Adam Smith Hates Your Guts: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

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

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]] ==

* 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!

** ''Railroad Tycoon'' suffered from similar problems. If you tried to buy controlling stock of another railroad, someone else would immediately start buying the stock, which resulted in driving the price up, and, because [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard]], the competitor can always be one step ahead of you and you could never buy enough shares of stock. At the same time, as you buy the stock, the price goes way up. When you sell the stock, the price goes way down. Because you're the only ''real'' buyer, when you buy, the price is inflated. When you sell, the stock loses value.

** 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.

* Justified in ''[[Pathologic]]''. A plague has befallen the town, and the prices rise accordingly.

* ''[[Starflight]]'': The price of fuel for your vessel will DOUBLE several times over the course of the game, and while the rationale is provided for it in the reports you'll get, you won't get any warning that this is going to happen until you return home and see the price has doubled again.

** You can also completely turn the tables on the Druuge in a very simple way. You can sell them a small portion of your crew or one of a few various [[MacGuffin|MacGuffins]] that you pick up on your travels and they will pay you by fully fueling up your ship. Now fuel can be bought and sold at your home starbase, and your ship can be reconfigured as one giant fuel tank. Go to the Druuge with an empty giant fuel tank, sell some crew or a [[MacGuffin]], watch them fuel you right up and scream at how you pulled a savage burn on them! Then you fly back to your home starbase and sell all your fuel for a CRAPTON of cash to buy all the ships and expensive upgrades you'll ever need.

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

* ''[[Dead Frontier]]'': Hoo boy. You know a marketplace is flawed when a green jacket costs more than an M1 Super 90 shotgun. Especially when said green jacket does nothing for the player. No stat boosters, no extra protection, nothing.

* ''[[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?

* ''[[Digital Devil Saga]]'' is pretty bad about this, especially because the same money you need for items is also spent on your abilities, which get ludicrously expensive by the end of the game.

** 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.

* Averted in ''[[Wild Arms]]'', apart from the inn located at the optional arena, which charges over 30 times as much as normal, which coincidentally is as much as the entry fee into the combat arena itself. Otherwise all the inns charge the same low price. There are even some towns that let you rest for free.

** 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...

** Not to mention that most of the people who take thousands of credits off your hands for relatively common items are somehow still homeless despite apparently sitting on money machines.

** However, you play an elite government agent and completing your assignments efficiently and following orders reaps commissions and performance bonuses, totaling thousands of dollars. ''Deus Ex'' encourages players to work hard, be curious, ''and'' loot for maximum survivability.

** This is even lampshaded at one point later in the game; if you pay someone's 5000 credit asking price for a suit of thermo-camouflage, which is a huge amount of cash for something that is neither that rare nor that amazingly useful, he'll be dumbfounded anyone was willing to go for his offer.

** 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.

* Somewhat averted in ''[[Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door]]'' in the varying inn prices. They accurately reflect the wealth of the local area. The inn that charges the most coins, at 30 coins, is in Poshley Heights, which is essentially where all the rich people live high lifestyles; compare to criminal cesspool Rogueport, where the inn charges only 5 coins.

*** Even more so once you get access to a [[Item Crafting|chef]]. Not sure if it works in the second game, but in the first, you could buy Mysteries for 1 coin each from the shop in Boo's Manor and give them to Tayce T. back in Toad Town for cooking. You'll either get a potentially rare random item or a mistake, which is otherwise useless but can be sold at Boo's Manor for 5 coins, quintupling your investment if you're willing to take the time out from your adventure to do the trade route over and over.

*** There's a Goomba who will buy Mistakes for 20 coins, but you have to go halfway through Bowser's castle to find him.

** 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.

** Further, the more "loved" you are, the more discount you get.

** However, any discounts you get also affect the price you get for selling. So yes, that shopkeeper who loves you will give you cheaper stuff but also pays you less for your [[Vendor Trash]].

** More specifically, a shopkeeper will sell items they have a lot of for cheaper than items they only have a few of. Similarly, they will spend more to buy items they don't have than they will for items they have a surplus of. This opened the door to a cheat where you could essentially sell him 99 of an item time they didn't have (which he would pay handsomely for), then buy all 99 of those items back (which he will sell to you very cheaply), and turn a profit. Doing this repeatedly with high-price items (like engagement rings or precious gems) effectively becomes an infinite gold supply.

*** 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.

* [[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.

* In ''[[Eve Online]]'', "basic" modules are less powerful versions of Tech I (normal) modules. They were in between Tech I and Civilian (cheap and nearly useless) modules. CCP decided that they weren't needed, and removed the blueprints for Basic modules. Now they fetch massive prices on the market; it's mostly item collectors who buy them.

** 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".]]

** 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.

** The fourth generation even averts the odd stock issues - the stock in all stores is dependent on how many badges you have - they just won't sell Ultra Balls to greenhorn trainers. The only city-dependent items are specialty balls that generally have explanations as to why they're only sold there (like selling balls that are better at catching Water-types in a fishing village).

** Also in Goldenrod City (both in the original Gold & Silver and their fourth generation remakes) there is a "bargain shop" that sells you expensive items with no use other than being sold, at 90% of their selling price. However, you cannot get rich from it; the salesman is only there on Monday mornings, and only sells you one of each item each time. It's more of a steady income than anything.

** 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.

** 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.

*** Still doesn't explain why modern technology is more 'expensive' than older tech. Building a communications mast, for example, takes a ''lot'' less time, materials and manpower than building a library in [[Real Life]], while in ''Civilization'' it's the opposite because the tower is more modern. Same deal with the Wonders, who only get more and more expensive in terms of hammers the newer they are -- the Pyramids are a lot cheaper than the Eiffel Tower, for example.

** A hacker-type character can avert this (and the trope) by downloading and selling files data files. A single 20-Mb "bank information" file (relatively small & common) will probably sell for more than the net profit of every single job you take in the entire game, put together. (And, hacking won't get you killed.)

* In the ''[[Tropico]]'' series, inflation occurs gradually over the course of the 20th century. Unless you raise the rates of Tropicans' earnings as well as gradually increase the price of your exports, you will have a lot of unhappy Tropicans noting the disparity between the average Carribean wage rates and yours.

** Subverted, in some cases, in the newer games. Every once in a while, when you come to a new town or village, the inn rate will be mercifully cheap. Whether or no this concurs with a sharp upgrade in available weapons depends.

* Excluding the engine upgrades, everything you can buy from the shops in ''[[Fantasy Zone]]'' gets more expensive each time you buy them.

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

* ''[[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''' .

 

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

** A special case is also the component cost for the Raise Dead ritual. It starts at 500 gold pieces' worth of materials... until a character reaches 11th level, whereupon it suddenly increases by a factor of ''ten''?and then the same thing happens once more upon hitting level 21 (of 30 possible). [[Hand Wave|Handwaved]] by the game as 'death being less willing to return great heroes'.<br />This because death has to be significant enough that it is meaningful, but not significant enough that dying is a major disruption to the game. 500 gp is a pittance to a mid to high level character, so the cost needed to be increased in order to make it at least mean something. It is a constant struggle in such games for death to be meaningful, but not crippling. In previous editions, you lost levels for dying and being raised, so this is a significant step forward as far as pricing goes. And honestly, 20% is not all that strange if you look at it from an economic perspective; sure, the merchant seems like they're ripping you off, but how often do high-level adventurers come by town? In the default assumption, the heroes are pretty much THE heroes, and there just aren't all that many other people who would be capable of buying that + 5 flaming bastard sword that you sold to Bob's Used Weapon Emporium.

** Lampshaded in [http://nodwick.humor.gamespy.com/ffn/index.php?date=2008-11-19 this] ''[[Full Frontal Nerdity]]'' strip.

* ''[[GURPS]]'' went to a ridiculous extreme in justifying and averting this trope. Magic items are balanced via a, relatively simple, economic system they built for the game (and explain to any GM who wants to change it).

* Completely averted in the board game ''Container'', where the players are responsible for producing, storing, shipping and buying the titular multicoloured containers, and there are no outside market forces whatsoever. How much does it cost to buy an orange container? As much as the seller is asking. How much can you make from shipping three white containers? As much as the buyer is willing to pay. It's basically a self-contained economic system, and you could use it to teach supply-and-demand theory.

 

{{reflist}}