The cost of Destiny (Destiny)

by Oholiab , Thursday, June 25, 2015, 19:09 (3675 days ago)

All the talk over the past couple days (I do read the forums, even though I don't frequently chime in) got me thinking about the cost of Destiny in my own life. I ran some numbers:

Four people in my house play Destiny using two copies that in total cost approximately $200 [(disc+expansion pass)*2]. Our total play time is approximately 654.75 hrs since launch, although that's not including two alternate characters. That amounts to an entertainment cost of $0.31/hour.

I had no idea how that compared to similar forms of entertainment. Even though playing Destiny (or any video game) with my kids is way more interactive than watching a movie with them, that activity seemed like a good comparison for understanding entertainment cost.

I recently took two of my kids to see Avengers: Age of Ultron in the theaters. They still qualify for the child rate, and we went to a matinee, so I got off easy at $28.50 total cost. The movie is 2.35 hrs long, not including previews, so in total man-hours, 7.05 hrs. This amounts to an entertainment cost of $4.04/hour. That's 13 times the cost of our Destiny playtime!

Before we went to the movie, we watched Thor 2. It cost us $5.99 to rent from iTunes. All five of us watched it at 1.86 hrs long for a total of 9.3 man-hours. Entertainment cost: $0.64/hour. Still twice the cost of Destiny in our house.

However... the real value for me and my kids is the time spent together. So I figured I should recompute the values based on only two of us playing or watching a movie to see what the cost is for that entertainment and interaction time.

Destiny: I had no way to figure out how much time was spent playing together, so I guessed that half the time two people are playing together. So $200/327 hrs = entertainment and interaction cost: $0.62/hour

Theater: Me plus one = $19.50. Total man-hours = 4.7. Entertainment cost: $4.14/hour.

Rental: Me plus one = $5.99. Total man-hours = 3.72. Entertainment cost: $1.61/hour.

It seems that for our household, the cost of Destiny is significantly lower than similar forms of entertainment, not to mention offering much more interaction than those other forms. Plus, since we only play when we want to play, it's always fun, no matter what activity we choose to do in that instance. If instead we feel like playing a board game, or Halo, or LEGO Marvel, or going out in the triple-digit heat, we do those things instead. As a result, we have yet to get tired of the game. We still look forward to logging on and cranking out some bounties.

In the end, Destiny is one of many means to an end: spending time with family and friends building relationships and forming memories. And it happens to be very economical for us. Just don't tell Activision (: