Adam Smith Hates Your Guts: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

{{quote|''"Sorry Link, I can't give credit. Come back when you're a little, [[Memetic Mutation|mmmmm...]]richer!"''|'''Morshu''', ''[[The Legend of Zelda CDI Games|Link: The Faces of Evil]]''}}

This is the simplest way of saying that the market in a game hates you, the player, beyond all measure.

 

 

Take, for example, inn prices. The farther out from the origin point one goes, the more expensive a night at the inn is. It does not matter if the inn is in a capital city, or whether it's in a podunk village in the middle of nowhere. To understand the significance of why this is wrong, consider the following: which is going to be more expensive, given properties of approximately the same size and number of stars: a hotel room in Manhattan near Times Square, or one in Poughkeepsie? (If you don't know where Poughkeepsie is, [[Appeal to Obscurity|you've proven the point]]). The point is: One night's stay at an inn late in the game costs about as much as buying the entire metropolitan city you started out in.

 

 

 

It's worth noting that, in [[Real Life]], a person like the player character would have a ''perfectly inelastic'' demand for the commodity, meaning that they will manage to raise the funds ''and'' be willing to fork them over simply because they need to buy it in order to finish the game. Any merchants who [[Genre Savvy|are aware of this]] [[Truth in Television|can and will charge absurd amounts of money]], because they know it will sell regardless.

Ironically often overlaps with [[Karl Marx Hates Your Guts]], where the gaming economy is stacked against you so that all goods have a globally fixed price, but you can never sell things for that price, so becoming a successful businessperson is nigh impossible without serious abuse of the system. Going back to our example of the inn, the inn in Poughkeepsie and the inn in Times Square are both the same price (Karl Marx hates you), ''and'' that price keeps going up (Adam Smith hates you).

 

{{examples}}

== [[Video Games]] ==

** Unless said item is experiencing a price rise, at which point average customers can be made to cough up 250% for, say, food during a famine.

** This gets a massive [[Lampshade Hanging]] when you buy your first wholesale stock for the express purpose of selling at an inflated price for profit - your fairy assistant mentions Adam Smith by name.

* The biggest example of this is probably ''[[Transport Tycoon]]''. The game simulates inflation by making everything more expensive the longer time goes on. The only problem with this is that if you just keep playing, a regular bus will eventually cost more than the GNP of any (or with enough time played EVERY) country on Earth. This especially causes trouble for the AI as they might, in extreme cases, found a company so late in the game that the starting funds are not enough to buy a single vehicle and they are forced into bankruptcy right after building their headquarters!

** And in a Truth in Television application of this trope, both the performance and prices of the cars are pretty much accurate. This means that a $70,000 Corvette can outrun cars that cost two or three times as much and that some of the vintage cars that may cost over a million dollars are useless for everything but vintage races, and maybe not even those.

* Glaringly obvious in ''[[Devil May Cry]]''. Every time you buy a Vital Star, the price goes up, sometimes by rather large multiples. To be fair, if you're relying largely on using them, you're not exactly playing the game very well and if you really insist on spamming items, you're better off finding them lying around in stages (if they're even there).

** This is justified in-game by the fact that the Earth Starbase itself has severely limited resources (and crew, natch!)

*** ...and if you sell enough crew to the Druuge it is quite explicitly stated that you're effectively bribing people to join up with a known slave trader.

** Justified, or perhaps Lampshaded, with the Melnorme traders, whose culture considers giving without receiving in turn to be vulgar. So no freebies.

* ''[[Dead Rising 2]]'': The price for a box of Zombrex, to keep Chuck's poor daughter from turning into a zombie, starts off at $25,000, and goes up from there with each purchase, so it would be more financially prudent to find some on your own. Would this be justified if I told you the pawn shops that sell Zombrex are run by looters, in the midst of a zombie outbreak?

* ''[[Anarchy Online]]'''s player driven market is inflated to such a degree due to the [[Randomly Drops|rarity of items]] that many players are often turned off by the market and its impressive prices. In a game where any given character can hold 1 credit short of 1 billion credits, you will find single items running for up to 5 BILLION credits (mind you, credits are only as easy to make as your willingness to enjoy dirty socks) while you find player owned CITIES (which besides the benefits also give option to get their hands on some of those [[Randomly Drops|Random dropping loot]]) on sale for equally terrifying amounts of cred. Does nobody else see the irony in "Anarchy" becoming a textbook example of inflation in a capitalist market?

** Anarcho-Capitalism Online isn't as catchy, is all.

**** When money and items can be acquired by way of drops from interacting with (murdering) continuously spawned sources, you have pretty much divorced any relation to the real world, and created a great example of what creates inflation: money being created much more quickly than the goods it chases. Combine this with a having a player economy where they put their own loot they found quickly raises the prices in any MMO to extreme levels. Eve has averted this since all the goods in the world do not come from random drops but is made by a player, shipped by another person, and sold to you by a third.

* After the release of the "Burning Crusade" expansion for ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', the market for low level items and materials soared due to vast amount of gold being generated by high level characters and the massive demand for low level gear for said high level character's low level alts.

*** Somewhat understandable, actually. Flights through higher-level zones would realistically have a greater chance of attacks from flying enemies, so the flightmaster demands compensation in case you get his mount killed.

** The most flagrant example, however, is that because enemies drop magic items and other pieces of manufactured equipment, equipment manufactured by players is actually cheaper than raw materials. A herbalist/ miner, or skinner/ herbalist or other combo of raw material gathering professions is a good way of amassing a huge fortune quickly and buying all that ? equipment from the players that have the manufacturing skills almost cheap as free.

*** The most reliable money sink, of course, is armor repairs. If you play end-game content, this can drain you of several hundred gold a night on progression days.

** Also somewhat averted in ''WoW'' with faction rep discounts, getting to a higher reputation with a faction causes all vendors allied to that faction to offer you increasing discounts on all items.

** Only debatably an example of this trope: mantras (the items that grant you new abilities) stay the same price throughout the game, but you need to buy higher level ones to stay competitive. Still not the same thing as actual price hikes.

* Not so in ''[[Golden Sun]]'' and its sequel, where the Inn prices go up because they charge per person and as you gather more people while going along.

* ''[[Persona 3]]'' also had the items getting exponentially more expensive, which is made even more bizarre when you consider that your protagonists are Japanese school children, and that the person selling you the gear was a police officer who was fully aware of the situation.

** Thing is, by the time things get ''really'' costly, you're getting so many Yen out of Tartarus that you could buy out ''his entire inventory''. Apparently, he's also aware of this. Why the ''swimsuits'' are so expensive is a question for another day...

** The game actually does a good job at keeping your resources just ahead of demand, which with the multiple solutions to any given puzzle means that you could be drowning in lockpicks while carrying around seven different guns in the false hope that one of them might have enough ammo to get you through the next firefight. On an economic basis, part of the plot is that the economy is screwed on a massive scale.

* In ''[[Tales of Eternia]]'', not only does each successive town charge more for the inn, but the moment you visit an inn, every other inn you've ever been to increases ''their'' prices to match the new one.

* Also averted in ''[[Tales of Symphonia]]'' to some extent. Shops will still charge you, but certain events such as the dragon tours and trips to Thoda Geyser will not charge anything as the people can't take the Chosen's money.

* The player can choose to avert this themselves in any ''[[Tales (series)]]'' game by taking advantage of the fact that many commodities - especially food - don't cost as much in some areas as in others. It's possible to make ridiculous amounts of money as a merchant if you know the differences.

* In ''[[Wario World]]'', there are machines that sell garlic (health). The later the level, the higher the price. Some machines will even raise the price for each clove that is bought.

* In ''[[Mega Man Battle Network]]'', every successive HP Memory upgrade is usually at least twice the price of the one you just bought from the same vendor. PowerUPs likewise in the first two games. ''[[Mega Man Star Force|Star Force]]'' does this too.

** There is one area where this is [[Played for Laughs]] - at the Fleet Hall Theater, the lobby vending machine only sells snack items - at about a ''4,000 percent markup''.

* Subverted in a locally-written game called ''No'' (to hide it from the system managers) which ran on the mainframe computer at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, California back around the late 1980s. You got to travel around the galaxy buying and selling things, or alternatively, looting other ships and stealing their supplies. Planets had different technology levels, from 1 to 9. Goods became cheaper the higher the technology level, so that photon torpedoes at a #4 technology planet were less expensive than the ones at the #1 planet (which is how you made money, buying from H.T. planets and transporting goods to lower technology ones). Higher technology planets also did better things with ship's equipment, e.g. a #2 shield could provide more energy against other ships trying to fire on you to loot your ship than did a #1 shield, a #3 did better than a #2, and so on. If you bought a #3 shield at a #3 or higher technology planet, the price was in line with it being what it was worth, say, twice that of a #2. But buy a #3 at a #1 planet, however, and while the planet ''would'' sell it to you, the price might be 100 or 500 times as much, which is in line with demanding high technology in a place not equipped for it, it's much more expensive where they don't know how. Each planet's level was announced when you arrive, and prices were clearly marked on the price chart, but the program wouldn't prevent you from being stupid and not checking the price. Planetary technology levels were based on a formula as if to say some planets developed faster than others.

* In ''[[Knights of the Old Republic (video game)|Knights of the Old Republic]] II'' where you at one point could ''reprogram'' a droid shopkeeper to give you better prices.

** You could do the same in ''[[Fallout 3]]''.

*** Surely it'd be easier to just set them to give you free stuff, instead of changing the values. Unless you're setting it to apply employee discount...

* In the first ''[[Ratchet and Clank]]'' game, you can acquire a failed attempt at a mind control device that causes vendors to give you a discount.

** Horses actually get significantly cheaper, also justified.

* ''[[Secret of Evermore]]'' had an interesting take on this trope; each of the four areas of the game uses an entirely different type of money (e.g. gold, gems or credits), and the ''exchange rate'' is where you get shafted, with e.g. 1 gold coin equal to 2 jewels or some such. Therefore, the item you buy may sell for the exact same price, but the currency in use is worth twice as much, so you're really paying twice as much for the same item.

* [[Averted Trope]] in ''[[Escape Velocity]] Nova'', where as you progress through any one of the game's story lines, purchasing outfits and new ships becomes less expensive on planets belonging to the government you are currently serving, as well as granting you access to ships and outfits that wouldn't be available if you weren't working for that government. The only exception to this is the Vell-os, who are slaves in their story line. And since their "ships" are actually psychic projections, you can't buy outfits for them anyway.

** Actually, you can buy SOME outfits, such as a Marine Platoon or two, IF you have the space on a Vell-os ship (they do have VERY minimal free-space though)

*** The system can become hilariousy broken the moment the player realizes that they can make potions that boost Intelligence, which can be used to brew better potions, which sell for more money...

** In ''[[Oblivion]]'' at least, one can also very easily get access to spells that make vendors like you so much that it breaks the haggling mechanic and they'll always give you the best possible buy/sell prices.

** Civilian items also suffer from this; since they're basically useless, there's far less Civilian items than anything else. It's common to see a normal frigate-grade Afterburner selling for 15,000 ISK, and a Civilian Afterburner selling for ''300,000''. Somebody actually made a Brutix (Gallente Battlecruiser) that was fitted with nothing but Civilian modules. It was named [[Crowning Moment of Funny|"Civil Minded".]]

* In ''[[Chrono Trigger]]'', before you do Ozzie's sub-quest at the end of the game, the Medina market charges insane prices for his low-level gear. Once you complete the quest, though, his prices become more reasonable; because you killed Ozzie in the past, the Mystics, who live in the village, never held a grudge against humans.

** Interestingly, they also sell some high level gear there at even MORE exorbitant prices, thus keeping it out of your reach. By the time you lower the cost, this is pointless as you are a couple tiers of equipment above what is sold there. However, it is quite possible to have enough just enough money to purchase a weapon you aren't supposed to get for another 10 hours pretty early in the game, even with the massively inflated price. Oops.

** Although by that point, you can [[Door to Before|teleport]], so you don't have to put up with most of that nonsense.

* [[Averted Trope]] in the ''[[Pokémon]]'' games. Everything costs the same amount wherever you go (though it does strike one as a little strange that a small shop in tiny little Mahogany Town would stock Ultra Balls when Goldenrod City's massive department store doesn't), and Pokémon Centers are always free. This is justified since you're just a Pokémon trainer, and you're ''not'' saving the world by any means.

** The trope is also literally inverted. You can recruit Adam Smith himself into your Continental Congress, in which case he loves you and wants you to succeed. Unless a rival colony snatches him away from you.

** The Firaxis remake makes the latter impossible, as once you get a Founding Father, he's yours. No other colony can get him. Whether or not this is good depends on whether or not you were able to get him first.

** Also in ''[[The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker|Wind Waker]]'', Tingle charges ridiculously high prices for his goods and services that are necessary to advance in the game, even requiring the player to get a wallet upgrade for the sake of a single extra Rupee.

** And don't get me started on that one shop in ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess|Twilight Princess]]''.

* ''[[Civilization]]'' has an odd variant of this trope. The 'prices' of buildings and units, in the form of hammers (required production to build it), stays constant, no matter which era you're in. Thus, erecting a building in a newly built town will take exactly the same number of turns in the stone age as it will in the modern era, after building cranes, construction equipment and unionised labour has been invented. At the same time, buildings and units you unlock with better technology that you research later are prohibitively more expensive in terms of hammer cost. This leads to odd situations where you have a new town in the modern era where building a TV station (which is unlocked in the modern era) takes over eight times longer than building a library (unlocked upon learning how to read) or a Colosseum (unlocked by construction), and training a unit of riflemen takes four times as long as training a unit of longbowmen (which would be the opposite of [[Real Life]]).

** This is somewhat justified by the fact that despite the number of turns remaining the same thought history, as you progress each turn represents a progressively smaller amount of actual time (from centuries in the Ancient era to a single year in modern times), so while building things takes the same amount of "time" from the player's perspective, it takes much less time from an in universe perspective.

*** An modern city with up-to-date technology and infrastructure would produce much, much more shields than an Ancient Era one. Warriors in cities without mines take as long as spearmen with a few mines, pikemen with mines all over and stabilized population, riflemen with mines and railroads or infantry with factories.

* This occurs in ''[[SaGa 2]]: Hihō Densetsu''​ (rebranded and released as ''Final Fantasy Legend II'' outside of Japan). It can be difficult enough to grow in strength since weapons have limited uses, and the prices go up by a huge amount as the game progresses, but there's a bug that occurs when you win a fight: each group of enemies is checked one by one to see if they drop meat (used to transform Monster class characters), but if you were fighting 3 different enemy groups, the game does not calculate dropped gold for the remaining groups if meat happens to be dropped by the first or second group. If you were fighting 3 different groups of enemies and the first group consisted of only 1 monster whereas the two others had 9 monsters in them, you would be ripped off of almost all the gold you should have obtained if the first monster group happens to drop meat because you will only get the full amount of gold you were supposed to get if the enemies do not drop meat, or if you're lucky enough that the last enemy group is the one to drop meat. As a result, making money is very frustrating because a lot of the time you'll only get 1/3 to 2/3 of the enemy groups dropping their gold.

** The [[PlayStation 2]] remake included in ''SEGA Classics Collection'' lets you unlock an setting that turns off price inflation.

* Black market merchants in ''[[Kid Icarus]]'' charge exorbitant prices for their wares. You can haggle with them to get a lower price, but if your strength is lower than the level number, he'll raise the price.

* ''[[Quest for Glory II]]'' has an interesting aversion; when the elementals show up, the merchants will gladly '''give''' you what you need to defeat and contain the elementals, provided you just ask when the time comes. The sole exception is the blacksmith, but he's a [[Jerk Jock]] anyhow, and he'll give it to you if you can beat him at arm wrestling.

* The [[Web Game]] New Star Soccer has 'NRG' Drinks. Every time you sign a new contract, the prices increase. Near the end of the game, an energy drink can cost more than your '''HOUSE''' .

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Money Tropes]]

[[Category:CRPG Tropes]]