When I was a kid in high school, the economy wasn’t nearly as bad as it is right now. People are very very concerned right now with having enough money to pay their bills, housing has skyrocketed, cost of living dramatically up, salaries stagnating… Almost every single friend I have, I asked them why they no longer play World of Warcraft or similar games and the answer was the same. “I cannot justify paying a subscription monthly, I have way too many subscriptions right now like Netflix Hulu HBO max some that I’m even canceling”. This was pretty much the same exact response I heard from most of my friend community on discord. It seems that people find it a horrible value to buy a game and play it when it requires repeated purchases, but you also have to pay to subscribe to the game as well. That amount of money really, honestly adds up to a lot…

Simple example: playing Elder scrolls online and World of Warcraft for 2 years

World of Warcraft:

$15/month x 24 months = $360

$50 expansion every 2 years = $50

Total WoW cost: $410

Elder Scrolls Online:

$15/month x 24 months = $360

$90 expansion per year x 2 years = $180

Total ESO cost: $540

Combined total for both games over 2 years:

$410 + $540 = $950

Investing this money: Simple example

Please note: This is just a rough estimate, it’s figuratively impossible to realistically estimate an exact 100% accurate figure of an investment, I went for a worst-case scenario based on some of my past earnings in Fidelity. These are almost exactly what I earned over a 2 year period saving from WoW and ESO, with some small margin of error.

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Investment Breakdown:

• Initial Investment: $0
• Monthly Contribution: $39.58 (950 ÷ 24 months)
• Annual Interest Rate: 8.5% (compounded monthly)
• Investment Period: 2 years (24 months)

Results:

• Total Amount Contributed: $950.00
• Total Accrued Interest: $89.76
• Total After 2 Years: $1,039.76

After 10 years, here’s how the money would grow:

• Initial Amount: $1,039.76
• Total Interest Earned: $1,352.31
• Final Amount: $2,392.07

So your initial game subscription savings of $950 that grew to $1,039.76 after 2 years would more than double over the next 10 years, growing to $2,392.07 just from compound interest alone.

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So in short, you are actually spending a huge sum of money on these games, about $950 a year at least by this very very rough estimate, and if you simply invested this money, you could see huge, monstrous returns on this money that could change your damn life. It’s for that reason that I cannot justify playing these games anymore. That’s just a subscription cost!! So astronomically high it’s unbelievable to me.

TLDR:

• Economic struggles make gaming subscriptions harder to justify.

• Rising living costs and stagnant wages have led people to cancel non-essential subscriptions.

• Many friends quit games like World of Warcraft and Elder Scrolls Online due to high subscription costs.

• Example costs over two years: – WoW: $410 – ESO: $540 – Total: $950

• Investing this amount with $200 monthly contributions at 8.5% interest could grow to $1,039.76 in two years. Overall, game subscription fees seem less worthwhile given the potential for financial growth.