Lets figure out the Gamers CPI

[czc]

I remember hearing that they just removed VHS tapes from the CPI calculation in South Africa this year. Which was really funny because no one uses those anymore. So I just had this idea what if we figured out the gamers CPI to find out our inflation?

If it possible off course. A link to CPI wiki

The only thing I'm not certain of is who to compare past vs present w.r.t say graphics cards. Milk is Milk but GPX model numbers change every year as they get more powerful.

Your thoughts on if this is possible.

Gonna tag [MENTION=9789]DieGrootHammer[/MENTION] to consult.

 

[DieGrootHammer]

OMG!!! Yes, let's try this like right now.

Okay, so first up, the products to be compared. Normally a basket is used for price comparisons, but in this case, it would be very difficult. Seeing as the average person would probably only buy one or two components per year, we must compare the prices of individual prices with each other. So, as you stated, the products are quite different throughout the years, so difficult to compare. But we can compare performance brackets with each other.

Say we take the best consumer GPU currently available, the Geforce GTX 1080Ti, retailing at R14000 on average, and we compare it to the best card available in 2010. Why 2010? Well it is the baseline year used by the Reserve Bank to do CPI calculations.

So, in 2010 the best graphics card available was the Radeon HD 5970, and retailed at R6500.

With this, we calculate the CPI as 115.38% (((14000/6500)*100)-100). Wow, does that mean that graphic cards prices increased 115% since 2010? Well, in our crude and rather slapped together calculation, yes, yes it has.

But let's qualify this value. In 2010, the Rand Dollar exchange rate was R6.5 to the $. Today that is R13.54 to the $. That is very close to a 115% increase, very similar to the price of the Rand. So, it goes without saying that the increase of GPU's in SA has been pretty much 100% due to the value loss of the Rand.

In US prices, the HD 5970 retailed at $500, and the 1080Ti retails at $700. This calculates to a CPI increase of 40%. And that is considerably higher than average CPI or normal everyday products. But again, there are a lot of qualifying factors to this increase as well, like the shortage of DRAM, proliferation of mining and the proportionate increase of performance over the past few years.

Let me do a bit more research on actual game prices.

 

[Wyvern]

OMG!!! Yes, let's try this like right now.

Okay, so first up, the products to be compared. Normally a basket is used for price comparisons, but in this case, it would be very difficult. Seeing as the average person would probably only buy one or two components per year, we must compare the prices of individual prices with each other. So, as you stated, the products are quite different throughout the years, so difficult to compare. But we can compare performance brackets with each other.

Say we take the best consumer GPU currently available, the Geforce GTX 1080Ti, retailing at R14000 on average, and we compare it to the best card available in 2010. Why 2010? Well it is the baseline year used by the Reserve Bank to do CPI calculations.

So, in 2010 the best graphics card available was the Radeon HD 5970, and retailed at R6500.

With this, we calculate the CPI as 115.38% (((14000/6500)*100)-100). Wow, does that mean that graphic cards prices increased 115% since 2010? Well, in our crude and rather slapped together calculation, yes, yes it has.

But let's qualify this value. In 2010, the Rand Dollar exchange rate was R6.5 to the $. Today that is R13.54 to the $. That is very close to a 115% increase, very similar to the price of the Rand. So, it goes without saying that the increase of GPU's in SA has been pretty much 100% due to the value loss of the Rand.

In US prices, the HD 5970 retailed at $500, and the 1080Ti retails at $700. This calculates to a CPI increase of 40%. And that is considerably higher than average CPI or normal everyday products. But again, there are a lot of qualifying factors to this increase as well, like the shortage of DRAM, proliferation of mining and the proportionate increase of performance over the past few years.

Let me do a bit more research on actual game prices.

Oh gawd you activated super Hammer mode Crusader!


I wish you knew the facial expression he has right now - I can see it so well - Its happier than a pig in shit

 

[HavocXphere]

Nice thread. Would rep if i could

Your thoughts on if this is possible.

Yes and no.

There are no comparable constants like Milk will always be milk. At least not on a component level. e.g. Think about how GPU has become more important than CPU...you'd struggle to capture that well.

I'd venture that you'd need to plot it against the avg minimum specs of games to normalise it for what is "standard" spec wise at any given point in time. Though practically that is a non-starter...too much hassle.

From a practical point of view I'd imagine that expenditure on PCs is damn close to CPI. i.e. matches SA economy. So the student still has R12k or R20k...and he/she just gets more/less performance out of it.

Also...most of ZA tech is imported so you're very much at the mercy of FX and would have to adjust for that (or not depending on what you want to show).

I'd also venture that for a large part of mygaming this is a non-issue. You're young & your earnings growth outpaces CPI by a massive margin. Whether CPI is 6% or 10% really doesn't matter in that context. Doesn't make the thread any less interesting though, but worth keeping in mind. This aspect works in mysterious ways though. When I was a student I spent a lot of my money on gaming. Now I'm like "meh laptop is fine for another 6 months since it can play witcher 3".

 

[czc]

Wow, you jumped into this with verve!

OMG!!! Yes, let's try this like right now.

Okay, so first up, the products to be compared. Normally a basket is used for price comparisons, but in this case, it would be very difficult. Seeing as the average person would probably only buy one or two components per year, we must compare the prices of individual prices with each other. So, as you stated, the products are quite different throughout the years, so difficult to compare. But we can compare performance brackets with each other.

I like that. We can try to do a high end and budget machine.

Say we take the best consumer GPU currently available, the Geforce GTX 1080Ti, retailing at R14000 on average, and we compare it to the best card available in 2010. Why 2010? Well it is the baseline year used by the Reserve Bank to do CPI calculations.

Okay, how do they get year on year then? Or maybe I'm not understanding the baseline.

So, in 2010 the best graphics card available was the Radeon HD 5970, and retailed at R6500.

With this, we calculate the CPI as 115.38% (((14000/6500)*100)-100). Wow, does that mean that graphic cards prices increased 115% since 2010? Well, in our crude and rather slapped together calculation, yes, yes it has.

So roughly 11.5% a year.

But let's qualify this value. In 2010, the Rand Dollar exchange rate was R6.5 to the $. Today that is R13.54 to the $. That is very close to a 115% increase, very similar to the price of the Rand. So, it goes without saying that the increase of GPU's in SA has been pretty much 100% due to the value loss of the Rand.

In US prices, the HD 5970 retailed at $500, and the 1080Ti retails at $700. This calculates to a CPI increase of 40%. And that is considerably higher than average CPI or normal everyday products. But again, there are a lot of qualifying factors to this increase as well, like the shortage of DRAM, proliferation of mining and the proportionate increase of performance over the past few years.

Let me do a bit more research on actual game prices.

The rand doesn't help.