Money Is Experience Points

Bacchus: [...] If you spend all your money playing around, you'll never get stronger. You gotta invest in yourself!
Kiryu: What, like a gym membership?
Bacchus: Nah, nah. That's no better than spending it on booze! I'm talking about investing in yourself. Literally.

— Yakuza 0

People say that money is power, but this trope seems to interpret that literally.

Some video games allow their characters to enhance their attributes and abilities using Experience Points while using an in-game currency for separate purposes. However, some games will choose to utilize their in-game currency both for upgrading characters as well as the game's other services.

This is where this trope comes into play.

Games can use money to raise stats or learn new abilities much like how experience points are used to level up. This is typically seen in role-playing games and action games that allow you to upgrade your character. Some games may use a skill tree to allow players to pick and choose which attributes to level up and which skills to learn. Other games may let you purchase abilities or upgrades at a shop. Another way this trope can be accomplished is by allowing players to convert their money into experience or vice versa.

This usually happens for a variety of reasons. First of all, experience points are not unlimited. While it can take many hours for players to level up their characters, they will eventually max out all their stats and learn every ability there is to learn. This inevitably leaves the game's experience points without any purpose, especially if the player can carry over their level in a New Game Plus. Combining EXP with the game's currency will give it a more sustainable use, allowing the player to continue purchasing items, equipment, etc. even after they have completely maxed out their character. Also, using money for character growth can add a huge Money Sink to the game by forcing the player to decide whether to invest their money in leveling up or purchasing goods. The game's currency need not be the only way to level up, but it can be a viable method for reducing hours of level grinding.

Please note that this does not apply to games that use a separate "currency" exclusively for enhancing stats and learning new skills. Unless the currency is literal money (i.e. coins, credit card or bills), it must serve at least one other purpose other than leveling up, such as buying items, otherwise they are just experience points. See also Point Build System for a more closely related trope. Also note that the trope doesn't count for buying consumable items that can later be used to permanently boost your stats or learn a new ability, like a Rare Candy, the effect must be instantaneous upon purchase. If the purchase doesn’t lead directly to a stat increase, learning a new ability, or some other form of experience points, then it's not this trope.

Not to be confused with Bribing Your Way to Victory. Although using real-world money may be an option for upgrading a character, this trope is for in-game currency.

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Examples:

Action Games

• In Bayonetta, several skills can be purchased at the Gates of Hell in addition to the various lollipops and accessories that can be bought. Additionally, Bayonetta can permanently increase her health and magic at least five times each by purchasing Witch Hearts and Moon Pearls.
• In the first three Devil May Cry games, in addition to using Red Orbs to buy recovery items, you could also use them to buy new weapon abilities, and partly increase your health and Devil Trigger meter by buying a limited number of blue and purple orbs that increase in price the more you buy.
  • In Devil May Cry 4, there existed a separate currency for buying abilities, called "Proud Souls." Red Orbs could still be used to upgrade health and the Devil Trigger meter.
  • In Devil May Cry 5, Red Orbs are almost exclusively used for upgrades due to the removal of items. The only other thing they are used for is to revive the player if they die and that is only if they don't have any Gold Orbs.
• In The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge, Jack can upgrade his abilities and increase his health at the Witches' Shop using souls as currency. He could also buy blue souls, which could temporarily increase his attack power when used, although those were so cheap and limited in quantity that they were nearly pointless.
• In Transformers: Devastation. while the Autobots can level up normally by fighting Decepticons, they can also level up their stats individually by using credits, which are also used to buy consumable items and weapons. You could also level up your weapons by fusing it with an unwanted weapon and paying the required amount of credits.
• In The Wonderful 101, you could use O-parts to buy various items and accessories as well as learn new skills and Unite Morphs. However, this could be circumvented if you had a Wonderful Card, which would instantly pay for the item no matter how much it cost.

Action-Adventure Games

• In Epic Mickey, E-tickets are the main currency, and can be used to buy items as well as upgrade Mickey’s health and ink capacity
• Played with in Ōkami. Initially, you only use praise, the game's form of experience, to upgrade Amaterasu. However, once you upgraded all your stats and maxed out your praise, any praise you collected would be converted into yen, which can be used to buy items. Meanwhile, abilities could be learned at a dojo by paying yen.

Beat 'Em Up

• God Hand uses gold to buy techniques, learn Roulette Wheel moves, and upgrade stats. There is one use outside of just upgrades, and that is gambling to earn more money, which becomes essentially pointless once you’ve bought everything else in the game.
• In Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name, like Yakuza 0 money is used to buy new skills in combination with another resource called "Akame Points" gained from doing various miniquests.
• In Spider-Man: Friend or Foe, you could use the game's currency, called Tech Tokens, to buy items and also upgrade Spider-Man and his partner's abilities.
• In Viewtiful Joe, you could use V-points to increase Joe's health and buy new abilities as well as various items for healing and combat.
• Yakuza 0: Unlike the other entries in the series, skills are unlocked with money instead of experience points, fitting the game's setting of Japan's prosperous economic bubble period, where people had lots of money to throw around. The man who teaches you how to unlock skills calls this "investing in yourself".

Fighting Games

• In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Spirit Points are a currency exclusive to Story Mode, and are primarily used to upgrade Spirits, but can also be used to buy items and more Spirits.

Hack and Slash

• Deadpool (2013): DP is used to buy upgrades as well as weapons and ammo.
• In various Dynasty Warriors games and spinoffs, you can level up characters by spending money at a dojo in addition to fighting in battles. Some games would even let you raise their stats individually. However, you could not level your characters higher than the highest-level party member. This would save a lot of time from having to play stages over and over to level-grind each character. Money could serve various other purposes such as buying items and temporary buffs, but leveling up characters was typically the game's biggest Money Sink.
• In Hi-Fi RUSH, Gears are primarily used for buying abilities and upgrading Chai’s stats. You could also use them to purchase and upgrade chips, and you can eventually use them to purchase costumes for different characters.
• In Lollipop Chainsaw, medals could be used not only to buy health-restoring lollipops, but also upgrade the protagonist's health, attack power, and recovery, and also learn new moves.
• In many of the Ninja Gaiden games, yellow essence can be used to upgrade weapons as well as buying items.
• In No More Heroes, in addition to using money to pay off the hefty entry fee for fighting assassins and buying costumes, Travis Touchdown could also upgrade his stats at a dojo and upgrade his beam katana at a workshop.
• In Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time, in addition to using money to buy items and weapons, you could also use it to level up Jack's attack power with each weapon type. There was also a skill tree in this game, although that used a separate points system that could only be used for unlocking them.

Platform Game

• In Kirby and the Forgotten Land, Star Coins can be used to upgrade your Copy Abilities, in addition to a variety of other purposes, such as buying items and using the Gotcha Machine.
• In Shovel Knight, treasure can be used to buy upgrades in addition to a few other purposes.

Role-Playing Games

• Equipping the "Workman’s Wallet" accessory in Chrono Trigger allows you to convert experience into money, giving it a secondary use other than leveling up your party.
• In many of FromSoftware's role-playing games, such as Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Elden Ring, the game's currency (souls, blood echoes, and runes, respectively) doubles as the only method for leveling up the player's avatar. If the player dies, they drop all their money in the spot they died, which is lost permanently if the player is killed again before retrieving it. This makes it beneficial to buy as many items as possible in between leveling up so that you have less to lose in the event that you die trying to retrieve your lost money.
• Taking a leaf from the Dark Souls franchise, money in Darksiders III functions both for leveling up and buying items.
• Genshin Impact: Mora is used for almost everything from buying items at shops to leveling up weapons, artifacts, and characters. In the case of the latter, levelling up characters and equipment requires mora, drops from enemies and bosses, and regional items along with exp items.
• In Tales of Xillia, you can level up shops by spending money on their items. You could also donate money to give a higher portion than you would by buying items.
• In Yo-kai Watch Blasters, leveling up could only be done using Oni Orbs, which were also used to buy items and equipment.
• The Elder Scrolls:
  • Every game has skill trainers that take money in exchange for incrementing a skill stat upwards.
  • Downplayed with the Gold Is XP mod for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The mod changes the way levelling work by connecting XP progression to gold, but instead of requiring to buy new attributes from the actual in-game currency, it adds an XP bar that progresses every time you earn gold.
• In Lies of P, Ergo functions as the main currency in this game and is used to level up P in addition to buying items and equipment.
• In Patch 1.3.0 of Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Bonus EXP can be exchanged for valuable items with Traveling Bards.

Roguelike

• EVERSPACE is a space shooter roguelite that lets you spend leftover credits anytime you die, to upgrade your ships and give you a better starting point for your next runs.
• Hades: Chthonic Keys are mainly used to purchase upgrades at the Mirror of Night but can also be exchanged for items and other types of currency.
• In Rogue Legacy, leveling up typically requires getting enough money from the castle in each life, in order to spend it on rewards, such as stat boosts, armor, and runes. The prices for each raise incrementally, requiring more money each time to keep getting stronger.

Simulation

• In Roots of Pacha, your Contributions (the game's equivalent of money) add to the tribe's Prosperity, and they build new facilities around the village each time they reach enough of it. Some of them grant you temporary stat boosts such as the swings slightly boosting your foot speed.

Survival Horror

• In Resident Evil 4, 5, and Village, you could upgrade your weapons using whatever the game's currency was at the time. You could also use money to buy first aid sprays, although you wouldn't be able to buy very many due to the game's limited inventory space.
• In The Evil Within DLC The Executioner, you could use Memory Tokens to upgrade the Keeper's stats as well as buy ammunition for your weapons.

Tabletop Games

• In the earliest editions of Dungeons & Dragons picking up treasure was the main method for gaining Experience Points. The game revolved around dungeon adventures, crawling beneath the earth, avoiding peril, and lifting as much loot as you could before escaping with your hide. Overcoming (not just killing) monsters also gave experience, but comparatively little, and quest experience awards and other such things were not added in until the focus shifted from dungeon crawls.
• Homeworld Revelations, The Roleplaying Game of Homeworld, has player characters spending Resource Units to buy equipment and upgrades for their ship, and to improve their character attributes and skills.
• In the base game of Lancer pilots level up automatically after completing a mission, but "The Long Rim" supplement includes alternate rules for using manna, the currency Union uses for trade with subject polities that have yet to adopt a full Post-Scarcity Economy, to buy levels. Both a generalized 1,000 manna per level, and a more granulated version where skill and talent training, core upgrades, and mech licenses are bought separately.
• Mausritter: Player mice gain Experience Points by bringing treasure back from adventures to mouse settlements. They can also get extra XP by selflessly spending pips on improvements for the whole community.
• Warhammer Quest treats Gold as experience as well as the stuff you use to buy equipment and lodgings. The game justifies this by saying all that Gold in leveling up, that's to hire increasingly more legendary Warriors to train you as you advance and they don't come cheap. This is why ghosts are such a hated enemy, they're quite dangerous for low and even intermediate Warriors but uniquely ghosts don't drop any Gold so there's no benefit to fighting them.

Third Person Shooter

• In Splatoon 2, Power Eggs are usually used to upgrade your avatar's weapons in Story Mode. However, once you’ve upgraded all your weapons, you can exchange your eggs for meal tickets that can be used to earn more money or more EXP in multiplayer battles.
• In the Ratchet & Clank games, bolts are typically used to buy and upgrade weapons. You could also use bolts to refill health and ammo, but that was usually for a pitiful amount.

Turn Based Strategy

• Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance: Previous Disgaea entries required characters to be created with Mana; gained from defeating enemies (and the odd Potion now-and-again). In the fifth game, however, HL takes center stage as the primary means of character creation — Money determines both the competency of a character (essentially their overall stat growth and how many modifiers can be attached to said stats) and their initial starting level, which can be customized to varying degrees. Reincarnation however still requires Mana like previous titles.
• Phantom Brave: Creating characters cost the game's currency Bordeaux, the amount of Bordeaux put in determining how many modifier points can be assigned to a new Phantom's stats. Levelling up that Phantom increases the number of points that be put into a duplicate of that class; the money cost rising accordingly. Deleting all recruited instances of a single class from your army will reset those creation caps to default as though you'd never created that Phantom type at all.
• Telepath RPG: While gold can be used for things such as gambling, the main use for gold is to pay trainers to improve the stats of your characters.

Wide Open Sandbox

• Gratitude Points in Dragon Quest Builders 2 are primarily used for leveling up your towns and thus progressing the story on each island. Once an island is completed, any extra points you have are added to your overall total and can be used to both unlock smaller non-story islands, recipes at your builder's station, and (eventually) purchasing almost any item you want from the Builderpedia. However, regular experience points that level up the Builder do not have any secondary use.

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