DIII, worth the time?

[Taem]

Umm no. "Awesome" to me is a game that I play exclusively for at least 6 months.

A- <> Awesome. A+ is Awesome. Against all the games in the game space, DIII is well above average -- and there is still room for them to improve some things to bring it up to a solid A. Most people don't measure games by the number of years of exclusive obsession.

I consider myself more of a Pass/Fail type of guy. If a game does not catch my interest immediately, it fails. If the game cannot hold my interest for more than 2-consecutive hours, it's not even worth my valuable time to invest involvement in.

As I've gotten older, I've become even more persnickety; I used to enjoy games for their story, or even because they were fun multiplayer (MP = everyone in the same room having fun; online = everyone in their separate rooms having fun), but have recently found that if I cannot enjoy the game for months or even years on end with the same level of involvement I started with, I pretty much can't wait to get away from the game. Even when my kids try to sucker me into playing Mario Party or Raymond Raving Rabbids MP, I feel like my time is slipping away like watching a bad movie, like part of me just died and there was nothing I could do about it. I enjoy writing, creating things as a hobby, not being spoon-fed entertainment. I suppose a game like Minecraft would be perfect for me, but I can't seem to get over it's terrible graphics and horrific music. I haven't seriously played any game in over a year, and the last one I did play seriously was Diablo 2: Median XL. What made that game so much different than anything else? I have no idea, but I enjoyed it for years before quitting D2 again.

I measure games by return in entertainment value (hours). A 10$ movie in the theater gives 5$ per hour of entertainment. By that measure, a game is "worth it" if you can enjoy it for 60/5 = 12 hours. So, then $15 / month for a WOW account is equivalent to 1 or 2 movies in a theater per month.

I can't help but comment: so by this logic, you'd be alright with purchasing items from the Auction Houses, and since that is now an option in D3, then I'm sure you would of been fine with it in Diablo 2... but wait, I remember you in particular having issue with item stores in D2. Because perhaps you felt the items found were harvested by bots? And D3 is different because...?

I guess this logic could continue with pirated goods and the real world market, and if the conversation were to continue long enough, to how corporations such as Walmart are destroying the mom-and-pop shops, killing ingenuity, creativity, and free enterprise on all levels.

But I'm straying off topic. So what makes something worth the value? A $15-dollar a month subscription to a online game? Purchasing items from auction-houses spending maybe $15-a-month? Purchasing and defeating new video games every month for $60. Individual preference I presume. So what was wrong with item stores back in the D2 days? Just because Blizzard didn't back them then doesn't make them alright now, does it?