I started 2022 by suggesting that we question the prominence of earning as a “play” activity and of economic transactions generally in videogame worlds. One way of going about that is to think about the many different currencies we’ve all abandoned in various save files over the years. Rupees in Zelda. Glimmer, legendary shards and bright dust in Destiny. Bottlecaps in Fallout.
Some of those currencies have colourful world-building attached; others plug into pleasingly volatile market simulations. But they feel pretty interchangeable to me in hindsight, because the process of earning dosh in most games is so bland and inconsequential, making little overall impact on the world even in games that give you a choice of economic backgrounds. Many single-player RPGs, especially, are just consolatory fantasies of steady, even passive self-enrichment, where the player’s wealth floats alongside everything else, pacing progress in an abstract way. You can argue that this is worrying because it teaches us not to think critically about the economy in general, but the simpler observation is that it’s a missed opportunity for drama: so many great stories are about following the money.
One reason Roadwarden is my game of the year is that it actually got me interested in buying and trading again. Rather than a process of generic acquisition, it treats money and transactions as living elements of human relationships – tools for both surviving and understanding its gloriously mucky and disgruntled mediaeval society. True, this is to some extent another RPG built around piling up coins to spend on health refills and tasty equipment, but everything is incredibly specific.
