Good board games are even less cost effective.

Eclipse is like $100 and I've only played it once for 6ish hours. Dominant Species also pushes a high price and I've played it 3 times. Ascencion was something like $40.

Good board games are EXPENSIVE; and so far the price-per-hour for me is still very high.

That depends on how much you play them =).

I own about 100 bucks in Ticket to Ride Europe + 2 map packs, but we've probably played it for 100+ hours now...

On the other hand Battlelore sits unused because my friends don't dig it, so I'm at -$50 there =P

How about a deck of cards ? It can last for a looong time.

I only had an opportunity to play Eclipse once, so I don't know how much longevity that particular game has. But I never miss a chance to play Dixit, Neuroshima Hex or Dominion.

Good board games have no upper limit of how much you can play them. In contrast, many computer 'games' nowadays are story-based, and stories are almost always linear. How often can you read a (fiction) book ? With board games, you stop playing them once you're bored with them. There's no arbitrary limit.

I wish computer games returned back to roots (board games and pen&paper RPG games). The reason is highly value innovation and variety. With board games, rules are the distinguishing factor. By default, every board game tries to do something differently, if not by coming up with new things then by making a good mix of already known mechanics.

maaaybe.

We've only had our copy of eclipse for a short while, and since it's a big commitment to get a group to spend 4 or 5 hours together we've only managed 2 games so far. Roughly 10 hours for 100 bucks seems expensive, but what if you divide that across a group of 5 people? Then it's already down to 2$ per hour.

Every time the game comes to the table it looks like a better investment. All depends how you account for it, and how many plays you get out of it before you move on to the next new thing.

--- I admit I hadn't thought of splitting it among all the players, since I was the one that footed the bill. That works and is totally valid even in my rather rough $1/hr of fun metric. Good point! Same with Dominant Species and Android and other multi-player games, then.

Eclipse is only $65 on CSI. It all depends on where you buy the stuff. The nice thing about board games is that good ones remain playable for years, unlike many video games.

Also, no DRM that requires you to be connected to the internet at all times.

Divide by number of players....