wages do not keep up with inflation. The buying power of a dollar today is less than it was a few years ago. More than what only talking about inflation suggests. Dealing with inflation but not real wages is only looking at half the picture.

I repeat, this argument applies to literally every consumer good.

So even allowing for lower real wages, relative to the vast majority of consumer goods, TTRPGs have become cheaper, rather than more expensive.

 

[eyeheartawk]

I repeat, this argument applies to literally every consumer good.

So even allowing for lower real wages, relative to the vast majority of consumer goods, TTRPGs have become cheaper, rather than more expensive.

Yeah, it's the same argument you can make about any discretionary good. Though, I think the overall point that it doesn't account for how much more squeezed the average consumer is now than in 1977 is a valid one. Plus, as much as we all love RPGs, it would be one of the first things to get cut in a budget if you absolutely needed to.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Sigh. No. Separate accounts for savings and disposable income. This is too tedious to bother with. Tschüss.

If you think even a majority of people do that, you're kind of living in a bubble there. At most there's "savings" and "everything else".

 

[Thomas Shey]

Less affordable to them. An expensive hobby in their experience. All of this is subjective.

Yeah, but at some point if the only criterion is "Less affordable to somebody" then this kind of discussion is completely pointless. That was true in 1975.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah, but at some point if the only criterion is "Less affordable to somebody" then this kind of discussion is completely pointless. That was true in 1975.

I agree that, if your goal is to achieve some level of understanding (or "truth") that this kind of discussion is completely pointless. All you can get is a general idea of what people on this site think about the subject. There are no answers.

 

[TheAlkaizer]

Even if you add the dozens of RPG books that I bought (and didn't play many) and divide it by the number of hours of entertainment I had over the years, it's still a very cheap hobby. The good news is that there's many games that are free or very cheap, dices can be bought used. Someone with 20$ in pocket could get into the hobby and play for an almost unlimited number of hours.

So nothing about the hobby itself is inherently expensive. But personal habits and tendencies can make it expensive.

 

[TheSword]

The bit people keep skipping over is real wages don’t keep up with inflation. Our grandparents could buy a house with a single middle-class income. Most people struggle to buy houses today with two incomes. Inflation is not the whole picture. I wouldn’t say it’s intentional, but it is deceptive to only mention inflation.

And yet extremely expensive smart phones have become ubiquitous. People spend more in relative terms on luxury goods than ever before. They also eat a winder range of more expensive luxury foods and pay more for media.

If we lived the same quality of life that our grandparents did (outdoor bathrooms, meat a couple of days a week, two pair of trousers, three shirts in the wardrobe, shared bathwater, 3 channels on the terrestrial TV, local holidays, car if you’re lucky and certainly nothing like today then a lot more people would have a lot more disposable cash.

 

[Meech17]

Yeah, it's the same argument you can make about any discretionary good. Though, I think the overall point that it doesn't account for how much more squeezed the average consumer is now than in 1977 is a valid one. Plus, as much as we all love RPGs, it would be one of the first things to get cut in a budget if you absolutely needed to.

I think this is one of the things that helps prove how affordable RPGs are though. For most of us, regardless of how much we've spent on the hobby thus far, if we were suddenly financially squeezed and needed to tighten our belts RPGs have staying power. You can just keep playing without spending another dollar.

It's not like golf where you have to worry about greens fees, or something like bowling or going to the movies where you have to pay each time you partake in the hobby.

 

[eyeheartawk]

You can just keep playing without spending another dollar.

Yeah, 100%.

It's why I think it would be one of the first things cut in a cash crunch for most people. You already have stuff. You can just...keep playing forever.