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5[[quoteright:350:[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/commonplace-rare_loz-windwaker_2664.png]]]]
6[-[[caption-width-right:350: Either glass is rarer than gold in this universe or [[AdamSmithHatesYourGuts he’s overcharging Link for his adventuring supplies]].]]-]
7
8->''"This is a place where having the ability to bake cakes is a mark of ''considerable status''!"''
9-->-- [[WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation Yahtzee]] on ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' (as imps bow down to worship his {{a|uthorAvatar}}vatar's superior cake-baking abilities.)
10
11In video games, seemingly common items often take an excessive amount of effort or money 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.
12
13This is frequently seen with capacity upgrades. Being able to hold more money and items is a [[AdamSmithHatesYourGuts big]] [[InventoryManagementPuzzle deal]] in a lot of games, so coming across a wallet or sack fifty floors deep into an ancient dungeon often makes the whole trip WorthIt.
14
15Par for the course in most Point-and-Click Adventure Games, where there tends to only be ''one'' book of matches, or ''one'' pencil in the entire game universe.
16
17A form of GameplayAndStorySegregation. Often applies to parts in a ChainOfDeals or {{Comically Small Demand}}s.
18
19See also UnusableEnemyEquipment. Contrast JunkRare and OddlyCommonRarity. Sometimes overlaps with MundaneObjectAmazement or MundaneLuxury. Compare NotRareOverThere when something genuinely ''is'' rare or hard to obtain in some parts of the setting but is a mundane commodity in others.
20----
21!!Examples
22
23[[foldercontrol]]
24
25[[folder:Action Adventure]]
26* ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'':
27** In many games in the series, glass bottles are ''extremely'' valuable to Link; he usually can only find about four of them in each game and it requires searching the farthest, most remote places in Hyrule. Yet there's frequently a thriving milk industry, and potion sellers can't only be selling to people who have traveled past TheLostWoods to get the one glass bottle that Farmer Brown is only willing to give to someone who completes his mini-game. You don't need (usually explicitly magical) glass bottles to drink potions or milk, except you do because the game won't let you use anything else. In ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword Skyward Sword]]'', the rarity of glass bottles (one NPC equates being allowed to keep one as adequate reward for ''saving his sister's life'') is actually justified this time around. Glass is made from sand, sand is crushed rocks, and the FloatingContinent everybody lives on has an alarmingly finite amount of habitable land as it is. Breaking any up to smelt glass (which can easily fall from the island or shatter into uselessness) would have very permanent consequences. On the other hand, it's playfully lampshaded in ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkBetweenWorlds A Link Between Worlds]]''. The vendor selling a bottle for a high price is noted by a nearby shopkeeper to be a charlatan, and one character gives you a bottle after he's done using it with the expectation that you'll throw it away. ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild Breath of the Wild]]'' finally does away with this, freely giving you bottles for ingredients (milk, Goron spice) and any elixirs you brew.
28** Getting an "adult's wallet" that carries more Rupees seems to always require fantastic feats and gifts from supernatural creatures. This despite Link's apparent HyperspaceArsenal[=/=]BagOfHolding inventory. It's the same with larger quivers and bomb bags, too, although in the case of the bomb bag, several games state that they're crafted by Gorons and made of odd or rare materials like Dodongo stomachs and/or the woven fibers of bomb flowers.
29** While the only bow in the land is always locked in a dungeon, shops still sell arrows and enemies with bows still exist. There's even a market catering to people with bows, in the form of shooting mini-games. This one is partially justified in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'', where it's heavily implied that the Hero's Bow is unique and magical. Averted in ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaLinksAwakening Link's Awakening]]'', where you can actually purchase the bow for an exorbitant 980 rupees (or steal it).
30** In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword'', a sidequest involves a ghost on the toilet asking for "any kind of paper". Despite there being a lot of books and paper pieces in the classroom, as well as several rather pointless paper notices you can read on the wall, the only piece of paper you're allowed to give is the love letter a classmate asked you to give to a girl. And no, after the girl shoots the letter down you're not getting it back.
31** A similarly-appearing character in need of paper appears in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask''. And you can give him a love letter too, except the love letter here should actually be used to start another sidequest. As an alternative, a Title Deed can be given as well, but it too has another intended purpose. TimeTravel solves the dilemma.
32** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'' has the rubber armor set, which reduces damage from electricity and can make you completely immune to it if upgraded. In this case, the rarity of rubber is justified by the fact that [[LostTechnology no one knows how to make it anymore]].
33** In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaPhantomHourglass'', you must repeatedly visit the Temple of the Ocean King, a cursed place filled with evil phantoms and multiple puzzles that drains the life of anyone who enters it, in order to acquire... maps that allow you to sail from one island to another. Something you'd expect to be far more common in a ship-filled seafaring world like this one.
34* ''VideoGame/OceansHeart'' parodies this trope when talking to the Shady Pot Salesman, who sells various crockery (though not to the player); Tilia asks if he sells empty bottles with which to carry water or bugs, but he claims in astonishment that "a bottle would have to be magic to use it like that!" Thankfully not relevant to the actual gameplay, since all items are stored as is in your inventory, and liquid potions that you buy or craft automatically produce bottles to hold them in.
35* ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaPortraitOfRuin'' has one GuideDangIt example - the longsword. A simple weapon, probably obsolete at the time you pick it up. What takes this from oddity to hair-tearingly frustrating is that while these were as common as you'd expect in other {{Metroidvania}} games, there's only one here, it's necessary for a sidequest (and with only 5 available at a time, you want to complete these), you won't know this until some time later, and ''there's nothing stopping you from selling it''.
36* An interesting case with ''Franchise/DonkeyKong''. In the ''WesternAnimation/DonkeyKongCountry'' CG cartoon, the Crystal Coconut was a rare and powerful artifact that the bad guys were trying to steal. In ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong64'', it's not all that hard to acquire a large number of them, as you use them to access special abilities.
37* ''VideoGame/HorizonZeroDawn'':
38** Hunting the harmless animals that populate the game world is ''harder'' in some ways than hunting vicious machines. The location of machine herds is marked on the map; animals must be searched for manually and can move a lot farther than machines will. Animals will flee if the player character does anything loud, including running- startled geese in particular will flat-out disappear from the game after a few seconds of flying upward- but nearly all machines will seek you out. There are less animals than there are machines, and they're so small that attacks don't always connect. You can buy most machine parts from merchants, but not animal parts for some reason. ''And'' animal meat is a necessary ingredient in all healing potions, and in upgrading your inventory capacity, so you will never have as much of it as you want to use.
39** Blaze and Wire are dropped by practically every machine, and are of negligible use...in the early game. A late-game player will have access to bombs and specialist arrows that consume a lot of those components. Better hope you didn't sell all your stocks!
40* In ''VideoGame/{{Blasphemous}}'', knots of rosary cord are incredibly rare, when given how intensely religious all of Cvstodia is, you'd think they'd be all over the place. This is explained in game as one character being ''so good'' at making rosaries that [[PerfectionIsAddictive the church decreed that her rosaries were the only ones worth using, and that all others were unholy and should be destroyed]]. Since she died long before the events of the game, there haven't been any new rosaries made in quite a while.
41[[/folder]]
42
43[[folder:Adventure Games]]
44* In ''VideoGame/ManiacMansion'' and its sequel, ''VideoGame/DayOfTheTentacle'', nothing physically prevents you from leaving the Edison Mansion, which causes some FridgeLogic when considering the ludicrous lengths you have to go through to get commonplace objects such as an envelope and stamps (in the first game) or a bottle of vinegar (in the second). Possibly justified in that both games are set at night, and the mansion is in the middle of nowhere, possibly hours away from the nearest shop.
45* In ''VideoGame/SamAndMaxHitTheRoad'', while you can travel all across the United States, various items are frustratingly difficult to come by. For example, you need a cork to plug a snow globe, but you can't just get one from anywhere - you need to unscrew the only bottle of wine you can get in the entire game. And you can't just buy a corkscrew or let some waiter open the bottle for you; oh no, you have to give an icepick to a magician who turns that tool into a corkscrew.
46* ''VideoGame/LeisureSuitLarry1InTheLandOfTheLoungeLizards'': 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.
47* Granted, ''VideoGame/ThePerilsOfAkumos'' takes place on a space station, but you still go to odd lengths to find a used coffee cup.
48* The entire Interactive Fiction game ''Curses!'' is about the main character trying to get a Tourist Map of Paris. It turns out to require breaking an ancient family curse and time traveling several times to obtain.
49* In ''VideoGame/KingsQuestVAbsenceMakesTheHeartGoYonder'', you need an old boot to throw at a cat so that [[AndroclesLion its prey will give you vital assistance later on]]. This otherwise useless object can only be found in the middle of a ThirstyDesert.
50[[/folder]]
51
52[[folder:First Person Shooter]]
53* 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 [[{{Snacksploitation}} real life concession stands' exorbitant markups]].
54* In ''VideoGame/BioShockInfinite'', most of the vigors seem to be mass-produced as alternate power sources or have other industrial applications, so they shouldn't exactly be rare. However, a whole long level is dedicated to retrieving a single bottle of the Shock Jockey vigor to fix one of the game's Main/BrokenBridge. Made even more egregious by seeing an overturned cargo container full of said vigor bottles in the next level.
55* In ''VideoGame/FarCry2'', 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?
56* There is only one FetchQuest in ''VideoGame/Left4Dead2''--and that's to get a gun shop owner a six-pack of cola. (Oddly enough, the corner store where the cola is located has ''only'' the cola in it--all the shelves are bare.) This is also the goal of the "Hard Rain" campaign--fight your way through zombie hordes, a sugar mill full of witches and a hurricane to get gas for the boat. Justified in that the closest gas station had already been emptied by people fleeing by car.
57* ''VideoGame/MemoirsOfMagic'': There is only ''one'' guaranteed Chicken Pie in the entire game, located in the Misty Forest. You can occasionally get an additional one from the already limited presents, but there are far better items to chase in those, not to mention better healing items.
58* ''VideoGame/Metro2033'' and ''VideoGame/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.
59* In ''VideoGame/SystemShock2'', it's the beakers you need to gather annelid worms to use as ammo for the virus proliferator. You'd expect beakers to be ten a penny on a vessel with significant bioresearch facilities, but you'll have to look hard to find more than a dozen.
60* ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'': The (in)famous hats, which are the most demanded and valuable items in the whole game despite not having practical use besides looking cool. How rare are they? With the current item-drop system, there's a minuscule chance (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.
61** This becomes particularly silly with a Sniper cosmetic called Ritzy Rick's Hair Fixative. All of the above noted effort for a cosmetic item, except this one consists of the sniper [[YouHaveResearchedBreathing taking off his iconic slouch hat]] and going around bareheaded. Something he already does as part of his melee taunt, it's worth noting.
62[[/folder]]
63
64[[folder:Hack & Slash]]
65* In ''VideoGame/DiabloIII'', most of the item drops will be at least of Magical (Blue) quality. Ironically, this means that the non-magical weapons (White) are the rarest item drops, especially since you're guaranteed to get some Unique items from bosses and quests.
66* In ''VideoGame/PathOfExile'', fishing rods are ''extremely'' rare, but are nigh-useless as weapons. They can only drop if you have a specific unique tricorne equipped. The bait is just as equally rare: albino rhoa feathers can only drop from the elusive albino rhoa, which spawns extremely rarely in one entire area in the game. It is said that these are the items required for fishing, but nobody actually ''knows'' how to fish, as it is said the staff will relentlessly hunt down anyone who discloses the secrets of fishing.
67[[/folder]]
68
69
70[[folder:Idle Game]]
71* Poop in VideoGame/NGUIdle, which is used to boost Yggdrasill plants for useful effects, can only be gotten by either an extremely rare drop, or by buying it with premium currency Arbitrary Points. You'd think it'd be way easier to find the waste product of ''most animals on earth'', but apparently not.
72[[/folder]]
73
74[[folder:MOBA]]
75* The 650 gold ''Bottle'' in ''VideoGame/DefenseOfTheAncients'', which is 200 gold more expensive than a Robe of the Magi. It's just a bottle. It holds water from the healing fountain. A healing potion costs 115 and comes as a similar vial plus contents. Not to mention the very precious ''Cheese'', which fully heals you and is the hardest item in the game to acquire (requiring 3 Roshan kills) whereas the Aegis of the Immortal which resurrects the wielder requires one Roshan kill.
76[[/folder]]
77
78
79[[folder:RealTimeStrategy]]
80* In ''VideoGame/OffworldTradingCompany'', ''glass'' is one of the final resources and is very valuable. It can't be mined, only manufactured by combining Silicon and Oxygen into silicon dioxide--more commonly known as ''sand.''
81[[/folder]]
82
83[[folder:Roguelike]]
84* ''VideoGame/NetHack'':
85** 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); however, the can of grease is an entirely mundane and ordinary can of grease.
86** Another inexplicably uncommon item: shirts. T-shirts and [[HawaiianShirtedTourist Hawaiian shirts]] have no armor value in and of themselves, but can be enchanted to give a valuable extra few points of protection. ''If'' you can find one. Wishing or polymorphing may be necessary. [[LethalJokeCharacter Unless you play as a tourist,]] in which case you'll be wearing one at the start of the game.
87* Money is surprisingly rare in ''VideoGame/TheBindingOfIsaac'' to enforce the theme of suffering (poverty, in this case). Playing a slot machine until it explodes will rarely give you a dollar, and there's no other way to get one. Sometimes you can sacrifice some of your permanent health to a demon altar for a quarter. 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.
88* The world of [[VideoGame/TalesOfMajEyal Maj'Eyal]] is apparently chock-full of artificers, master craftsmen, etc, seeing as mundane items are quite a bit rarer than items with special powers. Normally, you wouldn't ''want'' a plain item anyway, as the "egoed" items are strictly better, except that [[ShopFodder gems]] can be taken to master jewelers to imbue mundane rings with special powers (one artifact, the Lifebinding Emerald, is totally useless without a voratun ring to set it in, unless you're playing one of the two classes in the game that can use it directly), and a pair of artifacts can transform plain weapons and armor into powerful "crystalline" versions of themselves. Especially painful for dagger users: The Crystalline Voratun Dagger is one of only three top-tier artifact daggers in the game, but the "regular" voratun dagger you need to make it is harder to find than most artifacts.
89* In ''VideoGame/HyperRogue'', one of the treasures you can collect is a bottle of wine. Which is worth the same as any other treasure - precious gems, [[{{Franchise/Dune}} Spice]], Elixir of Life, and flowers from the shores of Hell itself. The description {{Hand Wave}}s this with "[[AlienArtsAreAppreciated wine grown under a hyperbolic sun would be extremely prized in your home location]]".
90* ''VideoGame/FTLFasterThanLight'' has several "weak" weapons such as the basic laser ("Very weak laser"), dual lasers ("Basic weak dual lasers. Often used by transport ships that can't afford better"), and mini beam ("Extremely cheap and weak beam weapon"). Despite their uninspiring descriptions, none of these weapons can ever be purchased or found - they're only available as starting equipment on certain ships. On top of that, the supposedly "weak" dual lasers and mini beam are actually two of the most efficient weapons in the game.
91[[/folder]]
92
93[[folder:Role Playing Game]]
94* In ''VideoGame/TheWorldEndsWithYou'' where the only way to construct the third wallet requires {{Orichalcum}} and Dark Matter. That's some wallet. They're also extremely rare if you waste the few you get as a part of the story. You can only obtain Dark Matter (or its trade material Shadow Matter) from some of the hardest enemies in the game.
95* ''VideoGame/BaldursGateII'': in ''Throne of Bhaal'', powerful magic items are everywhere, while non magic common items are never used as basically useless. Except in the lair of Yaga-Shura, where there are some enemies that can be hurt only by non magic weapons, and the games places such items hidden in the dungeon for this purpose among other valuable loot.
96* ''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.
97* 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.
98* Ancient proto-MMO ''VideoGame/TheRealm'' had similar dye issues for some of its early versions.
99* 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 hats.
100* Throughout ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' and, subsequently, ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'', among the most epic of all equipment accessories is... a ribbon. A ribbon that protects you from pretty much all status effects, to be fair, but normal ribbons apparently just don't exist.
101* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsA2'', ribbons are stated in one of the quests to be made from pieces harvested from a species of malboro that is specifically bred to make those ribbons... so the low amount of materials is understandable.
102* A mid-level quest in ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIII'' requires the player to travel halfway around the world, loot an ancient pyramid, and rescue a shopkeeper's daughter so that said shopkeeper will bestow upon you ''some ground black pepper.'' But considering that historically spices were occasionally worth more than gold by weight... it makes a certain amount of sense that someone with the resources of a king might trade something that isn't irreplaceable (a ship) for something that, in that part of the world, was practically one of a kind.
103* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIX''. Early on, you'll run across a sidequest to help make medicine out of the famous cure-all water of Angel Falls. The man who makes the medicine requires "fresh water" to make this medicine... which you won't be finding for several hours, five towns later. Turns out, by "fresh water", he means the alchemy ingredient you can find in predetermined spots on the world map. [[HandWave According to the item's description]], the "fresh water" is "wondrous" and of "perfect purity", but when you're asked for "fresh water", you don't expect that to turn out to be a mid-level alchemical treasure, do you? (Special mention also goes to another alchemy ingredient found only on a few enemies, or in a single gathering area on an island... ''kitty litter.'')
104* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVIII'' has a ''ship'' that qualifies as this. You need a ship, so you need to find an ancient abandoned ship in the desert, then go through a monster-filled castle to find the library, then get a once in a lifetime wish and give someone a priceless ancient artifact owned by a king who owes you a favor, to put the ancient ship in the water. Why you can't just ask the king for a ship remains unexplained.
105* ''Videogame/KingdomOfLoathing'':
106** 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 40,000 meat per bunch. 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 180,000,000 meat, despite being completely useless [[note]]Its description says "...a beet cannot be beaten. Or beeten." They left out "Or eaten." Yep, the most valuable food in the Kingdom isn't actually food.[[/note]]
107** Pickling supplies (dill, brine, vinegar, and [[spoiler:ghost]] cucumbers) are quite rare, as the area where they drop only appears for a single day at a time,usually on April 1st. The factory has only appeared 10 times since June of 2004. Holiday monsters also create some common-rares; Thanksgiving foods (tofurkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce) can only be acquired once every 3 months, and each player only gets to collect a few of them.
108** The Tiny Plastic Sword is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin. It's used to make quality drinks with relatively little investment. They are sold at the mall for 75,000,000 meat, largely for the same reasons used wrapping paper is expensive.
109** For reference on what these prices are to people who don't know the relative value of money in Kingdom of Loathing, the Mr. Accessory item ([[BribingYourWayToVictory Which players recieve for each $10 they donate]]), sells for ~30,000,000 as of this edit (The price fluctuates depending on what goodies you can exchange them for). That's right, tiny plastic swords are worth a little bit more than $20, and beets are worth over $60.
110** There is also Hell Ramen, a food whose joke is that Ramen is so cheap, you gain money by eating it. Except it is very good food, giving nice amounts of substats and adventures for a basic pasta, so it goes for a few thousand meat in the mall.
111** 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 Christmas 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.
112** 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 Christmas presents from Christmas 2004 or from winning some of the Penguin Mafia raffles held during early 2008.
113** Delicious Salad was only available from the "Spectral Salad Factory," a meta-joke zone that appeared on April Fool's Day in 2008 and vanished forever the next day. Other types of salad are common, but only the Delicious ones can give you the collectible salad tattoo, so it was an overvalued item for a long time. This finally ended in 2015 when the "Deck of Every Card" included a means of generating salads.
114* Only three [=NPCs=] in the SFC version of ''VideoGame/TalesOfPhantasia'' seem to possess bags in which the player party can carry food to eat.
115* In ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphoniaDawnOfTheNewWorld'', there's a quest where the heroes must venture into dangerous woods, making their way past monsters and solving puzzles... to find a sprig of Rosemary.
116* ''VideoGame/{{Runescape}}'':
117** 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. Half-full wine jugs are also ludicrously expensive (originally, you drank half of a jug of wine at a time, but they later changed it so your character chugged the whole thing).
118** The quest "One Small Favour" will take at least four hours of dedicated running around the map doing errands for a huge number of people for an incredibly unique item: A keyring. A small band of steel, bars of which most players have sitting in their banks, which even the universe's greatest blacksmiths cannot replicate.
119** While doing "One Small Favour", you learn to craft an item that you cannot learn to make otherwise, despite the item itself being needed for two other quests ("Swan Song" and "Back To My Roots"), thus making One Small Favour a prerequisite for those quests. The item in question? ''A clay pot lid for those clay pots that you've been making since Level 1 Crafting''.
120* In ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'':
121** After leveling your character up to level 45 or higher, you and a group of 4 other like-minded adventurers (you'll die if you try to do it alone) can go on a dangerous quest deep inside Zul'Farrak to obtain the electric scale of a giant hydra named after Franchise/{{Godzilla}}. To simply summon this hydra, at least one of your group must go to another continent, then battle his way through hordes of troll cultists to obtain a sacred mallet, then battle his way through even MORE hordes of trolls to bless this mallet at a very special altar. AND all those trolls used to be elite, that is extremely powerful for their level (thankfully, they changed that in a later patch). Your ultimate reward? '''A carrot on a stick.''' In the game it actually was rare and highly sought-after for a while because it was one of very few ways to make a mount go faster, but the mundaneness of the item itself made the whole quest chain absurd. The absurdity was only compounded by the item being usable with ''any'' mount, include carnivores.
122** There are a lot of items you can buy from vendors that are incredibly expensive while serving no actual purpose whatsoever. Unless you happen to need, say, a wedding ring for roleplaying.
123** Some kinds of pets are incredibly rare to acquire. Rats, for example. Some others can only be bought from vendors of one faction, so they will be fairly expensive for players of the other faction wanting to buy them over the neutral auction house.
124** The recipe to create a turbo-charged flying machine requires ingredients from mining and engineering... except for one: a hula dancing doll. This is only sold by one merchant in Shattrath city and nowhere else. It is also the most expensive item in his otherwise useless merchandise.
125* While on the topic of ''VideoGame/WarcraftIII'', the orc campaign in ''The Frozen Throne'', has you go on a sidequest to retrieve a powerful artifact, as part of a shaman's dying wish. You get to keep the artifact, and are also rewarded with a unique item: The shaman's weapon which is like the one every single shaman owns. Its only power is to give your attacks a lightning damage bonus, which makes it no different from an ordinary lightning orb.
126* ''VideoGame/EarthBound1994'', since it takes place in an UrbanFantasy instead of medieval times, is full of them. Made more obvious by the fact that prices are based on their value in yen, yet in-game currency is dollars, leading to a $3480 frying pan and a $98 cup of noodles.
127* A similar thing happens in ''VideoGame/DeadRising2'', even the most trivial items (snacks, slot machines, etc.) cost almost $100. Although if you were to move the decimal 2 places the prices would make more sense.
128* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'':
129** In ''VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver'', a road is blocked by a 'tree' (actually a Pokémon, Sudowoodo), so nobody can pass there. You have to defeat the ([[ThatOneBoss difficult]]) Gym Leader in order to acquire an item that will allow you to remove said tree: the Squirtbottle, a Squirtle-shaped watering can. (Sudowoodo is actually Rock-type, [[ElementalRockPaperScissors making it weak to water]].)
130** Introduced in the same game: Charcoal. While this game allows you to buy an endless number of them, future games (and even the remakes) don't and give you a single piece of Charcoal per game.
131** Fishing Rods, which are only available by finding three specific expert fishermen on your journey; in ''[[VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite Black and White]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/PokemonBlack2AndWhite2 Black 2 and White 2]]'', you don't get ''any'' rod until post-game.
132** In ''VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue'', a bicycle costs 1 million Pokedollars (you can only have up to 999,999), but a short while later in Vermillion City, you can get a free bike voucher that allows you to get the bike.
133** Soft drinks probably qualify for this, since apparently only one town per region ([[{{Eagleland}} except Unova]]) has ''vending machines''.
134** In ''[[VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon Sun & Moon]]'' the currency for Hyper Training (which powers up Pokémon's base stats to max) is bottle caps. Subsequently, they are very rare items that you can only find through sending your Pokémon on cave expeditions for treasure or trading shards (previously established to be parts of the items that power up [[OlympusMons Arceus]]) for them or, very rarely, by fishing them up. No, you can't get them by simply buying drinks, that would make too much sense.
135** Certain ComMons are, ironically, like this. Especially ones that were easy to find in the wild in one generation, but aren't in the next. Your best bet might be to find it on the Global Trade Station, but this can be compounded by several factors: If the evolved form isn't used much in competitive battling, this means that most people won't go out of their way to breed for them, meaning that people aren't likely to put any extras on the Global Trade Station. Due to people thinking that no one would want this creature, the ComMon in question actually becomes difficult to acquire.
136** Berries are easy to find in Hoenn, Sinnoh and Alola. In every other region, they are only given by a select number of [=NPCs=] and they often only give you the most common ones.
137** 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 fresh water]], Feebas is [[GuideDangIt ludicrously hard to find]]. Only one trainer (who's off the main road) has one in the whole game, 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.
138* At one point in ''VideoGame/BeyondDivinity'', a dying prisoner asks for a drink of water. You have to go back almost to the start to get the only bottle of water on the level. This takes you through a guard station, mess hall and kitchen area but none of the dozens of cups and bottles contain any water or can be filled from the numerous barrels and sinks.
139** In ''VideoGame/DivinityOriginalSinII'', there's tons of [[ShopFodder useless everyday items whose sole purpose is too be sold for dough]]. And yet, there's only ONE teapot in the entire game that you find in the very last chapter. You can't even take it or steal it, you have to return to its location every time you need to make some tea.
140* ''VideoGame/SecretOfEvermore'' has the alchemy system. Oh, sure it makes some sense to have trouble gathering things like Oil, or Wax, but... water? It's not even like it has to be purified water, you can literally scoop it from a river in the middle of a swamp. But only in certain spots that are sniffed out by your dog.
141* In ''VideoGame/StarOceanTheSecondStory'', you have to go into a dangerous cave filled with monsters as a test of strength - the proof of your journey being to bring back a rare and undiscovered herb. It turns out to be [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvia_sclarea clary sage]], a fairly common, hardy and widely-distributed medicinal plant. Still, everyone reacts as if it was incredibly rare. On the other hand, you're explicitly not on Earth in this scene--you're on the planet Expel, where Clary Sage very well might be a rarity. If you want to go the extra mile, however, you can go further into the cave and find the Dill Whip. This [[CosmeticAward doesn't bring you any reward whatsoever]], but at least you get told that your characters have found a legitimately undiscovered plant.
142* ''VideoGame/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}}s. About 2 minutes into the game you can find the shopkeeper selling it, for 9900 gold. A trifling price when you will need it (much later in the game), but at the beginning it seems insanely overpriced. Bizarrely, you can also resell the Jerky for 10,000 gold to the person you're supposed to give it to. However, to advance the plot, you have to give them the Jerky for free.
143* Backpacks are some of the rarest, most expensive goods in ''Franchise/DragonAge'''s Ferelden.
144* So too with backpacks in the world of ''VideoGame/KingdomsOfAmalurReckoning'''s Amalur. A backpack in the starting town of Gorhart has a base price of 7500 gold, more than nearly any magical weapon available at the time.
145* ''Videogame/{{Ultima}}'':
146** In ''VideoGame/UltimaVIIPartII: Serpent Isle'', one of the common reagents you use for spellcasting is mandrake, and indeed it can be found and bought in plenty of places. Later in the game, an NPC gives you the task to obtain mandrake. For some reason, only mandrake from one specific location qualifies, all the other mandrake doesn't work; and you can't get to that spot yet (semi-justified in that he wants ''fresh'' mandrake, and the stuff you can buy is presumably dried: it doesn't make a difference a spell reagent, though).
147** Going back further in the series, in ''VideoGame/UltimaIV'' mandrake and nightshade cannot be bought, and can only be harvested in one place each in the entire world, during one particular lunar phase.
148* Guns in ''VideoGame/ResonanceOfFate'' are like this. One can only wonder where all the hordes of bandits in the RandomEncounters get their guns from, when only ''two handguns'' are for sale ''in the entire game'', both at exorbitant prices. And yes, that means two individual guns, not two types of guns. Naturally, the hordes of bandits [[UnusableEnemyEquipment never drop their weapons when they die]] either. One NPC implies bandit guns tend to be [[ShurFineGuns cheap, mass-produced pieces of crap]]. Professional mercenaries like the player characters are better served with their expensive, reliable firearms than risking a knockoff exploding in their hand. But then most of the dozens of [[GunAccessories expansion parts]] you end up attaching to said weapons are [[ItemCrafting crafted]] from random junk dropped by enemies anyway.
149* ''VideoGame/SuikodenI'''s ChainOfDeals is this as well, as the item you're ultimately after is ''soap''. [[ShaggyDogStory Which Sarah finds on her own while you're looking for it]]. [[spoiler:At least she appreciates the effort and joins your party.]]
150* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'':
151** In ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind'', there is only one muffin on the entire island of Vvardenfell. And it already belongs to someone, so the only way to obtain it is to steal the delicious baked good. And if you eat said muffin, it gives you the exact same stamina regeneration as a normal, common piece of bread.
152** ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion'': Human hearts and skin are among the rarest {{alchemy|IsMagic}} ingredients in the game (with only 5 and 2 non-respawning samples) and are never available as OrganDrops.
153** In ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim,'' there are many rare alchemy ingredients that logically ought to be relatively common. For example, you'd think you could get human flesh and human hearts from every enemy you kill, but they're some of the rarest ingredients in the game, and are never looted from human enemies. Contrast Dremora hearts, which are looted from every Dremora you kill.
154*** Giants toes are a great example. You would think you could get ten from every giant you kill, you are lucky if you get one.
155*** Only two samples of Spiced Beef can be found in the game; this item cannot be crafted using the cooking mechanic despite both beef and spices being commonplace.
156* A couple of the forging items in ''VideoGame/DissidiaFinalFantasy''. For example, you won't even be able to acquire any variety of wood until after you've beaten Chaos - which involves defeating ten characters' personal stories, plus four additional stages of battle (all of which have five substages). Even then, one slab of regular lumber is apparently more common than a splinter (and explicitly costs less to trade for).
157* The ultimate forging item for Onion Knight's ultimate weapon in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIII'', requiring five Megalixers (which themselves are excessively difficult to get)? An onion. Thematically appropriate, but it's still an onion.
158* Though not rare per se, it takes a lot more effort to find a human bone in the catacombs in ''VideoGame/PlanescapeTorment'' than it really should. The catacombs are being picked over by both human scavengers who are looting corpses to sell them to the Dustmen and by monsters that are eating said corpses.
159* In the ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigi'' series in general, beans act like stat boosting RareCandy. That you have to either dig up from the ground, win in mini games or get with certain item equips. In ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiDreamTeam'', Wellington Boots. This fairly common place (in the real world anyway) piece of footwear is, in this game, a rare random drop found only on a certain enemy in the final dungeon. And it turns out said clothing is the only practical way to get the aforementioned beans...
160* ''VideoGame/{{Miitopia}}'':
161** Some event-only and therefore very rare grubs can seem a little ridiculous. The more striking is the rarissime... Frozen TV Dinner.
162** Non-event grub all comes in "common", "rare", and "very rare" varieties, which are [[PowerEqualsRarity appropriately powerful]]. ''Most'' of them are also appropriately easy to acquire, with the notable exception of the Ultimate Delicacy -- the rare and very rare varieties can easily be farmed from the FinalBoss and {{Optional Boss}}es, while the common variety can only be acquired from the rare [[DegradedBoss Replica Dark Lord]] enemy.
163* Partially averted in ''VideoGame/{{Elvira}} II: Jaws of Cerberus''. Some of the spells have very broadly defined ingredients--"combustible substances", "metal items", "anything edible"--and finding these is as easy as you'd expect in the real world (in both the studio and the "haunted house" set, most of rooms allow you to pick up tons of items; e.g. the kitchen allows you to ransack the cupboards and drawers and put every single tiny can, pot and piece of cutlery into your inventory).
164* ''VideoGame/GoldenSun1'':
165** Apples, cookies, hard nuts, lucky pepper, mints, and power bread. You'd think things like bread and cookies would be common, you tend to find them in unceremonious places like jars and ovens in people's homes, and nothing seems to imply these are rare or special variants of commonplace things, but there's only 10 of each of these across ''both games''.
166** In the first game, Isaac only ever gets one empty glass bottle, which can ''only'' be used to collect the healing Hermes Water of Mercury Lighthouse. [[FridgeLogic One wonders what happens to the containers for all those Elixers and Vials and Potions and Mist Potions... not to mention, what the heck is the Water of Life stored in?]]
167** ''VideoGame/GoldenSunTheLostAge'''s big ChainOfDeals starts with a... shiny pebble. No, literally, a shiny pebble. You trade this for a brightly-colored piece of cloth, which you trade for a bottle of milk, which you trade for a baby turtle, which you trade for access to the BonusDungeon. Got that? ''You trade a baby turtle for the BonusDungeon.''
168* Most of the permanent stat boosting items across the ''VideoGame/FireEmblem'' series have flowery names such as "Goddess Icon" and "Seraph Robe", but few can match the power and staggering rarity of the "Boots", which increase movement speed by two in a series where the average unit has about six. Most games have ''one'' set of them hidden somewhere, and that's it. For comparison, in the first game, this makes a set of Boots as rare as a staff that can bring someone who is DeaderThanDead back to life.
169* Any MMO with a crafting system can run into this when it comes to certain materials needed for crafting being found only from high-level gathering or drops from high-level enemies, despite being quite ordinary in real life. Or conversely, some materials might be fairly easy to find but require a high level crafting skill to actually be useful.
170** Similarly, in older [=MMOs=] where the majority of the population is max level and doesn't alt much, low level crafted and/or dropped gear that makes use of all common materials can be difficult to come by for new players. As the old population sees no reason to craft/sell it.
171** Special holiday events can push extremely common and normally unsought after materials to high prices as lazy players find it easier to buy them rather than loot them, resulting in massive price gouging. For example, in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' christmas events generally involve giving milk and cookies to santa. Cookies can be crafted by anyone with level 1 cooking skill, but require bird eggs, which can drop from just about any level 1 avian enemy. Bird eggs move from being unsellable on the [=AH=] to stupidly expensive as soon as santa arrives.
172* During the Christmas season in ''VideoGame/FallenLondon'', you can collect a pail of snow...but only once per week for about a month. The only other ways to get more pails of snow are from two specific [[BadSanta Mr Sacks]] cards that can each only be played once or from the Urchins for an exorbitant cost of 7 Storm-Threnodies and 1 Night-Whisper. Granted, the collected snow is definitely not your garden-variety snow (dipping a soul in it causes it to ''explode'', for one thing) and is essential to get lodgings and items that can’t be obtained anywhere else, but it doesn't change the oddity of homeless children selling buckets of a substance that you ''should'' be able to easily scoop up from the ground at a price that even players with maxed-out stats and gear will struggle to pay regularly.
173* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' has a lot of gear that are only used for glamour purpose and are fashioned after seemingly common items like sleeveless shirts, winter coats, swimwear, etc. However, the materials needed to craft said gear are difficult to find, thus it's quite common to see players sell the crafted gear for a lot of gil.
174* ''VideoGame/Fallout3'' 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''.
175* 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.]]
176* ''VideoGame/Fallout4'' 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).
177* You can find a single shovel in ''VideoGame/PathfinderKingmaker'' and it's not even in a shop, but in the wilderness of the Stolen Lands. Most players will disregard the shovel and sell it, [[GuideDangIt while it can be used in the last chapter to dig up a unique magical item]].
178* In the [[VideoGame/WildArms Wild ARMs]] games, apples are the permanent stat boosting items. This actually makes sense: the setting of the series, Filgaea, is portrayed as a wasteland planet slowly dying. Naturally, produce of any kind would be extremely scarce given the circumstances.
179* ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheOrigamiKing'': To complete the ChainOfDeals at Shogun Studios, you need a baseball and a straw, both of which would be easy to find in real life, which you can only get in this area. Even though there's a sports park and numerous cafes that you come across earlier.
180* Fusion ingredients in ''VideoGame/{{Recettear}}'' can only be found by going into dungeons and killing monsters. While it makes sense for certain ingredients, such as monster body parts, there's no explanation why e.g. ordinary ''toothpicks'' or ''egg toast'' can't be acquired in any other way.
181* In ''VideoGame/MonsterHunterWorld'', wild chicken only becomes available several dozen hours in, from a collectible in a high-level area. (You can get eggs long before that, but they're from wingdrakes or wyverns, not true birds.) Given just ''how many'' superpowered predators inhabit the setting, it [[FridgeBrilliance makes sense]] that such a small and vulnerable species would be rare- they all got eaten, like what happened to the passenger-pigeon.
182* ''VideoGame/{{Tibia}}'': Cockroach legs. Once a part of a combat tutorial, now unobtainable. What's worse is they're consumed in one of obscure quests.
183[[/folder]]
184
185[[folder:Simulation]]
186* ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'': Black dye for cloth. The process for weaving and dyeing fabric is a fairly complex one that takes a fair bit of setting up ([[RefiningResources one plant has to be grown and woven into cloth and another has to be ground up to make dye]], and the latter process requires building a mill which has its own production chain), and black dye has the added complication that the plant it's made from only grows natively in biomes with unusually hostile wildlife and the only race that has domesticated and cultivated it are [[AlwaysChaoticEvil the goblins.]] Blue dye might be this from the perspective of the human or elven merchants the player trades with, as it's made from a plant that only grows underground.
187* ''VideoGame/MyTimeAtPortia'' has Valves, strangely enough. They're a required element of certain important storyline commissions in the mid-game but can only be found in the ruins rather then crafted. Which comes across as strange when you can craft pulleys, working electrical lights and various power tools, but a simple valve is somehow too difficult to make.
188* ''{{Website/Neopets}}'':
189** 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 could still get free food every day from the Giant Omelette and the Giant Jelly, and once a month from a [[http://www.neopets.com/freebies hidden link]]. The problem has since been negated by the addition of more places and ways to obtain food, including the General Store, which unlike every other shop ''never'' runs out of stock.
190** Zigzagged 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, and have the power to permanently change your pet's appearance. 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 [[ShopFodder don't serve much of an actual purpose]], and there is therefore no need to have over 100 types of boring normal paintbrushes.
191* In ''VideoGame/OhEdoTowns'', gravel paths cost nearly twice as much as stone paving and are unlocked later. Inexplicably, they increase houses' value much more than the latter do (although they ''devalue'' stores, probably because transporting supplies over gravel is a bitch).
192* In the Playfish game ''Restaurant City,'' ingredients are ranked on a scale of one to five stars, with five being the most expensive. However, the stars are handed out based on ''how many recipes use them'', with the result that sugar and eggs are five stars, while [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saffron saffron]] only has two.
193* 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 townspeople, there's still no guarantee that they'll give you a tea set.
194** Backpacks cost 2000-10000 coin. The first farmhouse expansion costs the same as the second backpack! Either Pierre is price-gouging, or Robin is ''seriously'' undercharging.
195* In ''VideoGame/TomodachiLife'', oddly enough, the "trash" foods [[labelnote:*]]banana peel, moldy bread, spoiled milk, and ruined meal[[/labelnote]] are among the rarest items in the game. The only way to get them is if they're sold at the morning market, gotten as a prize at the night market, a Mii makes them with a frying pan, or they spawn from the "hunger," "ritual," or "true love" dreams. Considering just how many foods there are in the game, the chance of any of these things happening is pretty low.
196[[/folder]]
197
198[[folder:Survival Horror]]
199* Due to the SolveTheSoupCans nature of some FetchQuest puzzles in ''Franchise/ResidentEvil'', this is the case when what would normally be a commonplace item is needed to solve a puzzle:
200** ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil'' has the mansion keys. Realistically every employee should have had a full set of these, since even going to the ''bathroom'' requires at least the Sword and Armor key, so raiding the first zombie encountered should have opened up the entire mansion. However, because that doesn't make for good gameplay and because Umbrella are clearly batshit insane, there's only one of each in existence and you need to solve a ton of puzzles and fight a giant plant to find them all.
201** ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil3Nemesis'' has you go through the entire police station to find a lock pick, which is made from a safety pin and a bent piece of wire. Realistically Jill could have fashioned a replacement with the office items found in ''every desk ever'', such as the one in the main lobby or the 15 or so she passed on her way to the S.T.A.R.S. office, but here that's the only safety pin on the planet.
202* ''VideoGame/SilentHill2''. You are required to solve four puzzles to get four keys / combinations to open a chest. What you get from the chest are a few pieces of hair which must be combined with a hook to fish a MacGuffin from a drain. The fact that James' own hair is clearly long enough to suffice for this, or that there must have been a few hundred reasonable replacements for thread strewn about are never addressed.
203[[/folder]]
204
205[[folder:Tactical Shooter]]
206* Tactical shooter ''7.62mm High Calibre'', there are several guns that are extremely hard to find, and several guns that are extremely easy to find, based on both how far you are in the game's plot, and who you're buying from. On the other hand, ''ammunition'' can be absolutely impossible to find. At the beginning of the game, 9x19mm Parabellum bullets, one of the most universal rounds used today, cannot be found ''anywhere''. Later in the game, you might be struggling to find enough ammo for your common 5.56mm assault rifles, while tripping over Gyrojet rounds and 5.7mm pistol clips. To give an idea of how ridiculous this is: the 5.7x28mm round is used by ''only two weapons in the entire world'' (the Five-seveN pistol and the P90 PDW, three if you count an AR-15 conversion kit that isn't in the game) and aside from all models of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrojet Gyrojet]] being rare collector's items, ''so is the ammunition'' (selling for over $100 a round). The 5.56mm, on the other hand, is the standard rifle round used by NATO.
207[[/folder]]
208
209[[folder:Third Person Shooter]]
210* In ''VideoGame/DayZ'':
211** Backpacks are considered extremely valuable because they allow you to carry much more equipment with you. While this is certainly a realistic benefit of a backpack in a survival scavenging scenario, the rarity of backpacks (especially in the original mod version) is pretty inexplicable. While backpacks are certainly handy to have, the odds that department stores would be stripped clean of backpacks following a societal collapse are very low, as people that are evacuating don't tend to ransack stores for backpacks. This is resolved somewhat in the Standalone version of the game where backpacks are more common (and can be crafted from basic materials), but you're still likely to be targeted and killed by other players just so they can upgrade their carrying capacity.
212** Ghillie suits are another one, especially in the original mod, to the point that people will hunt you down just to get your ghillie suit because of how effectively you can hide while wearing one. Again, a ghillie suit would certainly be useful in a scenario where you're trying to remain hidden most of the time, but a ghillie suit isn't that hard to produce, and an effective one can be created from fairly basic components. This is actually addressed in the standalone version, where players can craft ghillie suits from burlap strips, which aren't that hard to find.
213* ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}''
214** The {{Machete|Mayhem}} is a Grineer blade weapon used by common Scorpion units. It used to be availaible for players through the market early in ''Warframe'''s history, but was removed from it and since then became available only through a blueprint ''very'' rarely gained from Teshin's [[PlayEveryDay Daily Tribute]], and only if you haven't mastered the weapon in the first place, or from grinding the shit out of Cephalon Simaris’s hunts for [[AllianceMeter standing]].
215** The Detron is a sidearm used by common Corpus units, yet rather than being available through the market or clan dojo it can be assembled only with parts looted from the Zanuka Hunter, who ''may'' appear on Corpus-controlled territories if you finished enough invasion missions for the Grineer. Ironically, the unique variants of the Detron are much easier to acquire, with the [[SuperPrototype Mara Detron]] being purchasable from Baro Ki’Teer whereas the [[AceCustom Tenet Detron]] can be acquired from a [[ProceduralGeneration generated]] [[EvilCounterpart Sister of Parvos]].
216[[/folder]]
217
218[[folder:Turn Based Strategy]]
219* ''VideoGame/JonesInTheFastLane'': The prices in the Monolith Burger are ''weird''--a cheeseburger for $89, fries for $65, shakes for $103... That said, each of these fills you up for an entire week, so it probably shouldn't be taken literally. (Though it implies that you've been living on nothing but milkshakes the entire week... This cannot possibly be healthy.)
220[[/folder]]
221
222[[folder:Turn Based Tactics]]
223* ''VideoGame/PhantomDoctrine:'' The US M-16 rifle is a common gun in real life, but is very rare in game, and people have reported finishing the game without finding one in loot. If you buy one on the black market, it is a mid-tier rifle at a mid-tier price.
224[[/folder]]
225
226[[folder:Visual Novel]]
227* In ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward'', [[spoiler:Root beer]] is described as being more expensive than the finest alcoholic drink. [[spoiler:This is a hint that the outside world isn't quite the one Sigma lived in before being kidnapped]].
228[[/folder]]
229
230[[folder:Wide Open Sandbox]]
231* In ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedII'', enemies use the ''same'' weapons that you can buy for large amounts of money from a shop. Pretty generic example, except- you ''can'' pick up the weapons. But you can't keep them of course, if you try to switch weapons, it just drops the thing. You will also find that to carry more throwing knives or phials of medicine/poison you will need to buy pouches. These can cost 6,000 florins, more that it costs to buy finely crafted weapons or armor, and can even outprice the extensive repair and refurbishment performed on the buildings around your villa. It's kept in the Crafting sections of the sequels. Somehow, it takes two humpback whaleskins to make a pistol holster, and only great white shark bones can be used for the final armor upgrade. This is averted in ''Assassin's Creed Brotherhood'' and ''Revelations'': If Ezio has somehow divested himself of his primary weapon and collects a weapon from the ground, he can keep it. If it was a type of weapon he didn't have beforehand, ''it is added to his inventory.'' Meaning that yes, Ezio ''can'' acquire expensive weapons via taking them off the cold, dead hands of his enemies. This gets a bit ridiculous in the 4th game with the crafting system. Not only does nobody in the game world apparently sell leather goods, Kenway refuses to use the same plan twice. So for no apparent reason he crafts every one of his pistol holsters out of different, increasingly absurd materials.
232* Appears with most of the mid-to-high tier items in ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossing''. Items of the highest rarity level can be reliably earned at the game's special events. But the items just ''below'' that level can't be found at special events and only appear as very rare common items. As a result it is far, far easier to, say, earn the king and queen of the chess set than it is to earn the rook or bishop.
233* ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'':
234** Apples were so rare that, without hacking or using mods to get apples, the only legit way to get an Apple was to kill Notch if you met him on a server. It wasn't until the Beta 1.8 patch that added strongholds with chests that have a chance of carrying an Apple or more. Since the full game was released, apples have a 1/125 chance of falling from destroyed oak leaf blocks.
235** Clay was also rather rare in the earlier days of the game, only available on coastal areas. Make a boat and get to searchin'. One version had a bug that only allowed clay to spawn at coordinates where x=z (effectively a single diagonal line through the world).
236** Cookies were rare for a long time, to the point that they became a sort of trophy. This changed once Cocoa Beans became farmable and could be easily found in jungle biomes, instead of just in dungeon chests.
237*** Likewise, Brown Dye (and its assorted dyed items like Wool and Glass) is frustratingly hard to get ahold of because you can ONLY make them from Cocoa Beans, which spawn in the rare Jungle Biomes. Brown Wool is at least a little easier to get as Brown Sheep spawn vaguely frequently, but it's still a pain in the backside if you just want a brown bed without the use of Creative or commands.
238** Making a cake is a highly elaborate process: you must build a furnace and a stone or better pickaxe, find nine iron ore, smelt them into nine iron ingots, make three buckets, milk cows, grow or find wheat, gather sugar cane and make it into sugar, and find an egg laid by a chicken, then put them all together. That said, once you get to the point that you can produce ''one'' cake, it becomes fairly easy to make ''more''.
239** Carrots and potatoes are also pretty hard to get ahold of: you can only find them growing in NPC villages (which themselves are rather rare) or as a RareDrop from zombies. Again, once you get one, it's relatively easy to get more--just plant it on a farm; since the yield for planting them will, more often than not, be ''greater'' than the input, after a while you'll have a surplus.
240** Name Tags, the only legit way to give any mob a unique name outside of creative mode, can only be found inside chests located within a dungeon or by fishing.
241** Pumpkins can be this on the Platform/XBox360 version of the game, since it's a finite space rather than the PC's nigh-unlimited world. If a cluster of pumpkins--usually around four or five at best--spawns, you will have to search far and wide to locate them. They end up being more rare than diamond ore. And even in the PC game, wild pumpkins can sometimes be hard to come by.
242*** Same with Melons, which, like Cocoa Beans, only spawn in the Jungle biomes.
243** Sponges can only be found deep underwater, in rare "ocean monument" dungeons filled with aggressive laser-shooting fish. They're the main reward for killing one of the Elder Guardians in these structures.
244** Saddles clearly ''should'' be craftable from leather, which is easy to collect from cows, but for some reason you cannot do this[[note]]Well, you ''could'' craft Horse Saddles with Leather and Iron, but they were removed in favour of just allowing uncraftable normal Saddles to make horses ridable[[/note]]. Instead, you have to track down a Leatherworker villager (not found in all villages) and trade with them until they offer a saddle. Occasionally, you can get one while fishing or in randomly-generated overworld chests. Seemingly the only purpose of this is to make horseback-riding a LuckBasedMission (never mind ''finding the horse itself'').
245** Of course in normal gameplay this is generally fine if you don't mind cheating, as you could always switch to Creative mode via console commands and take whatever of the above you need from the Creative menu, then hop back into Survival. Disabled cheats or playing on Hardcore, however? ''Good luck''.
246* In ''VideoGame/ScarfaceTheWorldIsYours'' it's entirely possible to have lackeys wielding weapons the player is not yet allowed to buy. Don't fret. They can give them to the boss by placing them in the trunks of special cars (think mobile armory). Doesn't quite work with the boat-mounted machine guns that Tony can later buy to wield himself. Also, it doesn't quite matter how much cash Tony has. Being able to purchase entirely legal items (such as a vending machine or a park bench) depends on how much his enemies respect him.
247* In the VideoGame/{{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. And [[spoiler:you need to gather 75,000 of them for the last stage of the Hub plot. Good thing you can build your own Chip Plants, or else this plot would be next to impossible.]]
248* In ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV'', the Declasse Asea should in theory be a common sight on the streets of Los Santos being based on the Chevrolet Aveo sedan. But in the original version of the game it only ever appears twice, once as an impossible to keep rental car, and again found parked at the end of a side-mission. If you do not take it after the latter, it's {{Permanently Missable|Content}}. Eventually it was made purchasable in ''Online'', and can be found on the streets in the Enhanced version of the game.
249* ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption2'' suffers badly from this trope. Animal Fat, an important crafting ingredient, must be harvested from animals, it can't be purchased from butchers. Similarly, hides of domestic animals are only available by killing and skinning the animal in question, which requires robbing a farm and losing honor. You can't buy the skins anywhere. Finally, the camp request items are thoroughly mundane (things like a harmonica or a cheap novel), but must be found as loot and again can't be purchased from stores.
250* ''VideoGame/SaintsRow2'' has the Quasar, a luxurious Land Rover-esque SUV that is also one of the Westside Rollerz' gang cars in [[VideoGame/SaintsRow1 the first game]]. The car can only be found driven by rich civilians or parked around Downtown Stilwater, but oddly, the spawn values are set considerably low[[note]]roughly a 1 in 940 chance of seeing one[[/note]]. The car is supposed to spawn much more commonly within the Suburbs Expansion district, but the group of cars assigned to spawn don't due to a coding error, which means that it is common to play through the entire game without seeing one. Thankfully, it is possible to force the game into spawning a Quasar by driving other cars driven by rich civilians around Downtown.
251* ''VideoGame/{{Terraria}}'': Some of the rare drops from enemies fall into this. It makes sense why things like a poison cure-all or a wand of teleportation would be incredibly rare. A can of armor polish, a bandage, or a simple blindfold? Not so much. All three items are 1% drops from very specific enemies, all of which only appear in certain times or places. It's entirely possible for a player to spend actual hours farming enemies for these items (you'd think a player in possession of some fabric, an easy-to-make resource, could just ''make'' a blindfold).
252[[/folder]]
253
254[[folder:Non Video Game Examples]]
255[[AC:Fan-Works]]
256* ''FanFic/MyMasterEd'', Van’s fascinated by the luxury things Edward creates, including glass dishes, a large mirror, and ice. Edward, being from a time and place were such items are common and able to make them all himself easily, doesn’t think anything of it.
257
258[[AC:Films -- Live-Action]]
259* In ''Film/ProjectAlmanac'', the machine needs hydrogen to work, which they resort to stealing from the school. Technically you can get it by running a current through water, but pressurizing and bottling it would be rather difficult.
260
261[[AC:Literature]]
262* In ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'', Arthur ends up crash-landing on a primitive planet. He at first thinks he can share some technological wonders with them... only to realize he has no clue how modern technology actually ''works'', at least not well enough to build a working example. When he settles down one day and makes himself a sandwich, however, the village is awestruck. He becomes the village's first official Sandwich Maker, a highly respected position.
263* In ''Literature/TheGirlFromTheMiraclesDistrict'', oranges are extremely rare and valuable in the Miracles District, as they can only be obtained in the human world, and the people of the district are physically unable to get there. At one point, Nikita manages to buy extremely sensitive information with nothing but a small crate of them.[[note]]This has some basis in reality; in Poland (where the "human world" in question is set) in the height of Communist era, oranges could only be found in shops during the Christmas period.[[/note]]
264* In ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'', it's stated that hot chocolate is considered an exotic beverage, and Luke buys packets whenever he can. It is of course a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, so for them to have any food/drink/etc that we have on Earth is a small miracle. "Chocolate" could indeed be exceedingly rare in an alien galaxy.
265
266[[AC:Live-Action TV]]
267* In ''Series/StargateSG1'', this is invoked to convince the Goa'uld Nerus to work with Earth:
268--> '''Nerus:''' What is this? This is exquisite! What is it?\
269'''Landry:''' Chicken.\
270'''Nerus:''' Chicken?\
271'''Landry:''' It's a rare delicacy among our people.
272
273[[AC:Tabletop Games]]
274* Real Life gaming example: ''TabletopGame/YuGiOh'', aside from the regular rarities, actually has two "Short Print" varieties of the Common rarity cards; they look, act, and essentially are exactly like regular Commons, but you'll be busting your butt and your wallet going through hundreds of packs just to get ''one''.
275* In the ''TabletopGame/{{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. Other items requiring high security clearance include really powerful weapons like [[{{BFG}} cone rifles and plasma generators]], but also some things that are utterly mundane in real life, like chapstick and umbrellas.
276* Two examples from ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'', one in-universe and one real:
277** The most powerful card in the game, capable of enabling a win before the other player gets a turn, banned in nearly every format, regularly selling for the price of an entire college education, represents nothing more than [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=382866 a simple lotus.]]
278** [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?printed=true&multiverseid=924 Oubliette]] is a common card, and thus legal in Pauper, an all common format, where it is something of a staple. Unfortunately, it's a common from Arabian Nights, the second ever expansion, back when Wizards of the Coast vastly underestimated the game's popularity, so there are very few copies in print. To compound the issue, before a recent templating breakthrough, the official updated text was [[WallOfText too long to fit on an actual card]], so it couldn't be reprinted. The result was a mere common selling for $20 or more, more than many of the best rares in Standard and most mythics.
279
280[[AC:WesternAnimation]]
281* Iron is apparently rare anywhere but on Earth in the ''WesternAnimation/Ben10'' universe. This seems unlikely, but apparently iron is known to the rest of the universe as one half of a compound explosive enough to destroy solar systems.
282* ''WesternAnimation/AThousandAndOneAmericas'': The majority of characters whom Chris meets in his dreams are surprised to see a red-haired person like him and/or a yellow-furred dog like Lon (some characters even Chris has a ''fire hair''). This is because, in RealLife, such people and dogs respectively weren't sighted in the Americas until the arrival of European civilizations.
283
284[[AC:RealLife]]
285* Diamonds, at least according to [[http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-you-ever-tried-to-sell-a-diamond/4575/ this article]] from the ''Atlantic Monthly'' in 1982. This is less the case now since the [=DeBeers=] corporation, while still retaining significant market control, no longer has a monopoly on diamonds. The pricing is [[http://www.diamondcuttersintl.com/why-do-diamonds-cost-so-much/ still rather high]] given their actual commonality (it's been said that you could give every living human a cupful of them, though not necessarily the highest quality ones).
286* Currency
287** In the United States, two-dollar bills. The government is sitting on entire warehouses full of them because banks never ask for them because bank customers never ask for them. Since they rarely enter circulation there are many Americans who believe that they're not real money the first time they see them. The same is true of US dollar coins (not quite to the same extent) -- the banks don't stock many because their business customers don't want them (partly their tills have places for one-dollar bills but not coins, and partly they believe their retail customers don't want them).
288** This is true of £1 notes in Scotland - they are still legal currency and sometimes appear as change, though are not popular due to not being used in other parts of the UK unlike the coins (England discontinued their £1 notes in 1988).
289* 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.
290* AAAA batteries, used in such things as penlights, laser pointers, and styli for certain tablets like the Surface Pro 3. Go into an electronics store and you might find entire bins filled to the brim with AA and AAA batteries in packs of 10-20. AAAA batteries? "Quadruple-what? Sorry, we don't sell those." And when you do find some, they come in two-packs.
291* Car manufacturers often make models that often don't sell well due to a lack of marketing, high pricing and so on, but also because they simply don't build that many. The latter point is expected with luxury or exotic car companies (as exclusivity is part of their appeal), however perfectly ordinary, no-frills, basic transportation can often wind up being ''more'' uncommon than a good chunk of other vehicles on the road. This is a slight aversion to the trope, as these cars tend to go very cheap second hand since nobody wanted them in the first place; car enthusiasts often wind up buying them with their strange rarity as an added bonus. That's why when you do see one years later, it tends to be in good condition and meticulously well maintained. This also applies to older cars that were mass produced into the millions, but have since become uncommon due to tighter maintenance / emission control, running costs, part availability, build quality and general age. The Volkswagen Beetle is the best example, as most that are seen these days are either fully restored or clunkers which will more than likely be sold to someone with the intention of restoring it.
292* Used classic Macs sell on eBay for almost as much as they did when they were new, simply because they're Macs.
293* Common before the advancements of modern transport; what was commonplace in one location becomes a rare in another when it is difficult, dangerous, and/or expensive to transport them, with the spice trade being a famous example. Downplayed, but even nowadays, both expensive luxuries (like saffron) or relatively affordable goods (like chocolate) can be much cheaper in countries where they are produced.
294* A divide in time may cause this as well, as a sort of ValuesDissonance. What was commonplace become rare, perhaps due to overexploitation like beluga caviar, while what was rare become commonplace, possibly from technological development like purple dye.
295** Dyes are a good example of this, but the best might be the humble metal aluminum. Aluminum ore is quite common, but the process to extract aluminum metal from it requires massive amounts of electricity - so in the times before electricity became common, aluminum was rarer and more expensive than gold.
296* As explored in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lbdij5Vi8oY this]] ''WebVideo/BestOfTheWorst'' video, this is a common problem with speculators. Speculators want the items they're selling to seem like they're worth a lot of money, so they'll often behave as if said items are much more valuable than they actually are, and may even orchestrate big "sales" with groups so intertwined with the speculator that they're practically selling the item to themselves. The video was inspired by an incident where a graded ''Film/BackToTheFuture1'' VHS was "sold" for over 70,000 dollars--''Back to the Future'' was one of the most popular films of its era, and VHS tapes of it, even in mint condition, are conversely about as common as a VHS tape can be. However, speculators and graders ''want'' to use fairly common and well-known properties for their subjects, since it will convince large numbers of people that they own something incredibly valuable and should therefore have it graded and sold. Though there do genuinely exist incredibly valuable VHS tapes, they tend to be, well, actually ''rare''--for instance, tapes that had limited runs, tapes that sold badly in their time, and factory errors.
297* Drugs whose legality varies between jurisdictions. They can be highly cheap and common in one country where they're legal, and just next door be completely illegal and extremely expensive. In the USA, Marijuana prices fluctuated wildly for a time between states where it's legal to obtain and use it, and states where it was completely illegal to own.
298* In certain South American countries, Cocaine can be bought extremely cheaply, because it's produced in the country. Meanwhile, in the USA or European countries, it could be worth 100 times the price for the same amount. The cost of the drug doesn't come from the ingredients or creation, it comes from having to smuggle it around the world. That's how the cartels made so much money from it.
299[[/folder]]

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