Of course how and how much you spent your money is a personal decision based on taste and interest but I ve had various forms of hobbies over the years tho video games always were the most time consuming and biggest part. I m not sure how much longer thats going to be the case. I constantly evaluate my return values for time spent in everything I do...probably a subconcious thing.
Every hobby provides entertainment and its usually more up to you personally rather then how much money you spend as to how much entertainment you can glean off it. While I have given up running and competeing I dont regret doing those years back. You could come in last on the track but as long as you gave everything the race itself and even the training beforehand WAS the reward. Sure I was disappointed when I didnt score a medal or position but I cant say I ever told myself "you just wasted months of your life for this".
And I cant say that video games were any different. Of course video games back then were designed to be played and eventually cracked. Determination and sometimes puzzling was required to beat the hardest games and tho it lies years in the past I cannot say I feel that any of those summers spent inside were "wasted". I learned english (cuz publishing in germany was non-existent so I had to rely on imports) before it was offered in school, my manual dexterity went through the roof and my "sitting stamina" was EPIC
These days things have shifted. Games are only secondarily designed as entertainment and primarily as a means for profit. Often enough entertainment is hidden behind a paywall forcing you to spend unproportional amounts of your time for any kind of progress trying to make you spend money. The constant teasing and avdertising to that effect make me very grumpy and really ruin my enjoyment. I always felt that in games like Everquest and World of Warcraft, tho I spent hundreds (I m kidding.....its probably thousands) of hours in each I logged off and was going to sleep (or school...depending) always having the feeling I "did something" with my time.
MMOs after that changed that perception and I m not sure its because I grew old. Modern MMOs make me feel like I spend 4 hours of my freetime doing something mundane "preparing" for some future activity but eventually making me log off feeling like I wasted my time especially because I get bombarded with micro-transactions and advertisement at every corner.
I pretty much have given up watching telly because movies that hold my interest are cut to shreds in order to squeeze in some more ads. Its pretty much an ad break every 10-15 minutes now, always the same ones on a loop and I find myself getting really aggrevated when I do watch it (with my wife who surprisingly can blend it all out without much effort). Its basically a waste of my time because I am forced to sit in place for 2 hours for a 45 minute movie or documentary...its insane.
P2W and microtransactions were always a nuisance for me because I felt it was like cheating for people who paid for it but I was able to blend it out early on. That is pretty much impossible today when you get your first ads while the game is loading and every menu triggers a prompt pointing you to the current "hot deal". I go through it but I dont forget it and it waters down my enjoyment. I already avoid games that are so riddled with it or are based on player-generated content (pretty much every battle royale or FPS game today) because I feel like I m turning hulk after a short while.
Victories are meaningless today....just a tiny step on the everlasting "progress-spiral" and the moment you hit the top oh surprise another DLC comes up adding a few steps. Gone are the times where you could just "finish" a game and turn to another one. Worse...often enough I get the feelling that DLCs sold at full price were meant to be part of the original release all along but cut out in order to be sold seperately because the base games today dont offer all that much aside visuals. Content comes with DLC and I often wonder how little there is to do in the base package if you refuse to dig deeper for any of the "editions" or seasons passes.
Errrr...I need to stop myself ranting
So hobbies are something I do either with a goal in mind or because they provide the entertainment I want (or distraction if you will). Either way I usually spend money (and trust me...always the least possible amount tho cycling is a difficult topic...anything lower then XT is really not worth the cash with what I do...learned from experience) and have the feeling I GOT something for my money. A "goody" feeling about myself either pride or accomplishment or physical possession equal to your expenses.
And when it comes to video games I pretty much only connect those things to earlier memories anymore....not to todays gaming. I still have a few games left I enjoy out of that massive game library I picked up but it becomes harder and harder to find games that provide what I crave. My reaction time and manual dexterity decreasing shouldnt be a factor because even with low values in each there are genres where they are not important. Its just that video games today are designed to leave you with a shallow experience and nothing you could call "your property". No physical box, no bonus goodies, not your account and certainly not your time spent.
Some hobbies I "outgrew" over the years. Some others I hope to keep until I keel over but with video games...I dont know (and am a bit worried) how long that ride is going to last. Not because of me but because of how video games today are made and sold.
then we got the ZX81, and it was AWESOME, there was a game called PONG 
the graphics, the frame rate, I mean OMG 
we could play for hours 
then the ZX Spectrum came along, then the C64, C128 and THEN the AMIGA 
was copy copy copy copy micro disk 
mine mine mine they are all mine 
sadly I gave it all away and regret it even today.
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