Advanced options
The hobby's own benchmark: under GBP 1/play is a triumph, GBP 1-5 is healthy, and the GBP 60 game played twice is a GBP 30-a-night rental. Person-hours is the fairer metric: a GBP 40 game entertaining 4 people for 90 minutes, ten times, costs 67p per person-hour: streaming-tier value. The shelf-of-shame (bought, shrink-wrapped, unplayed) is the hobby's tsundoku: this calculator is its accountant.
What The Board Game Cost Calculator Works Out
- Cost per play: the game's price divided by the number of times it has been played. The hobby's folklore benchmarks: under GBP 1 a play is the hall of fame, GBP 1-5 is the healthy mainstream, and a GBP 60 game played twice is a GBP 30-a-night rental.
- Per person-hour: price divided by plays x players x hours per game (90 minutes by default). A GBP 40 game played ten times by four people works out around 67p per person-hour, streaming-subscription territory.
- Verdict: places your cost per play against those community benchmarks and suggests the play-it-three-more-times rule before the next purchase.
- vs a night out: the same group at the pub at about GBP 25 a head, which the game beats by the second play.
- Game length (advanced): replaces the 90-minute assumption. Fillers run 20-30 minutes, heavy eurogames 3-4 hours, and the per person-hour figure moves accordingly.
- Expansions and resale (advanced): adds expansions and upgrades to the outlay and subtracts what the game would fetch second-hand. Maintained copies resell at 40-60% of retail, so the net cost per play of a resold game is startlingly low.
- Night out per person (advanced): change the GBP 25 comparison to a cinema trip, a takeaway or a restaurant, and the "saved versus going out" card totals the difference across every games night so far.
- Target cost per play (advanced): how many more plays are needed to reach your chosen figure, and roughly how long that takes at your games-night frequency.
- Plays table (advanced): cost per play and per person-hour at 1, 5, 10, 25, 50 and 100 plays, useful before buying to see what a game must deliver to earn its shelf space.