History Main / AHomeOwnerIsYou

* In ''VideoGame/{{Earthbound}}'' you can eventually afford to buy a small house just west of your hometown. The [[ShadyRealEstateAgent guy you buy it from]] neglects to mention that it's ''[[spoiler:missing a wall]]'', but it contains a [[OneHundredPercentCompletion photo location]] and a [[CrackFic silly magazine excerpt]] so it's totally worth it.

** In ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarIV'', you can stay at your home in Aiedo for free instead of staying at an inn-- it becomes a bit of a TearJerker when you return to it after Alys is killed, and all her things are still there. You can also display the ridiculous souvenir crap you can buy at a tourist trap in the first half of the game.

* ''Good god, VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}''. You punch trees, make sticks, make picks, mine stone, ''and build the greatest house you've ever built.''
* ''VideoGame/{{Terraria}}'' may be 2D, but it's pretty similar to ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}''. You have '''so many items''' to pick from when [[AnInteriorDesignerIsYou customizing your home]], and, like ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'', you build it from scratch, so it truly is ''your'' home.

* ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'' contains one as a reward for HundredPercentCompletion of the "Pinnacle Station" DLC. It contains a limitless stock of grenades and medi-gel, as well as a computer terminal to procure rare equipment for fairly low prices. It is never mentioned again though.

* Some ''VideoGame/HarvestMoon'' games feature this. ''VideoGame/HarvestMoonFriendsOfMineral Town'' had one that would pretty much take all of your money and lumber. The other houses had special requirements to unlock them. ''VideoGame/HarvestMoonAnimalParade'' has some around town.

* ''TestDrive Unlimited'', in both the first and second games, they allow you to buy houses that, the more luxurious they are, the more cars you can hold in it's garage. This goes from a crappy caravan with a two car garage shack to a house on the side of a hill with waterfalls and an eight car garage. Then there are the yachts that go for five to seven million on Ibiza or Hawaii, respectively.

* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' games let you buy various houses (''technically'' not in unmodded ''Morrowind'', but building a stronghold involves financial transactions). Their usefulness varies - in ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]'' you get free stuff when you build a stronghold, but [[AnInteriorDesignerIsYou you have to buy the furnishings]] for your houses in ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]''
** The whole point of the ''Hearthfire'' DLC from Skyrim is to allow you to build and furnish a special home for your Dragonborn.

* Some ''Franchise/HarvestMoon'' games feature this. ''VideoGame/HarvestMoonFriendsOfMineral Town'' had one that would pretty much take all of your money and lumber. The other houses had special requirements to unlock them. ''VideoGame/HarvestMoonAnimalParade'' has some around town.

* You can purchase a [=NeoHome=] in ''Franchise/{{Neopets}}'', and [[AnInteriorDesignerIsYou decorate it to your heart's content]].

* ''VideoGame/TheSims'', of course, but you're pretty much required to build a house from scratch.

* ''VideoGame/TheSims'', of course, but you're pretty much required to have a house.

* You can purchase a [=NeoHome=] in ''VideoGame/{{Neopets}}'', and [[AnInteriorDesignerIsYou decorate it to your heart's content]].

* You can purchase a [=NeoHome=] in ''{{Neopets}}'', and [[AnInteriorDesignerIsYou decorate it to your heart's content]].
* ''BaldursGate II'' had "stronghold quests" for each PC class, with rewards ranging from a castle for Fighters and the Planar Sphere for Mages to a bunk in TheOrder of the Radiant Heart HQ for [[ThePaladin paladins]].

* Some ''VideoGame/HarvestMoon'' games feature this. ''[[VideoGame/HarvestMoonBackToNature Friends Of Mineral Town]]'' had one that would pretty much take all of your money and lumber. The other houses had special requirements to unlock them. ''[[VideoGame/HarvestMoonAnimalParade Animal Parade]]'' has some around town.

* Much like ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'''s safehouses the ''SaintsRow'' series provides the player with "cribs" where they can access their weapon stash, money vault, and wardrobe as well as customize their gang, rewatch cutscenes or buy furniture upgrades.

* You're required to buy a house in ''AnimalCrossing''... and you spend most of the game expanding it and paying off your debt.

* You start out in a modest cave in ''{{Elona}}'' and eventually have the option of buying bigger and better real estate.
* In ''PhantasyStarII'', your home is where new party members come to call and where you can [[ArbitraryHeadcountLimit swap them out]].
** In ''PhantasyStarIV'', you can stay at your home in Aiedo for free instead of staying at an inn-- it becomes a bit of a TearJerker when you return to it after Alys is killed, and all her things are still there. You can also display the ridiculous souvenir crap you can buy at a tourist trap in the first half of the game.

* In ''UltimaOnline'', one of the first commercially successful {{MMORPG}}s, a player with enough gold could buy a deed to a house and then place it almost anywhere in the game world. This led to the online equivalent of a housing bubble as available land was quickly claimed, and newer players could only buy an existing house or hope for a negligent player to allow their home to fall into collapse (thus freeing up some of the limited landscape). In the late Nineties UO properties could be found on eBay for hundreds of US dollars. The advantages of housing in UO included item storage, easy access to item crafting (forges, looms, etc.), a safe place to practice skills (given the early PVP everywhere environment), and prestige. Given this was one of the first online examples of home ownership and the developers did not fully anticipate [[HumansAreBastards human nature]], the disadvantages included burglary, home invasion, stalking, etc. But those were the good old days.

* ''VideoGame/{{Terraria}}'', too. It may be 2D, but it's pretty similar to ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}''. You have '''so many items''' to pick from when [[AnInteriorDesignerIsYou customizing your home]], and, like ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'', you build it from scratch, so it truly is ''your'' home.
* ''WurmOnline'' as well, which is superficially similar to ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' but a few orders of magnitude more complicated. The end results, be it a 2x2 hut with a vegetable patch or a magnificent villa, is still immensely satisfying once you've nailed the last plank into place.

* ''[[VideoGame/MassEffect1 Mass Effect]]'' contains one as a reward for HundredPercentCompletion of the "Pinnacle Station" DLC. It contains a limitless stock of grenades and medi-gel, as well as a computer terminal to procure rare equipment for fairly low prices. It is never mentioned again though.
* In ''{{Spellforce}} 2'' you're awarded (by plot) with control over a ''fiefdom'' for your heroic efforts in warning the human kingdom of the impending Shadow Pact invasion. It turns out to be one of the most embattled, troubled provinces in the kingdom that has killed multiple ruling families, and it's up to you to clean it up or die trying. Except you eventually do so well, along with other plot developments, that the king gets suspicious and sends a "pacifying" force in under the pretext of crushing a rebellion you never even considered. It also ends up becoming something of a secondary HubLevel complete with merchants and quest-givers since you're dealing with a whole RTS-style map, after all.
* Much like ''GrandTheftAuto'''s safehouses the ''SaintsRow'' series provides the player with "cribs" where they can access their weapon stash, money vault, and wardrobe as well as customize their gang, rewatch cutscenes or buy furniture upgrades.

* Some ''HarvestMoon'' games feature this. ''[[VideoGame/HarvestMoonBackToNature Friends Of Mineral Town]]'' had one that would pretty much take all of your money and lumber. The other houses had special requirements to unlock them. ''[[VideoGame/HarvestMoonAnimalParade Animal Parade]]'' has some around town.

* ''Good god, {{Minecraft}}''. You punch trees, make sticks, make picks, mine stone, ''and build the greatest house you've ever built.''
* ''VideoGame/{{Terraria}}'', too. It may be 2D, but it's pretty similar to ''{{Minecraft}}''. You have '''so many items''' to pick from when [[AnInteriorDesignerIsYou customizing your home]], and, like ''{{Minecraft}}'', you build it from scratch, so it truly is ''your'' home.
* ''WurmOnline'' as well, which is superficially similar to ''Minecraft'' but a few orders of magnitude more complicated. The end results, be it a 2x2 hut with a vegetable patch or a magnificent villa, is still immensely satisfying once you've nailed the last plank into place.

* ''{{Terranigma}}'' allows you to buy an apartment if you max out a certain city's development. You can even buy furnishings, a bed for resting and a save point to put in it!

** VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas has several house options for the PC, but the most developed of these is the Presidential Suite from the Lucky 38 casino, which you get for merely advancing the main quest. This is where you companions hang out when they're not with you (if you don't send them back to where you met them), and you can pay caps to get some useful furniture items, like a crafting bench. Other examples of nominal player housing are the suites you can get at each of the Casinos for making enough money there, the safehouses you can get for aiding major factions, and the Hotel room in Novac you can buy.

* Much like GrandTheftAuto safehouses the SaintsRow series provides the player with "cribs" where they can access their weapon stash, money vault, and wardrobe as well as customize their gang, rewatch cutscenes or buy furniture upgrades.

** This is the whole point of the Heartfire DLC for Skyrim

* In ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'', if you cleaned the {{DLC}}-only location Soldier's Peak of Darkspawn infestation, it would serve as your nominal home. You couldn't actually live there, but it had two local merchants and, more importantly, the only container usable for storing your own items in the entire game.

** In the ''Awakening'' expansion, you get Vigil's Keep as your home: it lets you [[ArbitraryHeadcountLimit swap party members in and out]] like the Party Camp did in ''Origins'' and has a storage container like Soldier's Peak.

** Not necessarily; you ''can'' move a family into an empty lot and have them live there without building walls. It's not recommended, [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential unless you like that sort of thing]], but nothing in the Sims says a lot ''has'' to have a house on it.
*** This strategy was actually fairly valid in the third game prior to the release of the Seasons expansion pack. As the weather is always sunny and temperate in the base game, there's nothing stopping you from putting all the household objects your sims could want outdoors (Except for toilets, which needed to be up against a wall. But you could always leave the wall freestanding). Since sims with the "Loves the Outdoors" trait got a significant mood boost whenever they were outside, this could be a very powerful option if one was participating in a challenge of some kind or other.

* ''Good god, {{Minecraft}}''. You punch trees, make sticks, make picks, mine stone, ''and build the greatest'' ''[[CrowningMomentOfAwesome Crowning House of Awesome]]'' ''you've ever built.''