My annual Gaming Spend

As I'm being more intentional about my ongoing spend, I've decided to analyze my annual gaming spend which is 100% on Steam. You can find your own data in Steam by going to Home > Account > Purchase History.

What I've learnt is I spend around USD 200/year on average on games. Seems to be an OK amount. I also used the Hang Seng MMPOWER credit card that gets me 5% rebate for online purchases, so I am getting some good value out of the card with net cost around $190/year.

Outliers

• 2011 Q4 and 2012 were exceptions. I was unemployed and had too much time.
• 2016: The only time I've ever bought a Season Pass for a game.
• 2023 was the end of COVID-19, so I suspect revenge travel and living life accounted for the lack of gaming time.

Not finishing what I purchased

Going through the list of what I bought and what I actually played through, I'm somewhat horrified that I didn't finish over 50% of my games. This feels a bit like $100/year (50% x $200/year) that I've thrown away. Most of those games were hits, but the gameplay was not sticky enough for me.

Not playing what I purchased

Another 10% of games, I bought but didn't play or spent perhaps an hour or two on it. I read the reviews, thought it sounded good and purchased the game in the absence of a trial. These games could benefit from a low cost time-limited trial.

Getting my money's worth?

Based on the hours spent playing the games I bought, it's roughly 2100 hours / $2600 spent, so that's about $0.80/hour of gaming. Gaming is still very cheap entertainment! If 60% of that $2600 is wasted, then 2100 hours / $1040 means my cost of gaming is ~$2/hour. Excluding subscription services like AppleTV, Netflix or even Amazon Prime Video, gaming is still cost-effective entertainment, particularly if you play games that don't have recurring online multiplayer recurring costs.

Gaming at $2/hour is still cheaper than watching a movie

Takeaway

I can save $120/year (60% of $200/year) if I very intentional about my gaming decisions instead of being so reckless. I save money at the expense of not discovering some new games.

What likely works best for me as a gamer is a AAA game in the $60 to $80 range per year, plus a $5/month gaming pass ($60/year). I would be happy to reduce my wasted spend while still giving some money away to a gaming subscription to strike that medium.

I would be happy to spend on a $5/month gaming subscription to maximize my utility

This basically is closer to the older XBOX or PC Games Pass without the AAA titles on day 1. While bundling AAA games into the Pass works out better for some gamers (Microsoft did this in 2025), it raises the "fixed" cost for most gamers. Most gamers prefer a predictable lower fixed cost even if there are unpredictable variable costs for any given year.

The old XBOX model was good; pay for multiplayer. By conflating the play for multiplayer and subscription gaming concepts into one rigid subscription, some gamer segments are alienated.

Hear that XBOX?