History Main / CommonPlaceRare

** Used wrapping paper (which can be crafted into equally-rare weaponry or used to make gifts with nothing in them) costs 395 million meat--that is, over $130 of real-life money, or many months of meat farming. It was only available from gifts in a Crimbo giveaway back in 2003 (more common gifts from later on don't produce the paper item when opened), only a few were generated because there weren't many players at the time, and most of them have been lost over the years due to account deletion.
** Present bows aren't quite as a severe example as used wrapping paper since they cost 5 million meat (as of the time of this writing), but they're still fairly rare since they can only be obtained from small Crimbo pressies from Crimbo 2004 or from winning some of the Penguin Mafia raffles held during early 2008.

* In ''VideoGame/StardewValley'', the only way to get a tea set is by gift during the Feast of the Winter Star, on one day of the entire in-game year. Any adult other than Clint, Evelyn, Marnie, Robin, or Willy may give you a tea set, but even if your secret gift-giver isn't one of these people, there's still no guarantee that they'll give you a tea set.

A form of GameplayAndStorySegregation. Often applies to parts in a ChainOfDeals or ComicallySmallDemand=s.=]

A form of GameplayAndStorySegregation. Often applies to parts in a ChainOfDeals.

** Two of most useful items in the game are a [[PunnyName magic marker]] and a can of grease. Both are disgustingly uncommon. [[note]]The ''most'' useful item in the game is easily a Wand of Wishing. Which you will then use to [[MundaneUtility wish for grease and magic markers.]][[/note]] The Magic Marker is not ''actually'' commonplace (because it is, as the name implies, an actually magical marker, capable of writing scrolls that can genocide entire species ); but the can of grease is an entirely mundane and ordinary can of grease.

** Feebas when it was introduced in the Hoenn games. It is an ugly fish with stats and movepool that puts it firmly on par with ''[[JokeCharacter Magikarp]]'' ([[MagikarpPower with a very powerful evolution to match]] but still, very underwhelming on its own). ''Unlike'' Magikarp, which can be found pretty much [[ComMons everywhere where there's water]], Feebas is [[GuideDangIt ludicrously hard to find]]. Only one trainer (who's off the main road) has one in the whole games, so it's likely you'll play through the whole main storyline without even knowing it exists. And the way to get it is not only convoluted and never even hinted at in-game, but unique to the series (it cannot be found by [[RandomEncounters wandering around]] like most other Pokemon, you ''have'' to find a handful of specific floor tiles where it shows up). And the worst part? If you actually manage to catch one, its Pokedex flavor text specifically mentions that it is ''[[GameplayAndStorySegregation common and frequently ignored by trainers]]'', both invoking this trope and inadvertently mocking the person that just spent hours trying to catch it. Eventually, this was fixed in later generations, with Feebas just being somewhat uncommon.

* In the online game ''{{Website/Neopets}}'', the rarest items initially were... food. The only place food was generated was at the food stores every five minutes. Unfortunately, they ran out in 15 seconds or so. You could feed your pets at the soup kitchen if you were poor enough, which led to lots of people in PerpetualPoverty just so they wouldn't have to spend all their money on an apple. Luckily, you can still get free food from the Giant Omelette, Giant Jelly, and once a month from a [[http://www.neopets.com/freebies hidden link]]
** Played with in the case of paintbrushes - some of the most rare and sought-after items on the site are paintbrushes, but the rare ones are explicitly magical in nature. Non-magical paintbrushes exist and are more common... but there are nowhere near as many varieties of normal ones as there are magic ones, simply because they [[VendorTrash don't serve much of an actual purpose]], and there is therefore no need to have over 100 types of boring normal paintbrushes.

* Japanese [=CDs=] are often coveted and pricey outside of Japan for their bonus tracks and obi strips...but in Japan they are just regular [=CD=]s. To a lesser extent there are certain vinyl records that are common in their country of origin, most notably ABBA's Ring Ring, which is a bargain bin record in Sweden, and sells for around $30 consistently on eBay. Most UK originals of Beatles albums on vinyl are common second hand, having sold many copies, but are always treated as rare premium items because of the demand for them. Stereo copies are harder to find than the mono ones though.

* ''VideoGame/LeisureSuitLarry 1'': You need a rope to tie yourself to a railing in order to get some pills. It turns out you can't just buy that rope but have to shower a sleazy girl in a disco with lots of gifts, pick her up, marry her, order some wine to your suite, let her tie you to the bed, and after she's robbed you blind and vanished for good, you can cut the rope with a pocket knife you received elsewhere for another bottle of wine.

* In the online game ''{{Website/Neopets}}'', the rarest items initially were... food. The only place food was generated was at the food stores every five minutes. Unfortunately, they ran out in 15 seconds or so. You could feed your pets at the soup kitchen if you were poor enough, which led to lots of people in PerpetualPoverty just so they wouldn't have to spend all their money on an apple. And some of the rarest and most coveted items on the entire site are merely paintbrushes. Luckily, you can still get free food from the Giant Omelette, Giant Jelly, and once a month from a [[http://www.neopets.com/freebies hidden link]]

* Some event-only and therefore very rare grubs in ''VideoGame/{{Miitopia}}'' can seem a little ridiculous. The more striking is the rarissime... Frozen TV Dinner.

* ''VideoGame/PuzzlePirates'':
** Black clothing is very valuable, as black dye can only be obtained by pilfering kraken's blood, a rare resource, from strong merchant ships. Nope, you can't kill a kraken yourself, much less mix different colors of dye together. This actually makes sense, considering that no matter what proportion you mix different colors dye together, you'll only ever get a really dark shade of brown, not black. The only way to get black dye... is by mixing a black pigment with a solvent.
** An even worse example involving dyes is ''VideoGame/GuildWars'', where dye of ALL colors are only obtainable as entirely random world drops. There's a "dye merchant" but he only carries what other players have sold to him and his prices depend on supply and demand. Naturally, this means more popular dyes are much more expensive, and of course the most expensive here is also black. The best part is that dye doesn't actually '''do''' anything other than change the color of '''one''' of your pieces of armor. This is in no way surprising however, as top-quality gear is very easy to obtain, and the only things of any particular value for experienced players is gear that looks particularly nice.
** Ancient proto-MMO ''VideoGame/TheRealm'' had similar dye issues for some of its early versions.
** The same 'dye is inordinately expensive' paradigm holds true in ''VideoGame/RagnarokOnline'', where the only way to obtain it is to get a MadScientist to create the base materials, then colour them with patently absurd numbers of herbs. Players, naturally, go through the whole rigmarole in order to obtain {{Nice Hat}}s.

* In ''VideoGame/FarCry 2'', one mission requires you to go to a diamond mine to steal some dynamite, which you're told you'll need to destroy a water pump. The only practical way of getting the dynamite is killing all of the mercenaries guarding the mine, and there are at least a ''dozen'' of them, meaning that this little fetch task inevitably turns into a full blown firefight. This all seems very pointless, since you have [=RPGs=], hand grenades, improvised explosive devices and M79 grenade launchers available at this point, and any one of those should have had no trouble with the fragile-looking pump. It's even worse when it comes to ammo upgrades. When you can only carry 90 total assault rifle bullets, a 67% increase to 150 sounds pretty good. In real life, you could achieve this exact thing with a double-mag pouch, which you can find at a tactical store or online for about $15. In game, you must pay 15 golf ball-sized DIAMONDS. Damn, how much for just a fanny pack?

* A fairly ridiculous example occurs after leaving the starting planet in ''VideoGame/{{Starbound}}'', the PC is directed to a colony on the edge of the system and will be offered a series of quests. One of them involves fetching Coffee for an NPC, which turns out to be one of the few food items not for sale at the colony(but soda, chocolate and milk are). To complete the quest, the PC has to buy(or find) coffee seeds, go back to a suitable planet, hoe the ground, plant the seeds and wait for the coffee to grow. Once the beans sprout(which fortunately, doesn't take nearly as long as real life), the beans can be placed in a nearby(to the questgiver) coffee pot to brew. The NPC, presented with the coffee, says he wants it in a glass mug(as opposed to any other containers that might be available), which requires collecting sand from a desert planet, forging the sand into glass and then crafting the glass into a mug. Finally, the NPC asks for a steel spoon to stir the coffee, which requires you to forge steel to make the spoon. Steel is made from Iron, which isn't too hard to find at this point, and Oil, which is found on desert planets(often in great pools, waiting to be claimed). The tricky part is that you'll likely need to upgrade to a workbench and forge capable of making steel and steel parts. While it does force you to upgrade your equipment to make steel items(which you need for the mining facility quest so you can leave the system), it seems like a hell of a lot of work to obtain Coffee, A Mug and a Spoon.

* In the world of ''Webcomic/{{Adventurers}}!'', apples are [[http://adventurers.keenspot.com/d/20020923.html pretty expensive]] - though it is later [[http://adventurers.keenspot.com/d/20030109.html somewhat justified]].

* In one of the vending machines in ''VideoGame/{{BioShock|1}}'', a cream-filled cake is around $90 despite it being found on the floor anywhere. This was done to show how without any capital control the companies could charge whatever price they want. Said machine is in a ''theater'' hallway, doubling it as a TakeThat against [[TruthInTelevision real life concession stands' exorbitant markups]].

* Metro2033 and MetroLastLight have disconcerting scarcities of gas mask filters. Considering that almost every single common model of gas mask in the world uses the same 40mm threads and compatible filters, it's strange that you can only use a few of the otherwise rather abundant filters and masks scattered around the Metro. For comparison, it's like not being able to use television remotes unless they were made by Panasonic, and are powered by Rayovac non-rechargeable AA's.

* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' has this on occasion, a JustifiedTrope in that most of the items you find are ruined. Regardless, you'll find yourself painstakingly searching through an entire library for ''books'' or through an entire supermarket for ''food''.
* In ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' .22 LR rounds are cheap but extremely few stores sell them and they're dropped very little, even though in real life they are the ''most'' produced and widely distributed type of ammunition in the world. Made worse by it being the only type of bullet that you can't craft [[ShownTheirWork because it's a rimfire cartridge.]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 4}}'' has several items that are necessary for crafting. The first rare item will be adhesive, naturally found in the form of [[DuctTapeForEverything duct tape]] and Wonderglue. Once the player sets up a couple of farms and starts making vegetable starch, aluminum will be fairly rare. And after fully upgrading the weapons and power armor, building up the numerous settlements will certainly cut into the supply of gears, copper and oil, and only the last one is craftable (and still requires bones, which can mostly be found by raiding super mutant encampments).

* Used classic Macs sell on Website/{[EBay}} for almost as much as they did when they were new, simply because they're Macs.

* Used classic Macs sell on Website/{[eBay}} for almost as much as they did when they were new, simply because they're Macs.

** Used wrapping paper (which can be crafted into equally-rare weaponry or used to make gifts with nothing in them) costs $395 million meat--that is, over $130 of real-life money, or many months of meat farming. It was only available from gifts in a Crimbo giveaway back in 2003 (more common gifts from later on don't produce the paper item when opened), only a few were generated because there weren't many players at the time, and most of them have been lost over the years due to account deletion.

** Berries are easy to find in Hoenn, Sinnoh and Alola. In every other region, they are only given by a select number of NPC's and they often only give you the most common ones.

** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'' has the rubber armor set, which reduces damage from electricity and can make you completely immune to it if upgraded. The item description states that rubber was a part of ancient technology in the past and is almost impossible to find now.