I was thinking about this today. People complain about the price of FS 2004 (or they did when it first came out) and the high price of payware add ons and hardware updates etc. but I was thinking that when you count entertainment value for the dollars spent MSFS is about the cheapest there is.
Think of all the time you spend in the sim and working on add ons either creating them or installing and updating them. Now copmare that to any other activity that you do either for entertainment or as a hobby. There isn't much to compare with simming.
Take one movie for example. You will spend $2-3 in gas to get there another $15 to get a ticket. Now refreshments are going to cost at least $10 more. I'll assume that the theatre provides free refills but that's still in the neighborhood of $30 for a little less than two hours entertainment.
Of course simming is going to cost something. There's the computer. That's the big expense but for most of us we'd have that anyway. Depending on your preference you need a decent joystick $45, more if you really want to get fancy.
I don't know how many of you keep a logbook of your flight time but mine is topping out over 2,000 hrs of flight simming and I only record the time I fly seriously (not buzzing airports or flying a Beech Bonanza through ferry boats).
All things considered I figure I've gotten very good value out of this sim.
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