Ok, I went serious geek mode today and totalled up the cost of purchasing the game, expansion and subscriptions. FYI, detailed payment history may be found in your account information - this shows free days they gave early in the life of the game as well as referral bonuses. I've paid, all said and done,
$592.65 to play World of Warcraft from 11/23/04 until today.
Then I totalled up all the /played responses for current characters. Between my 10 characters on Dalaran, 3 on Maelstrom and 3 on Skullcrusher, I've played a total of
95 days and 10 hours of World of Warcraft. There are no 'bank' characters in this list, just one AH-centric character (40 priest).
Combining these totals shows me that World of Warcraft is the absolute cheapest form of entertainment with your clothes on (and I'm not completely sure how some of you play so maybe I shouldn't use that disclaimer).
World of Warcraft costs me $0.26/hour of gametime or you could say that
I get 3 hours and 51 minutes of gameplay out of a dollar. Cheaper than a movie. Cheaper than an arcade (unless you're reeeeeal good). A book might be close but most aren't very 'replayable.' I think we can discount cable and satellite with their monthly costs. Broadcast TV is obviously cheaper considering no cost but ... what about the quality?
Even though I try to kill the statistician in me, he insists I point out that I've played a number of character for not insignificant amounts of time (Deck, a hunter for one). Since they've been deleted, their /played is not available. However, their time would only make the per hour game cost lower. Further, my totals do not consider computer costs
So, just thought I'd share this as I've been wanting to do it for a while. Use it to justify your continued play, another account, whatever.
Oh, yeah...and post your own!