I Hate the Dentist, pt. 1

"Odontophobia" is a crippling fear of visiting the dentist. It may sound like a made up psychological disorder but I assure you that it's real. It's real and it sucks and this is but part one of my dentistry saga which is going to suck SO hard. Read more

An Open Letter to President Obama

Yesterday the United States took part in it's quad-annual secular celebration of its democracy and saw the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, be sworn in for his second term. For me, the Inauguration of an American President is one of the few truly sacred events that Read more

The eFuture of eBooks

I love a good story. To me, the art of storytelling is the finest form of expression, both of the self and of the world around you. It's a way to escape the monotony of life for some, a way to deal with tragedy and loss for others, and Read more

The $1,000,000 Question

Allow me to regale you with a short tale. Yesterday, as my friend and I were making our way to the local cinema to [finally] see Django Unchained (SPOILER: It's really goddamn good), we were intercepted by a seemingly nice, elderly couple. As my friend, CeeCee, sat on the Read more
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Gaming

The Real Cost of Being a Gamer…

…because no self-respecting player of video games calls themselves a “video gamer.”

If you’re a follower of gaming blogs, or indeed are reading this blog and therefore know who the hell I am, you’ve probably seen this piece from Bloomberg. In it, writer Jennifer Prince calculates the “true cost” of being a video gamer. SPOILER ALERT: her final tally was $17,077. Her “calculations” were based on a family of four living in the San Francisco bay area, and this is highlighted a number of times throughout the piece. Unfortunately, prices don’t fluctuate from San Francisco to, say, Des Moines. An Xbox 360 costs the same amount of money in the Mission District as it does in Omaha, Nebraska or Austin, Texas (represent!).

Regardless of that, I found the concept of the “real cost” of gaming to be an intriguing one. Unfortunately, once I started reading the article it quickly became apparent that Ms. (or Mrs., I don’t know) Prince had published something that didn’t represent the “real” gaming community in the least. Rather than rail against Ms. Prince, however, I think it’d be far more productive to correct her math. So that’s what I’m going to do. After the break, I’ll do a page-by-page breakdown of Ms. Prince’s calculations, with the occasional explanation of why my numbers are the way they are.

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Posted on January 30, 2012 by James in Gaming