Current Events > Video game currencies that make no sense.

(+) Yeah! (+)

My first thought on this are Bottle Caps from the Fallout series. I don't know the maximum amount of bottle caps you can carry in-game, but simply because of their size and shapes, they're very inconvenient. Looking on eBay, I see a one-gallon bag filled with bottle caps, that claims its weight is 2 lbs and looks to have 100 or so bottle caps in it, so just carry 1000 bottle caps is about 20 lbs.

Second though came to Rupees from the Legend of Zelda series. With the wallet limitations from older games, let's use 500 as an example, it didn't matter if you picked up 500 green rupees or 25 red rupees, they take up the same amount of space somehow. That would be like having five $100 bills in your wallet taking up the same amount of space as 500 $1 bills. And you can't just pull out 500 green rupees and replace them with silver rupees, because you would only be able to put 5 silvers inside.

bells from animal crossing. luckily everything can go in pocketspace

I headcanon that there are somehow different denominations of bottlecaps in the Falloutverse, which would at least boil the system down to highly impractical from downright effing impossible.

There's always the classic, "Why do random monsters drop gold."
But hey, maybe there are monster shops where monster slimes buy their monster medical herbs, so they all carry spare change around.

Something about the way the same metal shards you turn into arrows and gear are also used as a standardized currency always struck me as odd in Horizon Zero Dawn/Forbidden West.

Relm_Arrowny_87 posted...

There's always the classic, "Why do random monsters drop gold."

Skyrim. Not only do monsters, dragons even wolfs have them. But they all have the same currency. Yep every ruin and ancient temple has the same donomination of coins.
They are also ALL gold tiber septim face coins.

How the fuck does this currency even work?!

But we ignore it because it's a game.

havean776 posted...

Skyrim. Not only do monsters, dragons even wolfs have them. But they all have the same currency. Yep every ruin and ancient temple has the same donomination of coins.
They are also ALL gold tiber septim face coins.

How the fuck does this currency even work?!

But we ignore it because it's a game.

Gold septims are scattered around by the same kindly souls who keep the candles lit and the food restocked in Nordic ruins that haven't been opened by man nor mer in several millennia.

*shrugs*

This is the same medium where Solid Snake carries around a handgun, an assault rifle, sixteen land mines, sixteen each of three different types of grenade, a sniper rifle, two missiles launchers, binoculars, a camera, rations, body armor (which he isn't always wearing), cigarettes, two different augmented vision goggles, a couple different types of medicine, a handkerchief, three cardboard boxes big enough to hide in, a rope, various card keys, a bottle of ketchup, copious ammo, and a time bomb that somebody snuck into his possessions and he didn't even notice, all without a backpack, a duffle bag, an attache case, etc. And he can still use both hands to strangle bad guys.

Carrying around a thousand bottle caps is silly and all but it's kinda par for the course.

A house will cost you 4,000 gold and an apple 25. So 160 apples is the equivalent to a house

I guess I always assumed Rupees were different sizes but I guess how could a green one be 1/100th the size of a silver one doesn't really make sense.

In Fallout 2 they technically stopped using bottle caps and used minted NCR coinage even in New Vegas there does exist both Legion coins and NCR paper money. Iirc the reason they used bottle caps is because they couldn't be replicated easily post-war.

GTAO....$1.1m for a $20k motorcycle.

Road Trip Adventure had a weird thing that you actually choose the name of the currency at the start of the game

But if I remember right it was limited to 4 characters. So the edgy middle schooler that I was decided the currency should be "Fire"

RoosterGold posted...

A house will cost you 4,000 gold and an apple 25. So 160 apples is the equivalent to a house

*The boomers in the room all look around at each other to try to figure out why this is surprising*

Days Gone had an interesting currency system. Whenever you'd kill an enemy (zombies) or animal, you'd loot a body part (ears for zombies and meat from animals), then you could turn them in to one of the four main camps for camp credits, and each camp had its own credit balance. You could build up a decent credit balance at the first camp, but they'd mean nothing when you reached the second camp.

It was essentially you proving how useful you were in eradicating the undead and gathering supplies, and you'd be entitled to supplies and motorcycle upgrades in return.

The only thing that confused me is how they could tell one undead ear from another. What differences are there in the ear of a regular zombie and the ear of one of the big buff guys?

Bottle caps. Like, why BOTTLE CAPS of all things? Why not just make coins or use old coins, of which there should still be plenty of? Edit: or bullets. Use bullets as a currency. Everyone needs them in fallout and they are plentiful.

At least with the nuts and bolts in ratchet and clank, you can imagine them to have some kind of usefulness. Like, using a universal part used in literally every piece of technology as a currency because its also just a universal barter good or something (they still make very little sense as a currency, but hey).

With regard to monsters dropping gold, one way to rationalize it is that they don't (aside from some humanoid ones like goblins). And what you are ACTUALLY getting is a useless-for-the-party monster part that you just sell for gold the instant you reach town and hit up the local bounty office or adventurer's guild type place. The currency itself makes perfect sense, as it is presumably just a bunch of different denominations of coinage, possibly all using gold as at least part of the coin. Most real life currencies have involved coinage.

Hambo posted...

Something about the way the same metal shards you turn into arrows and gear are also used as a standardized currency always struck me as odd in Horizon Zero Dawn/Forbidden West.

I feel like this one actually makes the most sense lol. Its more like a true barter based on something with a lot of functional value.

Simon_Gruber posted...

I guess I always assumed Rupees were different sizes but I guess how could a green one be 1/100th the size of a silver one doesn't really make sense.

Depends on the game. Gold Rupees are called "Huge Rupee" in the N64 games

But really, the Rupee system seems to be based on rarity, with green being the most common and gold being the least common

Sephiroth_C_Ryu posted...

Bottle caps. Like, why BOTTLE CAPS of all things? Why not just make coins or use old coins, of which there should still be plenty of? Edit: or bullets. Use bullets as a currency. Everyone needs them in fallout and they are plentiful.

At least with the nuts and bolts in ratchet and clank, you can imagine them to have some kind of usefulness. Like, using a universal part used in literally every piece of technology as a currency because its also just a universal barter good or something (they still make very little sense as a currency, but hey).

With regard to monsters dropping gold, one way to rationalize it is that they don't (aside from some humanoid ones like goblins). And what you are ACTUALLY getting is a useless-for-the-party monster part that you just sell for gold the instant you reach town and hit up the local bounty office or adventurer's guild type place. The currency itself makes perfect sense, as it is presumably just a bunch of different denominations of coinage, possibly all using gold as at least part of the coin. Most real life currencies have involved coinage.

Never played it myself, but apparently Metro 2033 uses bullets as currency, which sounds rather brilliant in both worldbuilding and as a gameplay mechanic.

masterpug53 posted...

Never played it myself, but apparently Metro 2033 uses bullets as currency, which sounds rather brilliant in both worldbuilding and as a gameplay mechanic.

Specifically, pre-war bullets. They do more damage than regular, post-war bullets. So you decide when the situation is dire enough to burn some pre-war bullets on, but you don't wanna use too much or you won't be able to buy anything.

Sephiroth_C_Ryu posted...

With regard to monsters dropping gold, one way to rationalize it is that they don't (aside from some humanoid ones like goblins). And what you are ACTUALLY getting is a useless-for-the-party monster part that you just sell for gold the instant you reach town and hit up the local bounty office or adventurer's guild type place. The currency itself makes perfect sense, as it is presumably just a bunch of different denominations of coinage, possibly all using gold as at least part of the coin. Most real life currencies have involved coinage.

This is actually exactly what I'm planning on doing in my game, except you actually do pick up the items and have to find the guild in town to sell them.

masterpug53 posted...

Gold septims are scattered around by the same kindly souls who keep the candles lit and the food restocked in Nordic ruins that haven't been opened by man nor mer in several millennia.

Maybe when Tiber Septim achieved CHIM he just changed all random currency scattered about the world into septims. Like how he removed the jungles of Cyrodiil.

The Pokegold in Pokemon Pocket and how they divvy it up between hourglasses is pretty stupid.

Sephiroth_C_Ryu posted...

Use bullets as a currency. Everyone needs them in fallout and they are plentiful.

At least with the nuts and bolts in ratchet and clank, you can imagine them to have some kind of usefulness.

generally one of the important things that makes currency good is that it does not have intrinsic usefulness outside of the role given to it by society

Zeeak4444 posted...

I feel like this one actually makes the most sense lol. Its more like a true barter based on something with a lot of functional value.

I guess. Maybe it just feels a little too malleable and convenient or something. Idk.

Hey, Septims are inflation-proof. Props to that.

Hyrulean rupees come to mind. They're apparently magical, so maybe they shrink and are easy to store, but basing a currency on crystals sounds inconvient as fuck.

Cash in Red Dead Redemption 1 and 2. More specifically the amount you can accumulate.

Simply because it's basically infinite the amount of money you can carry, and unlike GTA when you can explain it that its on a debit card, so having a character be a million/billionaire works, but you'd have to actually carry around cash in the Wild West.

So the idea of a guy carrying around tens of thousands of dollars by the end of the game so he can buy 50 cent apples to feed his horse is kind funny.

Bottle caps are also weird because functionally there's no difference between those and any other random pre-war scrap. There's all this random metal junk all over the place, but THIS specific piece of random metal junk with no practical use is considered valuable

bigblu89 posted...

Cash in Red Dead Redemption 1 and 2. More specifically the amount you can accumulate.

Simply because it's basically infinite the amount of money you can carry, and unlike GTA when you can explain it that its on a debit card, so having a character be a million/billionaire works, but you'd have to actually carry around cash in the Wild West.

So the idea of a guy carrying around tens of thousands of dollars by the end of the game so he can buy 50 cent apples to feed his horse is kind funny.

I'm more baffled by characters who can carry an entire arsenal of weaponry in their back pocket but can't carry a single dollar over their allotted limit.

DipDipDiver posted...

Bottle caps are also weird because functionally there's no difference between those and any other random pre-war scrap. There's all this random metal junk all over the place, but THIS specific piece of random metal junk with no practical use is considered valuable

That's exactly why and they're easily recognizable. Plus rule of funny. The problem is Bethesda brought bottlecaps as a currency back in FO3 because they're not interested in a realistic wasteland but a wacky theme park version.

I always kind of guessed that serving no practical purpose was kind of the point with bottle caps.

Like, how useful is a bill and how different is it really from other kinds of paper?

Whether that's a critique on our baseless cash system or them just going "just don't that way because real money works that way" I don't know.

HylianFox posted...

I'm more baffled by characters who can carry an entire arsenal of weaponry in their back pocket but can't carry a single dollar over their allotted limit.

Don't get me started on that.

I can see the character. He's wearing shorts and a tanks top. Where exactly is that bazooka hiding?

There's a couple of Yakuza games where you spend money to level up, and it's a crazy amount of money too like tens of millions of yen on a game where you spend a couple hundred or thousand at a shop normally. It does not explain where this money goes or how it makes Kiryu stronger.

Relm_Arrowny_87 posted...

There's always the classic, "Why do random monsters drop gold."
But hey, maybe there are monster shops where monster slimes buy their monster medical herbs, so they all carry spare change around.

Head canon accepted

DipDipDiver posted...

There's a couple of Yakuza games where you spend money to level up, and it's a crazy amount of money too like tens of millions of yen on a game where you spend a couple hundred or thousand at a shop normally. It does not explain where this money goes or how it makes Kiryu stronger.

The funny thing is, they do have a discussion about how it works right at the start of the game; it just focuses on how to do it in the menu instead of what physically happens in-universe, lol.

Aging Foreigner: Oh ho! Out for a night with your main dog? Me and the boys used to really wreck it, back when I was your age. But if you spend all your money playing around, youll never get stronger. You gotta invest in yourself!

Kiryu: What, like a gym membership?

Aging Foreigner: Nah, nah. Thats no better than spending it on booze! Im talking about investing in yourself. Literally.

Kiryu: Literally? Whats that even mean?

Aging Foreigner: Glad you asked, my boy! Heres a special lecture, just for you.

[He opens his Ability Shop.]

Aging Foreigner: You keep pouring money into yourself and with a little training, that talent of yours will grow in no time! So keep the women and wine on a budget, hear?

Kiryu: Huh. Investing in myself, literally Never thought of that.

Aging Foreigner: Ha ha! Bet youre glad you stopped and listened now, eh?

Kiryu: Yeah, I guess I am.

DipDipDiver posted...

There's a couple of Yakuza games where you spend money to level up, and it's a crazy amount of money too like tens of millions of yen on a game where you spend a couple hundred or thousand at a shop normally. It does not explain where this money goes or how it makes Kiryu stronger.

I like to think that you go into an intense state of concentration where you don't notice people happily picking your extremely deep pockets.

MegamanXfan21xx posted...

I like to think that you go into an intense state of concentration where you don't notice people happily picking your extremely deep pockets.

One theory I heard is that Kiryu is actually eating the money. Not like, "eating the losses", like om nom nom money tasty.

I'm surprised EA made the Points their Primary money maker in their sports games rather than the Coins.

Coins can be used not only for buying packs alongside Points but for buying Players in the Transfer Market, with Points it's only packs you can use it for.

If they had added the option to purchase Coins then it would help players be able to get the best cards, some of which are up as high as 7 or 8 million Coins, and that's for Low to Mid 90's Rated players with Special cards.

A one gallon bag holds way more than 100 bottlecaps lmfao

Coins in the Mario games. They're scattered around in such large quantities, I wonder how their economy hasn't crashed.

grand theft auto IV
just finishing the vehicle delivery mission and you can get whatever you need quickly

too easy but idk

ReturnOfDevsman posted...

I always kind of guessed that serving no practical purpose was kind of the point with bottle caps.

Like, how useful is a bill and how different is it really from other kinds of paper?

Whether that's a critique on our baseless cash system or them just going "just don't that way because real money works that way" I don't know.

Bottle caps are funny and quirky and I still think it is derived from the DuckTales episode about inflation. In Fallout it's a passive lesson about scarcity even though there are bottle caps scattered around everywhere. And then you find massive piles of old money everywhere which is basically worthless and just starts annoying you after a while.

ReturnOfDevsman posted...

I always kind of guessed that serving no practical purpose was kind of the point with bottle caps.

Like, how useful is a bill and how different is it really from other kinds of paper?

Whether that's a critique on our baseless cash system or them just going "just don't that way because real money works that way" I don't know.

The problem is that in post apocalyptic scenario, it wouldn't make sense for useless item to work as currency. If I'm going to be traveling in wasteland where civilization is scarce, and I just sold some clothes, I'd much rather be given something useful back in return, like bullets, rather than caps that will not help me survive.

Shamino posted...

The problem is that in post apocalyptic scenario, it wouldn't make sense for useless item to work as currency. If I'm going to be traveling in wasteland where civilization is scarce, and I just sold some clothes, I'd much rather be given something useful back in return, like bullets, rather than caps that will not help me survive.

If I'm not mistaken, though, Fallout takes place quite some time after the apocalypse. I forget the details, so I might be wrong.

TheGoldenEel posted...

A one gallon bag holds way more than 100 bottlecaps lmfao

The seller doesn't state how many are in the bag and I didn't want to try counting, but here's what I was referring to.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/375145652900

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/d/d5a218fc.jpg

Maybe 300+, then?

nocturnal_traveler posted...

Coins in the Mario games. They're scattered around in such large quantities, I wonder how their economy hasn't crashed.

Not only that but 100 of them gives you another life

ReturnOfDevsman posted...

If I'm not mistaken, though, Fallout takes place quite some time after the apocalypse. I forget the details, so I might be wrong.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/e/eb732be4.jpg

Apocalypse was October 23, 2077.

nocturnal_traveler posted...

Coins in the Mario games. They're scattered around in such large quantities, I wonder how their economy hasn't crashed.

My take is that 2D Mario is retracing Bowser's escape path after kidnapping Peach, and in that process stole so much money from the kingdom that dropping thousands of coins along the way overflowing from their pockets and bags and escape vehicles wasn't worth their time to stop and pick up when hightailing it to his castle was the priority.

Granted, not really applicable for the 3D games.

Relm_Arrowny_87 posted...

There's always the classic, "Why do random monsters drop gold."
But hey, maybe there are monster shops where monster slimes buy their monster medical herbs, so they all carry spare change around.

I always saw this as an abstraction. They drop resources worth X gold.