History Main / CommonPlaceRare

** An even worse example involving dyes is ''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.

* In ''YohohoPuzzlePirates'', 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.

* In ''VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver'', a road is blocked by a 'tree' (actually a Pokémon), so nobody can pass there. You have to defeat the (difficult) Gym Leader in order to acquire an item that will allow you to remove said tree: a squirt bottle.

* It's not quite this trope, but in ''VideoGame/Skyrim'', without mods there is no way for you to do fletching of arrows (despite at least one NPC being explicitly a fletcher). You can purchase arrows from various shops, and naturally enemies who carry bows will have arrows on them... but using smithing skills you can make Daedric armor but not a stinking iron-tipped arrow? (Fortunately a very nice mod takes care of this.)

In video games, seemingly common items often take an excessive amount of effort to acquire. You may expect an item to be common based on real-life experience and even [[UnusableEnemyEquipment see them used all over the place in the game]], but you can't pick one up until you've completed the proper SideQuest. Probably not until much later into the game.

** The pickling supplies (dill, brine, vinegar, and [[spoiler:ghost]] cucumbers) are also quite rare, as the area where they drop only appears for a single day at a time, completely randomly. Over the 8 year history of the game, the factory has only randomly appeared 3 times, and the 2 subsequent appearances were on AprilFoolsDay of 2006 (where the entrance was invisible and the only clue to its presence was a ''fake'' entrance in another zone) and 2011.

* In ''[=~Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates~=]'', 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.

----
<<|VideoGameItemsAndInventory|>>
<<|GameplayAndStorySegregation|>>

* The "larger wallet" phenomenon occurs again in ''TheWorldEndsWithYou'' where the only way to construct the third wallet requires {{Orichalcum}} and Dark Matter. That's some wallet.

* In the [[{{X}} X-Universe]] games, microchips are everywhere -- weapons, ships, components of all kinds. And yet, good luck finding some in the universe -- there's so much demand, and the production process involves such a convoluted chain of supply, that most chip factories are permanently empty -- the few chips they produce are instantly snatched up by NPC traders. And if you do manage to be faster than the traders, expect to pay ludicrous prices for them.

* In the ''{{X}}'' games, microchips are everywhere - weapons, ships, components of all kinds. And yet, good luck finding some in the universe - there's so much demand, and the production process involves such a convoluted chain of supply, that most chip factories are permanently empty - the few chips they produce are instantly snatched up by NPC traders. And if you do manage to be faster than the traders, expect to pay ludicrous prices for them.

* Money is surprisingly rare in TheBindingOfIsaac. Playing a slot machine until it explodes will sometimes give you a dollar, and there's no other way to get one. However, the most expensive items are in the realm of 15 ''cents'', so if you do get that dollar, it'll probably last the entire game.

* From ''TeamFortress2'' we got the (in)famous hats, which are the most demanded and valuable items in the whole game despite not having practical use besides [[NiceHat looking cool]]. How rare are they? With the current item-drop system, there's a minuscule change (1 in 128, possibly even lower) that you might get one after 15 mins. to 2 hrs of play, but most of time you'll get a random weapon. '''However''', there's a weekly cap for dropped items, (roughly 7 - 12 per week) after which you'll not get new items until next week. You can also use the crafting system in order to get one, but it takes from 54 (to craft a random one) to 75 weapons (to get a class-specific one) in order to do so, which translates into several months worth of game-play.

* ''{{Earthbound}}'', since it takes place in an UrbanFantasy instead of medieval times, is full of them. Made more obvious by the fact that the currency is ''dollars'', leading to a $3480 frying pan and a $98 cup of noodles.

[[quoteright:256:[[ChronoTrigger http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Chrono_Trigger_jerky_9151.jpg]]]]

* In ''PokemonGoldAndSilver'', a road is blocked by a 'tree' (actually a Pokémon), so nobody can pass there. You have to defeat the (difficult) Gym Leader in order to acquire an item that will allow you to remove said tree: a squirt bottle.

** In ''PokemonRedAndBlue'', a bicycle costs 1 million pokedollars (you can only have up to 999,999), but at some point in the game, you can get a free bike voucher that allows you to get the bike.

* In ''{{Runescape}}'', party hats are some of the rarest, most expensive items. What is a Party Hat? ''A crown made of colored paper''. There are also discontinued holiday healing items that are rather valuable, such as pumpkins, easter eggs, and the most valuable item in the game - Christmas crackers.

** Likewise, getting an "adult's wallet" that carries more Rupees seems to always require fantastic feats and gifts from supernatural creatures.

** Between these and the fact that [[DarthWiki/WallBanger the Colt 1911 is the worst handgun in the game]], it appears the designers crafted all their weapon stats by using [[DecisionDarts a dartboard scribbled with random numbers]].

-->- [[ZeroPunctuation Yahtzee]] on ''Videogame{{Minecraft}}'' (as imps bow down to worship his [[AuthorAvatar avatar's]] superior cake-baking abilities.)

-->- [[ZeroPunctuation Yahtzee]] on ''{{Minecraft}}'' (as imps bow down to worship his [[AuthorAvatar avatar's]] superior cake-baking abilities.)

* In the ''{{Paranoia}}'' RPG, the ability to recolour equipment which is above one's security clearance (and therefore punishable by death to possess or be seen using) to a colour you are cleared for (and therefore make the gear usable) is very important. Not least because stabbing each other in the back is the whole point of the game, and a low-clearance RED laser, for instance, will be defeated by not-quite-so-low-clearance ORANGE body armour. Since players are usually RED level, this is more useful than one might initially think. This results in paint being one of the most restricted types of item in the game.

* In ''KingdomOfLoathing'', many kinds of fruits suitable for cooking and cocktailcrafting can be bought from [=NPCs=] for 70 meat, but others like cherries, limes, and jumbo olives can only be found as loot on monsters, so they go for roughly 1000 meat at player-run stores. Bananas are limited-edition fruits that sell for around 30,000 meat. However, this is nothing compared to beets, which were discontinued so long ago and dropped so infrequently that they can't be bought for less than 100,000,000 meat, despite being completely useless[[hottip:.:Its description says "...a beet cannot be beaten. Or beeten." They left off "Or eaten." Yep, the most valuable food in the Kingdom isn't actually food.]]

* In ''{{Minecraft}}'', like in the ''Adventurers!'' example above, apples are incredibly rare. Rarer than diamonds. So are leather saddles (which you can't craft from leather found commonplace).

* ''ChronoTrigger'' has jerky, which appears twice in the game. The first time it is used is as a minor plot advancement point. The second time it is part of a ChainOfDeals for getting some optional equipment in one of the zany [[SideQuest sidequests]]. About 2 minutes into the game you can find the shopkeeper selling it, for 9900 gold. A trifling when you will need it (much later in the game), but at the beginning it seems insanely overpriced.

* Sort of happened in RealLife too, through the lens of time:
** Salt and Aluminium have both, at different times, been more valuable than Gold. Salt because for a long time the sea was pretty much the only source for it[[hottip:*:It ''could'' be mined, but the mines were more common, yes, ''near the sea''.]] and so it was very valuable in inland regions. Aluminium, on the other hand, was just extremely difficult to extract from its ores until someone figured out a trick involving lots and lots of electricity.
** Pepper was was also very difficult to obtain once, to the point where rich families would have in their table just to show that they were wealthy and connected enough to have it.
** Before refrigeration, ice was extremely rare in temperate and hot areas. There was good business in shipping it to Britain in the summer, even if you lost 40% of your stock during shipping.