The value of entertainment

I find myself continually thinking about numbers these days. During poker I'm working out odds and keeping track of bets while as well watching my friends' reactions for tells which make their cards transparent. I go to sleep and I run through the numbers of when it is I should actually fall asleep according to the street schedule of when work starts, when the beeping dumpster truck goes past emptying bins of bottles making an avalanche of clangs and also the time when that hotel across my road begins it's clockwork heavy drilling and hammering. Adjusting my sleep cycle accordingly so I'm in my deepest sleep then. I won't be turning into Hugo Reyes anytime soon and reciting 4 8 15 16 23 42 anytime soon but this number crunching does seem to have value.

For instance one of the number crunches I do which has made the most impact to me is spending. How much value can I get out of how much money? My friend said that we should do bi-monthly poker games because £5 may be too prohibitive for a weekly event. Then I thought to myself, how much more prohibitive is it really compared to other forms of entertainment? For £5 buy-in we'll usually play a game of 4 hours. Now lets compare this to some other forms of entertainment.

Poker: £5 for ~ 4 hours, (£1.25/hr)
Foosball: 50p for ~10 minutes (£3/hr)
Cinema: £12 for ~2 hours (£6/hr)
A beer: £3 ~ 30 minutes (£6/hr)
A big meal: £10 ~ an hour (£10/hr)

So poker appears to be a fantastic investment in terms of having a really great evening with a few friends, kicking back and talking about who's more badass, Stallone vs Schwarzenneger. Not to mention the opportunity of winning the pot! Everything else seems to be quite extortionate considering. The cinema not including popcorn or refreshments or that it could be a 3D show which would make it about 150% the price. Is it really worth it to see something on the big screen? How much of a true event is it? A meal at say the Hare & Tortoise while pretty nice, really does hurt the wallet. Not including tip of course. Now where's the point in this? Well let's run down a few of my larger purchases.

Playstation 3: £330
32" HDTV: £300

Now with £660, I would expect compared to poker that I would gain £528 hours of "entertainment" I've had this setup for my entirety of university and assuming I use it for about 4 hours a day, not accounting for holidays and also DVD binges or co-op marathons, that's 4,380 hours. That's 15p per hour! OUTSTANDING! I know I've not included DVDs or Games but now when I factor into it, some games I have easily invested over 100 hours. Typically RPGs or sports games. A game I use to play feverently, Dragon Age: Origins I have registered on Steam as 208 hours. For £25 that's not too bad. Lump in games like Fallout 3, Empire-Total war, Civilizations 4 and 5 and Metal Gear Solid 4 etc. I feel overwhelmingly proud by my spending on entertainment.

Video games these days are being churned out at an incredible pace, so much so that the back log of my "I WANT IT!" games upsettingly makes me consider myself more of a hobbyist than a true gamer. In these wallet-strapping times however that's not such a bad thing anymore. A game like Assassins Creed Brotherhood which is a single player action adventure game will have to be quite meaty with content for me to part ways with my £40. However a 4 year game such as Gears of War for less than £8? Yes please!
I also never use to be a fan of casual games but then I realised that with the price of a retail game I could fill my iPhone with apps!

Other grandiose spends such as my phone, my guitar+bass+amp+bass amp, my computer even...I crunch the numbers and compared to everyday activities these are bargains. Ultimately I find that the biggest leaks in my funds come from social fillers. Expenses which typically seem luxurious and grandiose turn out to be bargains and weekly necessities could easily be dispensed with. So does this mean I should spend large more and spend small less? It seems to violate our natural instincts but can these numbers lie?

For the next month for sure, I will begin an experiment of not drinking, not eating at restaurants, no cinema and no pub games. Hopefully these savings I make can contribute towards the value games at the back of my backlog of games. When out with my friends I'll have to rely on my charming personality and sharp wit to keep entertained, I wonder if I'll have any friends at the dawn of the new year?