$0.01 per Hour for One Video Game
You choose one video game. This video game now gives you 1 penny per hour and increases additively by 1 penny per hour.
The clock only counts active video game playing. Taking a bathroom break would stop the clock until you come back - even if the game is running. Letting your factory style game run overnight would stop the clock until you come back. Idle games running on your phone in the background would not keep the clock going until you check back in.
For instance, day 1 you clock 16 full hours. Hour one is 1 penny, hour two is two pennies, hour three is three pennies, etc. to 16 pennies for hour 16. A whopping $1.36. But, day 2 you reach $1.40 by hour seven. Let’s go progress.
The game may be any video game made in history. Pong? Sure, that’ll get boring. Skyrim? People have been playing it for ten years, why not ten more. Old School RuneScape? People log 100 hours a week for a lot less.
For $10,000, you may buy a second game that runs off of the same counter. GTA VI comes out and it’s everything and more that we all wanted? A cool 10k will let you start the pay to play at whatever rate your first game was at and now both games can be played on a rotation. Every additional game afterwards is 10x the previous game: 10k first as mentioned, then 100k, then 1m, etc.
At 40 hours per week, you would achieve the US Federal Minimum Wage after roughly 18 weeks. Your first year of full time earnings would total $21,632 and your hourly rate would be $20.80 at that time. $100 per hour would require 58 months of full time video gaming.
How much effort would you put in? What would your strategy be? Which game would you choose first and which game would you be most looking forward to adding in the future?
Some caveats: As stated, no passive playing counts, the timer knows. Mods are okay, so take that into account. You may design your own video game to choose or you may pay other people/studios to design a video game for your selection - first selection or subsequent purchase. Your selection must be designed as one single video game; no emulators, no mods that add the entirety of Fallout IV into Stardew Valley. The game can be an MMORPG, MOBA, etc, but if the servers shut down you’re either SOL or paying for the next game to play. One video game would be most accurately classified as one single title (plus DLC’s) on Steam/Epic Games/Google Play Store/etc. No bundles. If the game is re-released later (looking at you all 26 versions of Skyrim) then you’re out of luck on the new content.