History Main / MoneySink

** The game's other main currency, Hinterland Scrip, has a sink of its own in the Miniature Hellworm, which you can buy off the Extramural Market west of London. It's a whopping 200000 Scrip where you aren't expected to get more than eight or nine per action, and it doesn't actually give you anything you can't get elsewhere, though it ''is'' an entertaining and useful creature, especially when milked. And then things start getting outright parodic from that moment on: The game offers you the possibility of buying a saddle and bridles for the worm for another 200000, which lets you ride it for additional bonuses but nothing too big; it's more of a bragging right... and ''then'' the game offers you Hellworm-Riding Boots for 200000 that are even ''more'' dispensable, letting you know outright that there's nothing in them that you can't get elsewhere, and don't even add options to your worm-riding. And for those wealthy souls that got the boots? The game then offers you Boot Polish for these same boots, at ''the exact same price'', while outright telling you it does ''absolutely nothing''. Other than presumably amusing the hell out of the developers, once someone purchased this Boot Polish they could report it did absolutely nothing, as promised, not even unlocking the next scrip-dump of an item for them to waste money on.

** The game's other main currency, Hinterland Scrip, has a sink of its own in the Miniature Hellworm, which you can buy off the Extramural Market west of London. It's a whopping 200000 Scrip where you aren't expected to get more than eight or nine per action, and it doesn't actually give you anything you can't get elsewhere, though it ''is'' an entertaining and useful creature, especially when milked. And then things start getting outright parodic from that moment on: The game offers you the possibility of buying a saddle and bridles for the worm for another 200000, which lets you ride it for additional bonuses but nothing too big; it's more of a bragging right... and ''then'' the game offers you Hellworm-Riding Boots for 200000 that are even ''more'' dispensable, letting you know outright that there's nothing in them that you can't get elsewhere, and don't even add options to your worm-riding. And for those wealthy souls that got the boots? The game then offers you Boot Polish for these same boots, at ''the exact same price'', while outright telling you it does ''absolutely nothing''. As of April 2022, no one has found out what happens when you buy the boot polish, other than presumably amusing the hell out of the developers.

** ''Battle for Azeroth'' took it UpToEleven with the brutosaur mount. It has a portable auction house on it and costs ''5,000,000 gold''.

** The game's other main currency, Hinterland Scrip, has a sink of its own in the Miniature Hellworm, which you can buy off the Extramural Market west of London. It's a whopping 200000 Scrip where you aren't expected to get more than eight or nine per action, and it doesn't actually give you anything you ''don't'' need, though it ''is'' an entertaining and useful creature, especially when milked. And then things start getting outright parodic from that moment on: The game offers you the possibility of buying a saddle and bridles for the worm for another 200000, which lets you ride it for additional bonuses but nothing too big; it's more of a bragging right... and ''then'' the game offers you Hellworm-Riding Boots for 200000 that are even ''more'' dispensable, letting you know outright that there's nothing in them that you can't get elsewhere, and don't even add options to your worm-riding. And for those wealthy souls that got the boots? The game then offers you Boot Polish for these same boots, at ''the exact same price'', while outright telling you it does ''absolutely nothing''. As of April 2022, no one has found out what happens when you buy the boot polish, other than presumably amusing the hell out of the developers.

** The game's other main currency, Hinterland Scrip, has a sink of its own in the Miniature Hellworm, which you can buy off the Extramural Market west of London. It's a whopping 200000 Scrip where you aren't expected to get more than eight or nine per action, and it doesn't actually give you anything you ''don't'' need, though it ''is'' an entertaining and useful creature. And then things start getting outright parodic from that moment on: The game offers you the possibility of buying a saddle and bridles for the worm for another 200000, which lets you ride it for additional bonuses but nothing too big; it's more of a bragging right... and ''then'' the game offers you Hellworm-Riding Boots for 200000 that are even ''more'' dispensable, letting you know outright that there's nothing in them that you can't get elsewhere, and don't even add options to your worm-riding. And for those wealthy souls that got the boots? The game then offers you Boot Polish for these same boots, at ''the exact same price'', while outright telling you it does ''absolutely nothing''. As of April 2022, no one has found out what happens when you buy the boot polish, other than presumably amusing the hell out of the developers.

** In the early days , there was a rather nasty period of bug exploitation known as "Black Sunday" that resulted in some people gaining ludicrous amounts of meat, the game's GlobalCurrency. Thus, "meatsinks" were created, such as the Penguin Mafia raffles and the "Save the Yeti" fundraisers. Ironically enough, the problem arose from an item that was actually itself a money sink--well, when used outside of combat, that is--called a "meat vortex." It was intended to be used in combat to take some meat from an enemy, and just for fun the dev team made it take 30 or so meat from you when you used it outside of combat. Unfortunately, using it without any meat in your inventory caused the problem, as your meat total [[UsefulNotes/PowersOfTwoMinusOne went below zero and all the way up to the top]].

** In ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaI The Legend of Zelda]]'', rupees are hard to come by. The maximum you can carry is 255, but you can spend 250 of them on the blue ring alone. Also, the magical shield (at least 90 rupees), blue candle (60), arrows (90) and meat (60) will cost you a lot of rupees. Most of these items are required, if not strongly recommended. Upgrades to carry more bombs also cost 100 rupees.

** And finally, the game also has housing for free companies (player formed groups) that are nothing more than a place to hang out, but even the smallest plot of land can run you for several ''million'' gil.

* ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'' has a series of books based on Luigi's adventures that cost hundreds of coins each.

** The early version of the Money Making Game did nothing except take Meat from you. Well, there was one quest that required you visiting it once, but all other visits would simply take your money. Currently, it serves as a 50/50 bet between two players, however the house takes a small percentage, rendering it a minor money sink. Ironically, WordOfGod is that it was never intended as a money sink, yet due to players getting SidetrackedByTheGoldSaucer, it's one of the biggest ongoing ones in the game.

** The entire construction skill is one big Money Sink. They really shouldn't have made money the resource needed to build a room by yourself. The player is not made out of money, are they? And if they were, where's their golden room? (The rest of the Money Sink makes more sense, though.)
** The Summoning skill also serves as a money sink via the spirit shards required to make minion calling items.
** Seemingly averted with Miscellenia, the kingdom the player character gains control over after completing a quest. If you stock money into it, you'll lose 10% of the money deposited every day, to a maximum of 75k every day. However, if you make sure you have at least 750k there every day, and have ten workers in herbs, you'll get a load of herbs which can be sold. PROFIT! However, the money that you put into your Kingdom leaves the game, while the money that you make from selling what it produces comes from other players: in the end there is a steady flow of money permanently leaving the game economy.
** The Invention skill is a subtle one. It involves dismantling items (permanently destroying them) to get parts to enhance other items, and enhanced items are untradable. High-end items are needed for high-end materials. While this doesn't directly involve money, and drives up the ''gold'' prices of endgame items due to scarcity, the destruction and binding of items along with endgame drops being broken down instead of sold results in quite a lot of ''wealth'' leaving the economy.

** In many games, the biggest money sink is the SecretShop, hidden stores found in the later chapters that allow you to buy unusually powerful and expensive items--mainly rare and unique weapons, statboosters, and promotion items. It's not unheard of for players to sell off as much of their inventory as possible just to buy more at the shop, as these items cost a pretty penny, especially when bought in bulk.

* Even though ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' has [[GlobalCurrencyException loads and loads of alternative currencies]], it still have a lot of MoneySink for their [[GlobalCurrency Gil]].
** First and foremost, from ''A Realm Reborn'' onwards, the player's Teleport spell is no longer time-gated by Anima points, but the teleportation fee is collected after a successful teleportation. From Stormblood onwards, teleporting to another continent and beyond would cost 999 gil.
** Secondly, player's gear durability will gradually wear down after a battle and if it reaches zero, you will suffer massive stat penalties. You can repair the gear yourself, though depending on the type of gear, you'll need to be in a specific job class and level to repair the item. Alternatively, you can just find an NPC mender who can repair your items all at once for a small fee.
** And finally, the game also has housing for free companies (player formed groups) that are nothing more than a place to hang out, but even the smallest plot of land can run you for several ''million'' gil.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' gives out gil like candy. Gear and materials can easily be sold, you get thousands of gil for completely duty finder roulettes, and you can potentially earn hundreds of thousands of gil if you get lucky in the treasure map dungeons. There's also tons of money to be made from other players if you sell materials or items that are highly requested. For all the ways you can earn gil, there's only a few money sinks in place. You have to pay a fee if you teleport and the fee goes up (capped at 999 gil) if the distance between your location and the destination is large[[note]]You can avoid teleport fees entirely if you spend your hunt seals on Aethertye Tickets, which lets you teleport at no cost.[[/note]]. There are also menders that can repair your gear for gil and the costs rises the more worn down your gear is [[note]]This too can be avoided if your crafting classes are high enough, which lets you repair gear yourself as long as you have Dark Matter.[[/note]]. There are also taxes imposed on you for buying items from other players via the marketboard and selling items on the marketboard also has a fee deducted from your profits if your items are bought. Lastly, the game has a housing system where you can buy a house for yourself or your fee company where costs at the lowest start at a few million gil and the most expensive houses can reach up to the tens of millions of gil.

!!Examples

** [[WarpWhistle Waypoint]] costs, from one to three silver a trip depending on distance.

** In the MMORPG version, ''DungeonsAndDragonsOnline'', wealth comes mainly from found treasure which can be sold to other players. This is done through (a) pawnshops, who'd buy your unwanted treasure cheap, and sell it to other players at a markup, and (b) the Auction House, which a charges a handling fee of about 30%.

** In ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaI TheLegendOfZelda]]'' rupees are hard to come by. The maximum you can carry is 255, but you can spend 250 of them on the blue ring alone. Also, the magical shield (at least 90 rupees), blue candle (60), arrows (90) and meat (60) will cost you a lot of rupees. Most of these items are required, if not strongly recommended. Upgrades to carry more bombs also cost 100 rupees.
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast'' has the Pond of Happiness, where Link can toss in rupees in increments varying between 5 to 50 at a time. For every 100 rupees he throws in, a fairy will increase the maximum amount of bombs or arrows he can carry. Since most of the [[CashGate Cash Gates]] are cleared within the first half of the game, this gives the player something useful to do with the rest of it. Eight upgrades can be "bought" for each item, allowing to spend a maximum of 1600 rupees to bring your bomb and arrow capacity up from 10 and 30 respectively to 50 and 70.

* Several new-ish MMO's (TERA, Blade and Soul and Archeage to name a few) instated NPC auction houses for players to trade. Besides making economy more accessible and transparent, it also made a great money sink via taxing almost every monetary operation in the game.

--> ''[[{{Website/Neopets}} The Neopian Times]]'' editorial (bottom of the page), [-[[http://www.neopets.com/ntimes/index.phtml?section=editorial&week=469 Issue 469]]-] (Note: The average Krawk Morphing Potion is sold at 15,000,000 NP)

* ''Videogame/TheMessenger2018'' has a literal sink to dump currency into within the shop that was added by the devs as a way to offload the Time Shards you gain after buying up all the upgrades. Doing this earns you nothing and the protagonist is explicitly told by the shopkeeper this, but he stubbornly refuses to believe that there isn't some hidden reward for doing so.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' has gear durability that goes down after a battle and you suffer massive stat penalties if your gear breaks. You can repair the gear yourself, though depending on the type of gear, you'll need to be in a specific job class and level to repair the item. Alternatively, you can just find an NPC mender who can repair your items all at once for a small fee. The game also has housing for free companies (player formed groups) that are nothing more than a place to hang out, but even the smallest plot of land can run you for several ''million'' gil.