History Main / ShopFodder

* ''Literature/ShangriaLaFrontier'': Notably averted. During his first session playing the titular game, Sunraku collects a range of item drops from monsters before heading to town to sell them. When he offers goblin swords to a blacksmith, the NPC [[UnexpectedlyRealisticGameplay refuses to buy them as they're useless junk not even worth melting down for scrap]].

* ''Franchise/SlyCooper'': From the [[VideoGame/Sly2BandOfThieves second game]] onwards, Sly can steal valuable items from enemies, which can be sold on [=ThiefNet=] for cash to purchase new skills for the trio. The third game cuts out the middleman and automatically sells the loot you get once you take it and adds its coin value to your wealth.

* ''Franchise/SlyCooper'': From the [[VideoGame/Sly2BandOfThieves second game]] onwards, Sly can steal valuable items from enemies, which can be sold for cash to purchase new skills for the trio.

* ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}}'': There are many items (Gold Nugget, Eyeball, Fang, Scales) whose only purpose is to be sold.* ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}}'': There are many items (Gold Nugget, Eyeball, Fang, Scales) whose only purpose is to be sold.

In-setting, this is often justified by making the Fodder something that might be valuable in real life, like a jeweled ring, a bar of gold, a piece of art or a historic artifact, but which has little or no practical use in combat or survival. It can also be justified if the game reveals what the merchants actually do with the bizarre things you sell them, which also allows for WorldBuilding -- for instance, even if you can't do anything with all those weird OrganDrops, a wizard might consider them to be valuable EyeOfNewt-type ingredients for his magic. In games that follow ColorCodedItemTiers, such items are almost always in grey color (junk tier) if it's not used for generic weapons.

* ''VideoGame/ANNOMutationem'': All manner of junk items are explicitly only meant to be sold for [[WeWillSpendCreditsInTheFuture credits]]. At [[PortTown Harbor Town]], Ann can be allowed to catch as many {{fish|ingMinigame}} from the water. Fish can be sold for a much higher price at shops than the usual materials she picks up around area, making by for easy money.

** The various Treasures, most of which was pottery and figurines. Issun recommends selling them, because what else would PhysicalGod Amaterasu need them for?

* ''VideoGame/FallenLondon'': The game's economy is based around having a very large amount of different currencies that can be traded for each other at various rates. You can always sell one currency item for Echoes and pence and buy up another currency item with it, although this is at a loss -- you can also exchange quantities of one currency in bulk for another, usually slightly increasing total value. That said, Rostygold, Nevercold Brass and Relics of the Fourth City are relatively useless/abundant enough to let you simply sell them off without a weight in your mind. That said, there is one particular situation in where the term is given a whole new meaning: Certain trades in Uncertified Scrap give you extremely rare and valuable items that are, nonetheless, rather useless in terms of actual storyline or storylet usage. Which leads to conversations between stars, velvet spun from the fur of a Master of the Bazaar (read: An eldritch being that runs the local BazaarOfTheBizarre), intel on where the princes of Hell are hiding and an entire intelligence network being sold for money because they were simply useless to you.

** ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight'' has an array of different jewels which you could only sell to the Librarian for cash. They're given a use in the Saturn port.

* ''VideoGame/BillyVsSNAKEMAN'' has "Treasure Items", most of which were initially only good for their sale price -- and they all had to be assessed from their "ash-covered" state before they could be sold (thankfully, even the lowest-value is always worth more than its assessment price). Some of these were initially useful for building Wasteland gear, and the rollout of [=PizzaWitch=] made a lot more of them usable for crafting, but Small Gems are still only resaleable.

* ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsOnline'' has two types of sellable items. The first is the standard kind dropped by various monsters, such as hides and ectoplasm. The second kind are various valuable, but useless, items [[VideoGameStealing stolen]] from containers and {{NPC}}s and sold to fences. These range from portable chamberpots and children's dolls to precious artifacts, but for some reason sell for more than any other type of item does.

* ''VideoGame/NiNoKuniCrossWorlds'': Although monsters do directly drop gold and there are a number of other ways to obtain it directly, one of the most popular ways is by fighting enemies which regularly drop coins or statues of varying gold values which have no use other than to be sold. Dark Magic Crystals, which are used for providing enhancements to weapons, also sell for 10,000 gold each, making them very appealing for selling for gold if you build up a stock of them, since you probably won't be using them all for enhancement due to the other requirements.

* ''VideoGame/RuneScape'': After the mining and smithing rework in 2019, monsters no longer drop melee armor and weapons that players can make. Instead they now drop salvage items whose only use is converting them into coins with alchemy or disassembling them for invention parts or selling them to other players.

** The game goes as far as color-coding its sellable items. If you see an item with its name in gray, you can rest assured its only purpose in the game is to be sold to vendors[[note]]If it's a piece of equipment, you ''can'' theoretically equip and use it but its stats will be so abysmal that past level 5 you won't want it. Otherwise it will be literally impossible to do anything with it other than sell it.[[/note]] One example is an item "[[http://www.wowhead.com/item=27442 Goldenscale Vendorfish]]," a rarely caught fish which sells for an impressive amount of money for its item level. There is so much of this in the game that there is more than one addon for the game that allows players to almost instantly auto-sell anything with a white or grey color to a vendor (and since most players have at least one mount that has vendors on it...)

** Because MagicVersusTechnology is a core game mechanic, what counts as ShopFodder in one playthrough (e.g. chemicals and machine parts as a mage, magical gear, weapons and armor as a technologist) can become extremely important in another (when playing as a technologist, chemicals and spare parts are used for ItemCrafting). Worse, once your affinity with one or the other is too high, the other shops refuse to deal with you anymore, meaning you can only sell it to junk merchants for much lower prices.

* ''VideoGame/BatenKaitos'': You take pictures of monsters and sell them for money. It's the only way to make cash as the Magnuses/Magni (magic cards holding the essence of something) dropped by enemies or found elsewhere sell for a pittance. There are some exceptions like the Chump Change that eventually change to Vintage Coints and then to Styx Passage Coins that can be sold for pretty penny or the Consolation Pay that sells for 30000. The series also features ''inversions'' of Vendor Trash: a certain magnus (Slight Debt) changes over time to the Debt with Interest, to the Snowballing Debt and finally the Debt Hell. Attempting to sell the Debt Hell will ''remove'' 5000 money from your possession.
* ''VideoGame/BetrayalAtKrondor'': You could collect plenty of shop fodder, and some in its sequel, ''VideoGame/ReturnToKrondor''. ''Return'' was perhaps notable for the fact that gems weren't shop fodder, because the game actually assigned a weight value to money. Vendors would automatically convert your coinage into lighter-weight gems. The large mid-game section where you're free to explore the coastal wilderness near Krondor without any easily-accessible vendors could easily lead to serious weight problems just from all the cash you weren't able to convert to gems (not to mention all the potion-making crap both your wizards were likely carrying around).

* ''VideoGame/DarkestDungeon'': Gems can be sold. This adds a layer of complexity, since [[InventoryManagementPuzzle your space for items is limited]] and you may have to choose between gems and greater rewards when finishing the quest, or supplies and a better chance of actually finishing said quest. Additionally, having the Antiquarian class in your party gives a chance to find antiques whenever other items are found, which also serve only to be sold.
* ''VideoGame/DarkSun'' games generally have either useful items, or junk with "0 cp" price tag that nobody will buy. But in ''Shattered Lands'' there is one trader in [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Gedron]], who buys and sells literal trash (broken pots, mostly) at huge prices. Unfortunately, he gets better when you [[{{Brainwashed}} save]] his village from [[ForTheEvulz evil wizard]].

* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'' contains plenty of sellable items. You may not want to sell off your unused gems, crafting supplies, and runes, as they can be used to give you an advantage in the final battle. But during your quest you'll also find things like blank vellum, silk carpets, and silver chalices, none of which serve any purpose except for selling.
* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'' automatically sorts all unusable loot into the "Junk Items" category, which can be emptied at any shop with a single click on "Sell all junk" button. You can also move useless armor and weapons to Junk to greatly simplify loot selling. The icon for the Junk Items category is even a trash can.
* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeInquisition'' settles halfway between its two predecessors -- the "junk" items still get sorted into a separate category, but so do items that are actually important, including research materials that can be turned in for damage bonuses against various enemies and in one level, items that you need to complete a sidequest.

*** Certain types of creature always drop a specific body part; fire beetles, for instance, drop fire beetle bellies. Shrubs and piles of rock typically yield fenberries and quartz crystals (though the piles of rock can hide more valuable gems). All of these sell for one gold apiece. But just when you've learned to recognize Vendor Trash in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 changes the rules... Now, there's one vendor who won't deal with you until you give her a sellable item (an 'arcane reagent') -- ''every single time'' you deal with her -- and you can also find out how to use some of them in ItemCrafting. But you still collect so many of them that they still by and large count as trash. At the same time, certain rare items from the first chapter, worth holding on to for their use in that chapter's ItemCrafting, now themselves become Vendor Trash, showing up everywhere. (But fire beetle bellies remain trash.)
*** Books. You can ransack the PamphletShelf for the same dozen or so books the world over. (And the occasional magic scroll.) Once you've read the page of setting-enhancing text once, they become pure Vendor Trash.
*** Gems exist solely to keep money in reserve so that when you die you don't lose too much dough. Admittedly, selling gems for money makes sense, but apart from diamonds (which are used in item crafting) they're rarely worth more than 100gp, which is a pitifully small amount of money when you get up to level 10.

** ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIDaggerfall'' has a number of "Misc Items" with no use beyond selling. These range from "light" items such as candles, lanterns, torches to holy tomes, holy daggers, and other objects don't appear to have any value other than for selling.

* ''VideoGame/EvilIslands'': Most non-human enemies can only be looted for body parts or accessories, rather than money, materials or usable items. However, each type is given a short lore description which explains why it is sellable and what the buyers would do with it. Rat tails, for example, make for a decent beer snack, when salted; fire crystals from elementals are turned into lamps and heaters, and banshee cloaks are believed to ward off evil spirits.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'': Your main source of income is selling "loot" dropped/poached/stolen from monsters and beasts. An enemy's entry in the bestiary frequently describes which items a monster drops and what they're used for, making the fact that they sell for decent money more plausible; you can even purchase monographs, which make enemies drop additional loot of much higher value than their usual drop tables. There's also the Bazaar system, where by selling certain loot items (not necessarily all at once), you get a special purchase offer of an item, usually at a reduced cost and sometimes before it's available in stores. Some items, usually powerful endgame equipment like the [[InfinityPlusOneSword Tournesol]], are exclusive to the Bazaar.
* ''VideoGame/FossilFighters'': Selling items is the quickest means of getting money You find "Jewel Rocks" over the world, and clean the rocks to sell the jewels inside. However, it ends up being somewhat "normal" in that, in order to claim a Jewel Rock, you must generally [[MoneySpider win a battle]] first.
* ''VideoGame/{{Geneforge}}'': All games have ''somebody'' who is looking for otherwise-useless Shaper equipment, Shaper records or iron bars. The amount of inventory weight they take up vs. the minuscule amount of money and XP you get for retrieving them means it's really only worth it very early on.
* ''VideoGame/{{Gothic}}'': You can collect certain items from dead animals like claws, fangs, talons, and skins after you learn the appropriate hunting skill. These items have no gameplay use other then sale to vendors.

* ''VideoGame/{{Krater}}'' has sellable items that include pinecones, dog hairs and very small rocks.

* ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic'': The RPG games have gems of different colours and value. They do not have any use except for selling them. In ''M&M VIII'', there are "shop tours'" you can buy or sell Tobersk fruit, Tobersk pulp or Tobersk Brandy from various merchants, making some profit.

** While on missions you can find such rare and valuable items as shiny shells, rare bugs, monster guts, fruit, mushrooms that have sat in the stomachs of giant bugs, and living fish made out of gold (no really, read the FlavorText). With a few exceptions, these items serve absolutely no purpose but for cash, and are sold off automatically when the mission ends. These are usually referred to as Account Items. A surprising number of them are described as delicacies. The general rule of thumb is: If the FlavorText describes the item as highly valuable and especially if it's followed up by "...but of no use to a Hunter", you can safely sell it without compromising an opportunity for new equipment, assuming the game doesn't sell it for you.

* ''VideoGame/PathOfExile'': The vendors themselves give you trash. You see, the game works on the barter system and there ''is'' no currency. So you can sell items for scraps that eventually combine into something relatively useful like an identify scroll.

* ''VideoGame/PlanetAlcatraz'' features a staggering number of clothing items that gives no stat bonus whatsoever (beggar clothing, tank tops, skirts, miniskirts, etc), as well as gerbil skins, mushrooms, etc that are only good for selling to merchants.

** Nuggets, Pearls, Stardust, Star Pieces, Tiny Mushrooms and Big Mushrooms are only good for selling in most of the series. The exceptions being that, in ''[=FireRed=]'' and ''[=LeafGreen=]'', Mushrooms are used in Sevii by the Mushroom Maniac Move Reminder, and in ''Platinum'' you can give Star Pieces to the guy at Fuego Ironworks in exchange for shards, which can in turn be given to Move Tutors in exchange for teaching Pokémon moves.

* ''VideoGame/StarWarsKnightsOfTheOldRepublic'': All spike tunnelers serve no purpose in the game (unlike [[VideoGame/StarWarsKnightsOfTheOldRepublicIITheSithLords the sequel]] where they are used for cracking locks), they can be sold for credits, since there is no penalty for bashing doors and locks open like there is in the sequel. Any items with no special attributes or modifiers are meant to be sold because of their uselessness.

* ''VideoGame/VandalHeartsIIHeavensGate'': The bullion (of gold), ingot, and the R (rare) metal are great to sell off, but no use whatsoever except to add weight. Even worse, there are items that doesn't even sell well, and just adds weight. Of course, there's a niche weapon with a niche skill that [[AwesomeButImpractical relies on your overall weight to damage enemies]]. You don't discover it until later in the game though, which means, most usually, you have sold those said items...
* ''VideoGame/{{Venetica}}'' features various jewelleries, golden tableware and other assorted antiques that have no purpose except to be sold for ducats at any vendor, especially antique dealers who will buy these items at twice the sale value.

* ''VideoGame/AncientDomainsOfMystery'': There are several clearly useless items, like the Scroll of Cure Blindness (to use it you must be able to read it, spot the problem?) or [[JokeItem the si]]. However, there is also a Potion of Uselessness which [[spoiler:grants the player a random artifact if thrown on the Level 49 of the main dungeon. It can only be used for this.]] As in ''VideoGame/NetHack'', shops can run out of money -- however, they eventually renew.

** [[UnusableEnemyEquipment Enemy equipment]] -- you can't wear most of the clothing that other races drop, seeing how it's too big or narrow for your dwarves. You ''can'' use most of the weapons, but they're usually poor-quality compared to what you can make locally or buy. However, depending on the material that it's made out of, traders will sometimes give you quite a bit of money for it. Metal items can also be melted down. As a result, goblin invaders were {{nerf}}ed to wear leather armor, which had the perverse effect of making defending the fortress ''harder'' on metal-poor maps despite the weaker enemy armor.

** There's also stuff you can create that exists largely to be sold to merchants: Jewellery, toys, drinking vessels etc. Turning a few hundred of those useless quartzite rocks lying around into A Present From Boatmurdered +quartzite mugs+ can be very profitable. It does, however, become odd when vendor-trash material like golden salve or barrels of blood get brought to your fortress ''by'' vendors, especially if you then spend hundreds of dwarfbucks on useless barrels of golden salve without knowing what it's for.

* ''VideoGame/{{Elona}}'': Killed monsters will sometimes drop [[OrganDrops a bone, skin, heart or bottle of blood]]. The only use for these is selling to merchant. However, shopkeepers have limited gold, which prevents you from abusing this too much.

* ''VideoGame/NetHack'' restricts things by limiting the amount of cash each storekeeper actually has to buy your junk. Once that's depleted, the value of the trash is vastly depleted and you can only get store credit. [[WeBuyAnything General Stores]] are the friends here, where you can sell all the random encounter crud -- including the elf armor, the elf weapon, the elf shield and the elf ''corpse''. (Well, it beats eating it -- sometimes...) The best type of shop fodder is gems -- but you have to have magically identified which are valuable and which are just glass, otherwise the shopkeepers buy them priced as glass, and sell them priced as emeralds, amethysts, [[ShoutOut dilithium crystals]] or whatever...

* ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossing'' revolves entirely around items that can be sold. Harvest fruit from trees, catch fish from the sea or the river, gather seashells on the beach, catch bugs in your net, dig fossils out of the ground and have a paleontologist clean them up, and then you sell it all. Some of this stuff -- like large fossils in good condition, large and rare fish or insects, or gold nuggets -- is genuinely valuable in and of itself. However, Tom Nook and, in later games, the Nooklings have a policy of buying ''anything'', and a lot of the stuff you'll sell their shop consist of seashells, clumps of weeds, rusty cans, old tires, old boots, random bugs... this is at least {{Justified|Trope}} in ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossingNewHorizons'' by how even the junk items can be used in ItemCrafting (weeds, for example, can now be used to make certain types of plant-based decorative items), meaning all the forms you sell actually have uses now.

* ''VideoGame/{{Elite}}'' and games like it (''{{Pirates}}'', ''VideoGame/EscapeVelocity'', etc...) have this as the basis of the merchant and pirate occupations. Buy low, sell high. Typically, of all goods the only one you can use is fuel, if it isn't sold separately from normal goods, and there are contraband goods which are game-influencing in that being caught with it may get you fined or fired upon. The rest differs only in prices and places where prices are high/low--or, in the case of ''Escape Velocity''[='s=] "jünk" resources, the few places where they can be bought and sold at all.

* ''VideoGame/{{Freelancer}}'' has shop fodder in the form of commodities such as food, fuel, light weapons and even oxygen and water. It's only good for freighter builds, since for everyone else it is a bloody waste of time to loot a tradeship.

* ''VideoGame/HarvestTown'': A lot of the workshop items, such as crafts, jewelry and (surprisingly) medicine, can't be used as anything aside from filling orders and/or being sold at the Goods Stall. Some of them can be given to [=NPCs=] for extra fondness, but most of the items they like require a high Manor level to create that by the time you can start creating the items, your {{Relationship Value|s}} with the desired NPC would probably be at maximum level already, so there's no point wasting expensive items on them.

* ''VideoGame/TomodachiLife'' has "treasures" that you can get as prizes from winning a Mii's game or beating the boss in the Tomodachi Quest mini game. Said treasures are completely random objects like basketballs, rocks, brooms, and so on. Miis that are in love with another Mii can be given a treasure to woo their potential partner, but beyond that, treasures only exist to be sold at the pawn shop. The rare treasures like gold bars and statue busts are worth a ton of money, which can help if you plan to send a Mii on a trip to outer space (costing $9999.99).

* ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'' has various treasures scattered around the place whose only purpose is to sell to the merchant for money, which can then be used to buy and upgrade weapons. Several treasures can be combined to form new items which are worth more than the sum of their parts, too. Luckily, they take up no inventory room and are listed separately from key items[[note]]they even have [[SoundCodedForYourConvenience different pickup sounds]][[/note]], so you know you won't regret selling them later, and the compound treasure items point out in their description that they seem to be parts of a whole.
* ''Franchise/DeadSpace'' has gold, ruby and diamond superconductors, which exist solely for the sake of being sold for a hefty price.

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'': As a rule, a lot of the miscellanous loot found in dungeons, monster lairs, villains' holdfasts, or passersby's pockets will consist of treasure, artifacts, curios and assorted trinkets with no intended use beyond being worth a lot of money.

** This was {{lampshade|Hanging}}d by no less than Creator/GaryGygax himself in the 1st Edition ''Dungon Master's Guide''. Gygax pointed out that things like flasks of oil, the weapons and armor belonging to human enemies, and pack animals could all be resold for decent prices, even if the enemies the players are looting didn't otherwise have a lot of cash on hand.

** Modules both old and new have all sorts of unusual things that have treasure values. These range from gemstones, jewelry and goblets to statuettes, paintings and vases to rare clothes and furs. Most of them aren't of any practical use to adventurers, and serve as Shop Fodder to increase the amount of treasure the players acquire.

** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemMysteryOfTheEmblem'': In Book II, you occasionally find Silver Axes, and never recruit anybody who can equip them. In the DS remake you do get several axe fighters, and the Silver Axes are replaced with what they were worth in the first place: gold.

** Many alien items have little or no use for the player, but can be sold for big bucks. Of course, it's not hard to imagine why various civilian and military bodies would be quite interested in mind-reading devices. Alien corpses can also be sold for a pretty penny (though you do want to research your first one to unlock a tech), which leads to the question of what these people are doing with all these dead aliens...
** ''X-COM: Apocalypse'' has several items which were originally supposed to have an in-game use, but was never implemented. One of these things is Psiclone, a narcotic implant often found by gangs and cults in the city (which can lead to X-COM raiding gangs, stealing their drugs, and selling off the take to fund their operations.)
** In the reboot ''VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown'', some stuff you can find in [=UFOs=], like alien surgery tables or damaged flight computers, are only useful as source of cash when you sell them. In a rare display of benevolence from the interface, the player is explicitly notified that those items have no research benefits and should be sold. [[StormingTheCastle Raiding the headquarters]] of [[LesCollaborateurs EXALT]] in ''[[ExpansionPack Enemy Within]]'' nets you a number of objects such as art pieces, historical relics and intel that can be sold for a decent amount of cash.

* ''VideoGame/NoMansSky'' has several categories of items that have no use for the player aside from being sold for units. There are various types of slimes usually found clogging damaged machinery worth only paltry sums of units, various archaeological curios that fetch quite a sum and commodities which can be bought cheaply in a system that produces them to be sold in another where they are in high demand.

* ''VideoGame/Yakuza0'' and ''VideoGame/{{Judgment}}'' has Plates, items which are commonly found in substories or by helping victims in the streets, and which serve no other purpose than to be sold. ''VideoGame/{{Yakuza|1}} Kiwami'' has one mission where you need a plate (for a dog to drink from), but they're equally useless after that (and even then, you could just sell your gold plates anyway and buy an iron plate that's 1000 times cheaper when you need it).

** The game goes as far as color-coding its sellable items. If you see an item with its name in gray, you can rest assured its only purpose in the game is to be sold to vendors[[note]]If it's a piece of equipment, you ''can'' theoretically equip and use it but its stats will be so abysmal that past level 5 you won't want it. Otherwise it will be literally impossible to do anything with it other than sell it.[[/note]] One example is an item "[[http://www.wowhead.com/item=27442 Goldenscale Vendorfish]]," a rarely caught fish which sells for an impressive amount of money for its item level.

* ''VideoGame/BillyVsSNAKEMAN'' has "Treasure Items", most of which were initially only good for their sale price - and they all had to be assessed from their "ash-covered" state before they could be sold (thankfully, even the lowest-value is always worth more than its assessment price). Some of these were initially useful for building Wasteland gear, and the rollout of [=PizzaWitch=] made a lot more of them usable for crafting, but Small Gems are still only resaleable.

* ''VideoGame/ForumWarz'' has an entire item category of shop fodder called "Useless Junk". The value of the items ranges from the marble, which sells for only 1 unit of currency, to the nude Mary Magdalene, which sells for over 5000. To avoid quest items being mistaken for useless junk, they cannot be sold. Why is it necessary to make quest items unsellable? Because otherwise you couldn't tell the difference - many of the quest items look, from the descriptions, utterly pointless...

* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeInquisition'' settles halfway between its two predecessors - the "junk" items still get sorted into a separate category, but so do items that are actually important, including research materials that can be turned in for damage bonuses against various enemies and in one level, items that you need to complete a sidequest.

* ''VideoGame/AncientDomainsOfMystery'': There are several clearly useless items, like the Scroll of Cure Blindness (to use it you must be able to read it, spot the problem?) or [[JokeItem the si]]. However, there is also a Potion of Uselessness which [[spoiler: grants the player a random artifact if thrown on the Level 49 of the main dungeon. It can only be used for this.]] As in ''VideoGame/NetHack'', shops can run out of money -- however, they eventually renew.

** [[UnusableEnemyEquipment Enemy equipment]] - you can't wear most of the clothing that other races drop, seeing how it's too big or narrow for your dwarves. You ''can'' use most of the weapons, but they're usually poor-quality compared to what you can make locally or buy. However, depending on the material that it's made out of, traders will sometimes give you quite a bit of money for it. Metal items can also be melted down. As a result, goblin invaders were {{nerf}}ed to wear leather armor, which had the perverse effect of making defending the fortress ''harder'' on metal-poor maps despite the weaker enemy armor.

* ''VideoGame/NetHack'' restricts things by limiting the amount of cash each storekeeper actually has to buy your junk. Once that's depleted, the value of the trash is vastly depleted and you can only get store credit. [[WeBuyAnything General Stores]] are the friends here, where you can sell all the random encounter crud - including the elf armor, the elf weapon, the elf shield and the elf ''corpse''. (Well, it beats eating it - sometimes...) The best type of shop fodder is gems - but you have to have magically identified which are valuable and which are just glass, otherwise the shopkeepers buy them priced as glass, and sell them priced as emeralds, amethysts, [[ShoutOut dilithium crystals]] or whatever...

-->'''Jayna Stiles''': But... if they’re in good enough condition to sell... and the trash can is only about thirty feet from the shop...\\
'''Gar the Orc''': I know.

* ''VideoGame/Fallout3'' supplies vast amounts of useless to marginally useful clutter around the environment and in containers. You only get one ally to load up with unreadable books and unsmokeable cigarettes, but fortunately stacks of Pre-War Money have zero encumbrance. Most of the junk can be used as ammunition for the Rock-It Launcher.
-->'''WebVideo/KilianExperience:''' When asked to describe ''Fallout 3'', Bethesda said it was a game where you sneak into strangers' houses and steal stuff you can't actually use. I wanted to know if there was more to it than that, and... no. No, there is not.

* ''VideoGame/FallenLondon'': The game's economy is based around having a very large amount of different currencies that can be traded for each other at various rates. You can always sell one currency item for Echoes and pence and buy up another currency item with it, though this is at a loss - you can also exchange quantities of one currency in bulk for another, usually slightly increasing total value. That said, Rostygold, Nevercold Brass and Relics of the Fourth City are relatively useless/abundant enough to let you simply sell them off without a weight in your mind. That said, there is one particular situation in where the term is given a whole new meaning: Certain trades in Uncertified Scrap give you extremely rare and valuable items that are, nonetheless, rather useless in terms of actual storyline or storylet usage. Which leads to conversations between stars, velvet spun from the fur of a Master of the Bazaar (read: An eldritch being that runs the local BazaarOfTheBizarre), intel on where the princes of Hell are hiding and an entire intelligence network being sold for money because they were simply useless to you.

In-setting, this is often justified by making the Fodder something that might be valuable in real life, like a jeweled ring, a bar of gold, a piece of art or a historic artifact, but which has little or no practical use in combat or survival. It can also be justified if the game reveals what the merchants actually do with the bizarre things you sell them, which also allows for WorldBuilding -- for instance, even if you can't do anything with all those weird OrganDrops, a wizard might consider them to valuable EyeOfNewt-type ingredients for his magic. In games that follow ColorCodedItemTiers, such items are almost always in grey color (junk tier) if it's not used for generic weapons.

This can be {{Justified}} if the Fodder is something that might be valuable in real life like a jeweled ring or a bar of gold. It can also be justified if the game reveals what the merchants actually do with the bizarre things you sell them, which also allows for WorldBuilding. In games that follow ColorCodedItemTiers, such items are almost always in grey color (junk tier) if it's not used for generic weapons.

** The game has four different types of relics that can be sold to Lemm, each with its own price -- Wanderer's Journals sell for a little, Hallownest Seals for a modest amount, King's Idols for a lot, and Arcane Eggs for a small fortune. Unlike most games, it's advisable NOT to sell them immediately, and instead hold onto them until you're actually planning on buying something -- geo is lost on death, but the relics themselves aren't. Lemm will also give a lore blurb when selling some relics.

* ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaHarmonyOfDissonance'': Jewels exist solely to be sold, though the things are so rare you have to wonder why they bothered.

** Books. You can ransack the PamphletShelf for the same dozen or so books the world over. (And the occasional magic scroll.) Once you've read the page of setting-enhancing text once, they become pure Vendor Trash.

** ''VideoGame/BaldursGate3''': "Valuables" are an assortment of items that can be obtained as loot -- various gemstones, bronze, silver, gold, and mithral ingots, a variety of silver table settings, paintings, incense, and assorted trinkets and curios -- that serve no practical purpose whatsoever, but which traders will purchase for high prices.

** In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaPhantomHourglass'', there's a whole line of treasure items (Goron Amber, Ruto Crown, etc.) that are nothing ''but'' shop fodder. The exact amount for each item varies from game to game and there is a way to trade these items between games to increase your profit. Treasures return in the sequel ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSpiritTracks Spirit Tracks]]'', but this time you can also trade them for ship parts.
* ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'':
** ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight'' has an array of different jewels which you could only sell to the Librarian for cash. They're given a use in the Saturn port.
** Jewels in ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaHarmonyOfDissonance'' exist solely to be sold, though the things are so rare you have to wonder why they bothered.
* In ''VideoGame/TheGameOfTheAges'', you ''struggle'' to sell an old life preserver you found. You eventually get a single coin for it, a coin that proves essential.
* The large refractors you find in ''VideoGame/MegaManLegends2'' are only good for selling for some cash. Even though the description ''explicitly states this'', many players remembered back to the first game where the large refractors were important PlotCoupons and were reluctant to sell them, thinking they might ultimately find some manner of machine to stick them in.
* ''VideoGame/BraveFencerMusashi'' had some fun with the concept, as you find items in dungeons but need to have them appraised before they can be used. They will always have a vague, and often misleading, description based on what Musashi thought it was when he picked it up. The Old Shield turns out to just be a frisbee and the Helmet turns out to be a bedpan ([[{{Squick}} let's hope he didn't try it on]]), while things like the "Ugly Belt" turns out to be the L-Belt which lets him DoubleJump. The "treasure" that ends up being worthless and mundane junk is only worth selling to Connors for some extra money.

* ''VideoGame/HollowKnight'':
** The game has four different types of relics that can be sold to Lemm, each with its own price. Unlike most games, it's advisable NOT to sell them immediately, and instead hold onto them until you're actually planning on buying something as to avoid the consequence of lost geo on death. Lemm will also give a lore blurb when selling some relics.
** In a normal playthrough, [[AntiFrustrationFeatures you can give Rancid Eggs to Confessor Jiji to retrieve your Shade.]] In the game's FinalDeathMode (where you cannot retrieve your Shade), Confessor Jiji is replaced by Steel Soul Jinn, who offers you money for the eggs. [[spoiler:In the same mode, Tuk (the NPC in the Royal Waterways who sells you Rancid Eggs) is dead so you cannot abuse this feature for infinite money.]]

* Shop fodder is almost everywhere in ''VideoGame/{{Dishonored}}'', but for simplicity's sake it is instantly converted to money the moment you grab it, so you never have to explicitly sell it.

* ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing'':
** Items like "fancy seashell necklaces" can be bought to enable one to convert non-exchangeable currencies into the GlobalCurrency.
* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'':
** The game goes as far as color-coding its sellable items. If you see an item with its name in gray, you can rest assured its only purpose in the game is to be sold to vendors[[note]]If it's a piece of equipment, you ''can'' theoretically equip and use it but its stats will be so abysmal that past level 5 you won't want it. Otherwise it will be literally impossible to do anything with it other than sell it.[[/note]] One example is an item "[[http://www.wowhead.com/item=27442 Goldenscale Vendorfish]]," a rarely caught fish which sells for an impressive amount of money for its item level.
** Some so-called shop fodder can be sold to vendors for more than even legendary weapons, though these are fairly rare items contained within the daily fishing quest grab-bag. The [[http://www.wowhead.com/item=34823 Beautiful Glass Eye]] goes for 18 gold pieces, while the [[http://www.wowhead.com/item=34822 Ancient Coins]] go for 25!
** ''Mists of Pandaria'' simplified the sellable items somewhat as well. Now, pretty much everything that drops it only has two sellable items they can drop (different specific items depending on the type of monster), one being very common and worth a couple silver each, and the other being considerably rarer and worth several gold apiece. Examples of the latter tend to include handy flavor text explaining why the vendor has a use for the item, even though the player doesn't.
* ''VideoGame/GuildWars2'' has a reason for why; every piece of trash has "Trophy" below its name, implying that when you sell something useless to an adventurer like yourself, you're giving it to a merchant to pawn off on someone as basically a dust collector or a conversations starter. On the other hand, the game admits to the nature of these items with an achievement track called "Trash Collector".
* The net-based game ''VideoGame/ForumWarz'' has an entire item category of shop fodder called "Useless Junk". The value of the items ranges from the marble, which sells for only 1 unit of currency, to the nude Mary Magdalene, which sells for over 5000. To avoid quest items being mistaken for useless junk, they cannot be sold. Why is it necessary to make quest items unsellable? Because otherwise you couldn't tell the difference - many of the quest items look, from the descriptions, utterly pointless...
* The MMORPG ''Tales of Pirates'' has Trade Items, which can only be used for buying in one port and selling it for more money in a different port.
* ''VideoGame/PuzzlePirates'' features Fruit (everything else is useful for, well, a ''trade'', since tradeskills are literally half of the game).
* ''VideoGame/RuneScape'': After the mining and smithing rework in 2019, monsters no longer drop melee armor and weapons that players can make. Instead they now drop salvage items whose only use is converting them into coins with alchemy or disassembling them for invention parts or selling them to other players.
* ''VideoGame/MapleStory'' has sellable items with a very appropriate name of "etc items." While some etc items are needed for [[TwentyBearAsses quests]], there are many others that will never be used for anything but selling. Most are pretty standard but there are a few that are really bizarre like soiled rags, a fish's thoughts, werewolf toenails, and zombie teddy bears. Notably the design of the game has evolved to phase this out as a concept, and you can tell how old an area is by if the monsters have etc drops or if they just drop currency instead.

* In ''VideoGame/DreamOfMirrorOnline'', if it wasn't used for a quest or for alchemy, it was most likely meant to be sold; this was the main source of income as the money you got from finishing most quests was abysmal.
* Gems in ''VideoGame/LEGOUniverse'' are completely worthless to players, but they can be sold to vendors. Depending on the color of the gem, you can receive anywhere from a measly 10 coins to a grand 50,000 coins by selling these gems.
* There is a gigantic variety of items you can loot in ''VideoGame/WildStar'', and given their convenient Vacuum Loot feature which sucks up all the loot in an area, you can collect the strangest of things without realizing it. These could be looted jewelry and knickknacks from your enemies, scraps of their equipment, [[OrganDrops their body parts]], and ''anyone'' [[WeBuyAnything will buy them.]]
* ''VideoGame/FallenLondon'': The game's economy is based around having a very large amount of different currencies that can be traded for each other at various rates. You can always sell one currency item for Echoes and pence and buy up another currency item with it, though this is at a loss - you can also exchange quantities of one currency in bulk for another, usually slightly increasing total value. That said, Rostygold, Nevercold Brass and Relics of the Fourth City are relatively useless/abundant enough to let you simply sell them off without a weight in your mind. That said, there is one particular situation in where the term is given a whole new meaning: Certain trades in Uncertified Scrap give you extremely rare and valuable items that are, nonetheless, rather useless in terms of actual storyline or storylet usage. Which leads to conversations between stars, velvet spun from the fur of a Master of the Bazaar (read: An eldritch being that runs the local BazaarOfTheBizarre), intel on where the princes of Hell are hiding and an entire intelligence network being sold for money because they were simply useless to you.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' contains several sellable items, all helpfully identified with the phrase "Exchangeable for gil" in their FlavorText. The most obvious would be the Allagan <some-metal> Pieces typically given as alternatives alongside more material rewards the player might not need, which are literally currency once used by the local {{Precursors}}. As an oblique measure against RealMoneyTrade, these items retain the original 99-per-slot {{Cap}} and were not affected when patch 4.2 increased the cap to 999 for everything else.

* Although monsters in ''VideoGame/NiNoKuniCrossWorlds'', do directly drop gold and there are a number of other ways to obtain it directly, one of the most popular ways is by fighting enemies which regularly drop coins or statues of varying gold values which have no use other than to be sold. Dark Magic Crystals, which are used for providing enhancements to weapons, also sell for 10,000 gold each, making them very appealing for selling for gold if you build up a stock of them, since you probably won't be using them all for enhancement due to the other requirements.

* ''{{VideoGame/Arcanum}}'':

* ''VideoGame/WeirdAndUnfortunateThingsAreHappening'' has a whole slew of collectible items that only exist to be sold to the shopkeepers (mainly [[CollectorOfTheStrange Erick]]), with “sell to a collector” appearing at the end of their descriptions. Notably, this is the ''only'' way to reliably get dollars to buy weapons and charms, as enemies only drop [[FictionalCurrency obols]], which are instead used for other things like unlocking abilities for your party.
* In ''VideoGame/StarWarsKnightsOfTheOldRepublic'', all spike tunnelers serve no purpose in the game (unlike [[VideoGame/StarWarsKnightsOfTheOldRepublicIITheSithLords the sequel]] where they are used for cracking locks), they can be sold for credits, since there is no penalty for bashing doors and locks open like there is in the sequel. Any items with no special attributes or modifiers are meant to be sold because of their uselessness.
* ''VideoGame/HorizonZeroDawn'' and its sequel ''VideoGame/HorizonForbiddenWest'' have a lot of loot items that are only usable for trading to merchants. In a slight twist on the trope while some items are only tradable for [[PracticalCurrency shards]] others are also required to barter for gear upgrades.
* ''VideoGame/OctopathTraveler'': A variety of trinkets and miscellaneous items can be found and stolen from [=NPCs=] that are only good for selling for money. These junk items range from a "Silver-Filled Pouch" sold for 8,000g to a "Dirty Ball of Cloth" sold for 2g.
* ''VideoGame/SagaFrontier'' has the gold ingots. Those can be used in the Takonomics glitch that involved the manipulation of the gold market via the shop at Koorong [[labelnote: note]]the price of gold goes down as you sell ingots and back up as you buy, but this calculation is (erroneously) made ''before'' any actual physical inventory changes hand. You can therefore manipulate the gold market in the shop menu such that when you actually sell your gold, you get more money back. Then you travel to Nelson, where gold ingots are always sold at a fixed price. Rinse and repeat.[[/labelnote]] and then you will have all the money you'll ever need.
* ''VideoGame/TalesOfPhantasia'': Tapestries, Ukiyo-e paintings, corals, tea cups, pieces of ebony wood, marble fragments, etc. pretty much only exists to be sold at shops for profit. The one exception are the ivory tusks that can be exchanged in a secret shop located on an island for Mahjong pieces, powerful battle items.

* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrails'':
** If you are short on mira, you can convert some of your unneeded sepith to pay for needed gear. Considering that they are capped at 9999 in the [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsInTheSky Liberl]] and [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsFromZero Crossbell]] games, there is no harm in doing this every now and then.
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsOfColdSteel'' has monsters drop crystals called sepith rather than money. Sepith can be traded for money, or used directly to acquire items and upgrades in certain shops. It also has sepith mass, which is a cruder form of sepith that can only be exchanged for money. The main purpose of the latter is so that the player can acquire money without having to exchange normal sepith, which makes it easier to save up for things that can only be bought with sepith.
* ''VideoGame/BreathOfFireDragonQuarter'', being a roguelike-influenced game, has a lot of randomly generated, unidentified items to find throughout. Most of these have mediocre or redundant effects, but nearly all sell for a good amount of cash (much moreso than the actual, designated vendor shop fodder, which eat up valuable inventory space and give so little money they aren't even worth bothering with), so it's worth keeping them around just to pawn them off for more resources at the next shop you reach.
* ''VideoGame/MasterOfTheMonsterLair'': Animal enemies will often drop pelts, while humanoid enemies will sometimes drop rare coins.
%%* ''VideoGame/QuestForGloryV'': The designers were going to let players use bows and arrows for the first time in the series, but the game was rushed to market and thus the feature had to be [[DummiedOut cut]]. The player can still find arrows on defeated enemies, but since there's no way to ever obtain a bow they ended up becoming this trope. %%"Becoming this trope" could mean anything.
* Gems can be sold in ''VideoGame/DarkestDungeon''. This adds a layer of complexity, since [[InventoryManagementPuzzle your space for items is limited]] and you may have to choose between gems and greater rewards when finishing the quest, or supplies and a better chance of actually finishing said quest. Additionally, having the Antiquarian class in your party gives a chance to find antiques whenever other items are found, which also serve only to be sold.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Faria}}'', collecting jewels and selling them to the jeweler in Somusa is a good way to make money, since jewels, unlike useful items, can be sold for 90% of their regular purchase value.
* ''VideoGame/{{Opoona}}'' has several items to sell. Gems, which can sometimes be found when doing the cleaning side-missions, can be sold as-is to a shop, or to a specific NPC, whose price for Gems changes day to day. Medals can be won from the cheapest [[GoldenSaucer Artihella]] stand, and can be sold back to shops to make back money from the stand. (There's even a hidden shopkeeper hiding in Artihella who's explicitly there to perform under-the-table medal trades.) Finally, some of the {{Rare Random Drop}}s the monsters have are very ''expensive'' pieces of shop fodder, with the most expensive being the Raffelesia.
* ''VideoGame/MonsterRacers'' contains bronze, silver, and gold ingots. In fact, you're more likely to receive them as prizes and in treasure chests than you are actual money! That's probably because it's [[LikeRealityUnlessNoted set in our world]], and attempts to avert GlobalCurrency. Of course, that still leaves the question of why the world is full of random pieces of metal just lying around...
* In ''VideoGame/SouthParkTheStickOfTruth'': The game is littered with garbage that serves no other purpose than to be sold to vendors. Ceramic shards, broken bulbs, pieces of plastic, used syringes, cardboard tubes, pubes, goo, splinters, tap shoes, etc are only a few of the list of ridiculously useless garbage that you can pick up to sell.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}}'', there are many items (Gold Nugget, Eyeball, Fang, Scales) whose only purpose is to be sold.

* ''VideoGame/BugFables'' has Dark Cherries, which are scattered all over the world buried underground, but cannot be eaten and exist mostly to be sold, with even the description encouraging the player to sell it with InUniverse justification that "collectors will buy them for a big price". [[spoiler:[[SubvertedTrope However,]] it can also be used for cooking, making either a powerful bomb that can inflict random status effect, a powerful healing item that can restore the entire party's HP and TP, the best TP recovery item, and an item that can revive the entire party.]]
* In ''VideoGame/{{Gothic}}'', you can collect certain items from dead animals like claws, fangs, talons, and skins after you learn the appropriate hunting skill. These items have no gameplay use other then sale to vendors.

** Items as Nuggets, Pearls, Stardust, and Tiny Mushrooms are only good for selling in most of the series. The exceptions being that in ''[=FireRed=]'' and ''[=LeafGreen=]'', Mushrooms are used in Sevii by the Mushroom Maniac Move Reminder, and in ''Platinum'' you can give Star Pieces to the guy at Fuego Ironworks in exchange for shards, which can in turn be given to Move Tutors in exchange for teaching Pokémon moves.
** The ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeon'' series has the "Gold Ribbons" and the "Lost Loot" for the sake of selling for money.

* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'':
** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIDaggerfall Daggerfall]]'' has a number of "Misc Items" with no use beyond selling. These range from "light" items such as candles, lanterns, torches to holy tomes, holy daggers, and other objects don't appear to have any value other than for selling.
** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]'' adds hundreds of more items with uses (such as "light" items which can now be held in the off-hand to illuminate dark areas, as well as items such as scrap metal, chunks of ore, and the like which are now alchemical ingredients) but also includes plenty of shop fodder as well. Dinnerware, silverware, empty bottles, musical instruments, etc. cannot be used in any way beyond as decorations, though all are at least worth 1 gold if sold to a merchant.
** In ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion]]'', the world is filled with objects that you can pick up, add to your inventory and sell. Most of them have no in-game function except as props and shop fodder. However, some items that appear to be shop fodder can actually start a quest.
** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'' features shop fodder that is (probably unintentionally) more trashy than usual: a throwaway clothing item, "Gloves," which is valued at only 1 coin. Probably because it's ''two left gloves.''[[note]]The artist was probably in a hurry and just duplicated the object because who is going to actually look at a pair of gloves? Hopefully not the vendor![[/note]]

** In ''VideoGame/RaidouKuzunohaVsTheSoullessArmy'', Raidou can acquire "artifacts", such as old coins and pottery, that are only useful when you sell them to Konnou-Ya, the crotchety old owner of the store that shares his name.

*** In ''VideoGame/Persona3'', coins you get by killing the game's MetalSlime are usually worth a lot of money, and some of the items dropped by bosses are only there for you to sell.
*** In ''VideoGame/Persona4'', your first visit to the only equipment shop has the owner tell you explicitly that items dropped by enemies are useless to you and should be sold to him. A nice touch for those [[GuideDangIt worried]] about selling anything for fear of missing something later on. As an additional reason to do so, new weapons and armor become buyable if you sell certain amounts of stuff to the shop.

* ''VideoGame/BreathOfFireIII'' has Antiquities that could be sold to any store for money, or to a specific store for ''more'' money. However, one of them (the Flower Jewel) is needed to get a certain master to help your party, so don't sell it.
* ''VideoGame/PlanetAlcatraz'' features a staggering number of clothing items that gives no stat bonus whatsoever (beggar clothing, tank tops, skirts, miniskirts, etc), as well as gerbil skins, mushrooms, etc that are only good for selling to merchants.

* ''Shadow Madness'', a Playstation [=RPG=], had entire ''barrels'' of useless geegaws (farming tools, toys, etc.) that would get you loads of money if sold to specific shops. [[GuideDangIt The game gives you no clue about this]].
* Your main source of income in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'' is selling "loot" dropped/poached/stolen from monsters and beasts. An enemy's entry in the bestiary frequently describes which items a monster drops and what they're used for, making the fact that they sell for decent money more plausible; you can even purchase monographs, which make enemies drop additional loot of much higher value than their usual drop tables. There's also the Bazaar system, where by selling certain loot items (not necessarily all at once), you get a special purchase offer of an item, usually at a reduced cost and sometimes before it's available in stores. Some items, usually powerful endgame equipment like the [[InfinityPlusOneSword Tournesol]], are exclusive to the Bazaar.
* In ''VideoGame/BatenKaitos'', you take pictures of monsters and sell them for money. It's the only way to make cash as the Magnuses/Magni (magic cards holding the essence of something) dropped by enemies or found elsewhere sell for a pittance. There are some exceptions like the Chump Change that eventually change to Vintage Coints and then to Styx Passage Coins that can be sold for pretty penny or the Consolation Pay that sells for 30000. The series also features ''inversions'' of Vendor Trash: a certain magnus (Slight Debt) changes over time to the Debt with Interest, to the Snowballing Debt and finally the Debt Hell. Attempting to sell the Debt Hell will ''remove'' 5000 money from your possession.
* ''VideoGame/{{Mother}}'':
** Chickens, rulers, and protractors in ''VideoGame/EarthBound1994''. Luckily the game also has a "For Sale" sign which causes random people to wander up to you and [[WeBuyAnything buy your things]]. There's also the semi-rare Meteotite, which is dropped by some enemies and (as the description states) doesn't do anything but can be sold for a high price. And then there's the Insignificant Item... though it actually has a use.
** The Meteotite appears in the sequel, ''VideoGame/Mother3'', with the same purpose as in the game's predecessor: selling for money.

* You could collect plenty of shop fodder in ''VideoGame/BetrayalAtKrondor'', and some in its sequel, ''VideoGame/ReturnToKrondor''. ''Return'' was perhaps notable for the fact that gems weren't shop fodder, because the game actually assigned a weight value to money. Vendors would automatically convert your coinage into lighter-weight gems. The large mid-game section where you're free to explore the coastal wilderness near Krondor without any easily-accessible vendors could easily lead to serious weight problems just from all the cash you weren't able to convert to gems (not to mention all the potion-making crap both your wizards were likely carrying around).
* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'' contains plenty of sellable items. You may not want to sell off your unused gems, crafting supplies, and runes, as they can be used to give you an advantage in the final battle. But during your quest you'll also find things like blank vellum, silk carpets, and silver chalices, none of which serve any purpose except for selling.
* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'' automatically sorts all unusable loot into the "Junk Items" category, which can be emptied at any shop with a single click on "Sell all junk" button. You can also move useless armor and weapons to Junk to greatly simplify loot selling. The icon for the Junk Items category is even a trash can.
* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeInquisition'' settles halfway between its two predecessors - the "junk" items still get sorted into a separate category, but so do items that are actually important, including research materials that can be turned in for damage bonuses against various enemies and in one level, items that you need to complete a sidequest.
* ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic'' RPG games had gems of different colours and value. They did not have any use except for selling them. And in M&M VIII there were 'shop tours': you could buy or sell Tobersk fruit, Tobersk pulp or Tobersk Brandy from various merchants, making some profit. This was too tedious, though, to earn gold that way.
* In ''VideoGame/VandalHearts 2'', the bullion (of gold), ingot, and the R (rare) metal are great to sell off, but no use whatsoever except to add weight. Even worse, there are items that doesn't even sell well, and just adds weight. Of course, there's a niche weapon with a niche skill that [[AwesomeButImpractical relies on your overall weight to damage enemies]]. You don't discover it until later in the game though, which means, most usually, you have sold those said items...
* In the ''[[VideoGame/DotHackGUGames .hack//]]'' games, end-of-dungeon chests often contain one to three tradeable items that are very valuable for trading with "other players."
* ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter'':
** While on missions you can find such rare and valuable items as shiny shells, rare bugs, monster guts, fruit, mushrooms that have sat in the stomachs of giant bugs, and living fish made out of gold (no really, read the FlavorText). With a few exceptions, these items serve absolutely no purpose but for cash, and are sold off automatically when the mission ends. These are usually referred to as Account Items. A surprising number of them are described as delicacies. The general rule of thumb is: If the FlavorText describes the item as highly valuable and especially if it's followed up by "...but of no use to a Hunter", you can safely sell it without compromising an opportunity for new equipment, assuming the game doesn't sell it for you.
** ''VideoGame/MonsterHunterWorld'' makes it simpler, just labeling these with "(Trade-In Item)" in yellow text and even giving an option to just sell all such items ''en masse''. The player can also farm them intentionally by using the Bandit Mantle, a piece of equipment that makes monsters occasionally drop trade-in items when attacked. Then there's Kulve Taroth, a monster that is literally covered in gold which can be broken off and collected; appropriately enough, you fight it in a location called the Caverns of El Dorado.
* Items are your only source of money in ''VideoGame/TheWorldEndsWithYou'', and the shop fodder is about as obvious as it gets-- pins called "[number] Yen", with a design featuring that number, and no other purpose.
* In ''VideoGame/EtrianOdyssey'' shop fodder is your ''only'' source of income. It's also used to improve the shop's inventory: sell the required materials, and new items go on sale.
* Items in ''VideoGame/Wasteland2'' have a "junk" category, whose sole purpose is to be converted in cash.
* ''VideoGame/Fallout3'' supplies vast amounts of useless to marginally useful clutter around the environment and in containers. You only get one ally to load up with unreadable books and unsmokeable cigarettes, but fortunately stacks of Pre-War Money have zero encumbrance. Most of the junk can be used as ammunition for the Rock-It Launcher.
-->'''WebVideo/KilianExperience:''' When asked to describe ''Fallout 3'', Bethesda said it was a game where you sneak into strangers' houses and steal stuff you can't actually use. I wanted to know if there was more to it than that, and... no. No, there is not.
** ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' describes sellable items handily as "vendor trash." Some items are bound to personalities who take offense at the player picking up their trash.
* ''VideoGame/PlanescapeTorment'' has a lot of sellable items, mostly non-magical rings and bracelets, as well as weak weapons dropped off of opponents that you have long since outgrown, that seem to only exist to be sold to the vendors. However, while most plot items are unsellable, a couple are not and it gets very annoying to suddenly need a hammer and prybar but nobody seems to sell them. Luckily, vendors remember what items you sold them and will sell them back, assuming you can remember who you sold them to and that they're in an area you can still return to.

* ''VideoGame/BrainLord'' has things like Gold Coins and Silver Bullion, which have no use other than to take up space and be sold. Fortunately, they sell fairly well and you get a rather large inventory, but money isn't exactly hard to come by in the first place.
* If you play the Memory game in ''[[VideoGame/DragonQuestVII Dragon Warrior 7]]'' for Playstation for any length of time, you will amass a gigantic collection of dung, which gives you a measly 1 gold at the shop and serves no purpose other than attracting enemies (which you really don't need help with).
* ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights'':
** Certain types of creature always drop a specific body part; fire beetles, for instance, drop fire beetle bellies. Shrubs and piles of rock typically yield fenberries and quartz crystals (though the piles of rock can hide more valuable gems). All of these sell for one gold apiece. But just when you've learned to recognize Vendor Trash in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 changes the rules... Now, there's one vendor who won't deal with you until you give her a sellable item (an 'arcane reagent') -- ''every single time'' you deal with her -- and you can also find out how to use some of them in ItemCrafting. But you still collect so many of them that they still by and large count as trash. At the same time, certain rare items from the first chapter, worth holding on to for their use in that chapter's ItemCrafting, now themselves become Vendor Trash, showing up everywhere. (But fire beetle bellies remain trash.)
** Books. You can ransack the PamphletShelf for the same dozen or so books the world over. (And the occasional magic scroll.) Once you've read the page of setting-enhancing text once, they become pure Vendor Trash.
** Gems exist solely to keep money in reserve so that when you die you don't lose too much dough. Admittedly, selling gems for money makes sense, but apart from diamonds (which are used in item crafting) they're rarely worth more than 100gp, which is a pitifully small amount of money when you get up to level 10.
* Sellng items is the quickest means of getting money in ''VideoGame/FossilFighters.'' You find "Jewel Rocks" over the world, and clean the rocks to sell the jewels inside. However, it ends up being somewhat "normal" in that, in order to claim a Jewel Rock, you must generally [[MoneySpider win a battle]] first.
* In ''VideoGame/TheBardsTale'', the Bard finds several useless things in the chests and barrels he rummages through, but instead of being lugged around with him, they're automatically converted into silver to line his pockets.
* ''VideoGame/The7thSaga'' has various gems, which sell for the same price at which they are bought. Their advantage is that you don't lose them if you get defeated in battle (unlike gold).
* ''VideoGame/{{Darkstone}}'' has a number of items collectible from the local dungeons which serve absolutely no point to the player. These include a number of weapons and jewelry pieces which, if wielded/worn by the player character, will actually ''harm'' them. Their only purpose is to be sold for extra gold.
* ''VideoGame/{{Lunar}}'':
** In ''VideoGame/LunarDragonSong'', you have the option of getting experience or shop fodder from killed enemies. Said trash can either be sold directly or used in the delivery miniquests that ask you to give an NPC TwentyBearAsses.
** ''VideoGame/LunarTheSilverStar'' had tons of useless items just waiting to be sold in the original Sega CD version. The remakes cut almost all such items out.
* In ''VideoGame/PathOfExile'', the vendors themselves give you trash. You see, the game works on the barter system and there ''is'' no currency. So you can sell items for scraps that eventually combine into something relatively useful like an identify scroll.
* Creator/SpiderwebSoftware's ''VideoGame/{{Avadon}}'' goes so far as to have an additional bottomless pit of a bag that's shared between all of your party members (in addition to their individual bags) which is meant solely for selling. There are some things (such as dead limbs) that shopkeepers just won't buy.
* ''VideoGame/PandorasTower'' features books as pure shop fodder. Picking them up copies their contents to the archive, and then they're so useless Mavda will take them off your hands without even asking for confirmation. She'll also buy Beast Flesh from you in bulk to give your excess some value instead of letting it rot, proving that being a minor PlotCoupon and Vendor Trash aren't mutually exclusive categories.

** In ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles3'', the items with no purpose beyond selling are marked with an icon that looks like scales... until the main storyline gets rolling, at which point the game cuts out the middleman, and useless items are immediately auto-sold.
* ''VideoGame/DarkSun'' games generally have either useful items, or junk with "0 cp" price tag that nobody will buy. But in ''Shattered Lands'' there is one trader in [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Gedron]], who buys and sells literal trash (broken pots, mostly) at huge prices. Unfortunately, he gets better when you [[{{Brainwashed}} save]] his village from [[ForTheEvulz evil wizard]].
* ''VideoGame/{{Krater}}'' has sellable items that include pinecones, dog hairs and very small rocks.
%%* Cells in ''VideoGame/DigitalDevilSaga''. Interestingly, you're actually ''told'' why they're valuable (the Karma Temple wants the data contained within them), and selling enough of specific types will unlock new items for sale. %%Nothing says if these cells are good only for selling.
* In ''VideoGame/TokyoXanadu'', there aren't any yen in the Eclipse, but small gemstones from the Eclipse are valuable to the Underground and serve as the main source of income.
* In ''Professor Layton's London Life'' bundled with some versions of ''VideoGame/ProfessorLaytonAndTheLastSpecter'', everything you can pick up is shop fodder. Caught fish, picked flowers, you name it - Bruno will buy literally ''anything'' you want to sell him, except for those items necessary for the completion of the main plot.
* Every ''VideoGame/{{Geneforge}}'' game ever has had ''somebody'' who was looking for otherwise-useless Shaper equipment, Shaper records or iron bars. The amount of inventory weight they take up vs. the minuscule amount of money and XP you get for retrieving them means it's really only worth it very early on.
* ''VideoGame/VampireTheMasqueradeBloodlines'' has some lootable items -- watches, jewellery, pills, car stereos, and the like -- that the player character can't use aside from selling them for cash.
* ''VideoGame/{{Venetica}}'' features various jewelleries, golden tableware and other assorted antiques that have no purpose except to be sold for ducats at any vendor, especially antique dealers who will buy these items at twice the sale value.
* ''VideoGame/FableI'' and ''VideoGame/FableIII'' include trade items that are only good for resale, keeping an eye out for vendors that will buy them at a higher price than you paid. Examples include sacks of flour, barrels of ale or coffee, and boxes of fish -- fortunately, the Hero has a HyperspaceArsenal.
* ''VideoGame/Warhammer40000RogueTrader'': Used in a different way than most games. As a Rogue Trader, you don't actually have to worry about individual purchases, you can automatically obtain anything at the level of your current wealth; however, to get the factions to open more options to you for purchase, you do have to manually pack up miscellaneous items as cargo and trade it to them so their opinion of you will improve.

* In ''VideoGame/AncientDomainsOfMystery'' there are several clearly useless items, like the Scroll of Cure Blindness (to use it you must be able to read it, spot the problem?) or [[JokeItem the si]]. However, there is also a Potion of Uselessness which [[spoiler: grants the player a random artifact if thrown on the Level 49 of the main dungeon. It can only be used for this.]] As in ''VideoGame/NetHack'', shops can run out of money - however, they eventually renew.

* ''VideoGame/NetHack'' restricts things by limiting the amount of cash each storekeeper actually has to buy your junk. Once that's depleted, the value of the trash is vastly depleted and you can only get store credit. [[WeBuyAnything General Stores]] are the friends here, where you can sell all the random encounter crud - including the elf armor, the elf weapon, the elf shield and the elf ''corpse''. (Well, it beats eating it - sometimes...) The best type of shop fodder is gems - but you have to have magically identified which are valuable and which are just glass, otherwise the shopkeepers buy them priced as glass, and sell them priced as emeralds, amethysts, [[ShoutOut dilithium crystals]] or whatever...
* In ''VideoGame/{{Elona}}'', killed monsters will sometimes drop [[OrganDrops a bone, skin, heart or bottle of blood]]. The only use for these is selling to merchant. However, shopkeepers have limited gold, which prevents you from abusing this too much.
* ''VideoGame/OneWayHeroics'' has some slain monsters drop chipped or whole gemstones, and sometimes you'll even find Ancient Gemstones, all of which are only good for selling for money although they're thankfully weightless. They're kind of flammable though, so beware of firebreathing monsters.

* In ''VideoGame/FTLFasterThanLight'', once you have no room for installing the drone control system, the drone blueprints become only good for selling for [[PracticalCurrency scrap]].

* ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossing'' revolves entirely around items that can be sold. You grow it on trees, you fish it out of the river, you pick it up off the beach, you catch it in your net, you dig a fossil out of the ground and have a paleontologist clean it up, and then you sell it all. Some of this stuff -- like large fossils in good condition, or gold nuggets -- is genuinely valuable in and of itself. However, Tom Nook and, in later games, the Nooklings have a policy of buying ''anything'', and a lot of the stuff you'll sell their shop consist of seashells, clumps of weeds, rusty cans, old tires, old boots, random bugs... This is at least {{Justified|Trope}} in ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossingNewHorizons'' by how even the junk items can be used in ItemCrafting (weeds, for example, can now be used to make certain types of furniture), meaning all the forms you sell actually have uses now.
* In ''VideoGame/{{APICO}}'', Apicola can be shipped to the Mainland for Mainlander Money, which can only be converted to Rubees by being "sold" to any shopkeeper.

%%* In ''Frontier'' versions of ''VideoGame/{{Elite}}'' it's the same, except there are a few more exclusions (game-relevant goods): two sorts of fuel on the list and useable Chaff, plus Rubbish (what normal goods may become if the ship is hit) and Radioactives (byproduct of military drives) that usually have a negative price (you can jettison them instead, but may get punished for littering in space unless you're in a system with no functional government). %%Examples shouldn't rely on other examples for context.
* Any [[SimulationGame Space Sims]] like ''VideoGame/{{Freelancer}}'' will have shop fodder in the form of commodities such as food, fuel, light weapons and even oxygen and water. It's only good for freighter builds, since for everyone else it is a bloody waste of time to loot a tradeship.
* Many ''VideoGame/HarvestMoon'' games traditionally have "foraged items" that respawn daily in the wilderness areas around town. Some of them can be eaten to restore health, and some can be used for cooking or crafting, but the majority of them are most useful for shipping. Especially early on, when you don't have many crops or animals to work with. Some Harvest Moon games also feature jewels and jewelry, which can sometimes be given as gifts but usually make much more when sold.
* A lot of the workshop items in ''VideoGame/HarvestTown'', such as crafts, jewelry and (surprisingly) medicine, can't be used as anything aside from filling orders and/or being sold at the Goods Stall. Some of them can be given to [=NPCs=] for extra fondness, but most of the items they like require a high Manor level to create that by the time you can start creating the items, your {{Relationship Value|s}} with the desired NPC would probably be at maximum level already, so there's no point wasting expensive items on them.
* Sellable items provide the general route to money in ''VideoGame/MagiciansQuestMysteriousTimes''. You can collect mushrooms, wild plants, and gemstones to sell them off. However, a large portion of shop fodder can also be used in incantations for magical effects, and many of the gemstones and flowers make good gifts to give to people you want to be your friends.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Nintendogs}}'', your dogs can find things in the street. Except for toys and accessories, it's all pretty useless and only good for selling. Things that range from actual trash like empty juice bottles to fallen satellites and expensive vases.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Spiritfarer}}'', the various treasures Stella can find by diving, growing from the Odd Seed, opening treasure chests and crates, or receiving as gifts from Gustav can only be sold to Francis at a high price.

* In ''VideoGame/{{X}}'', sometimes, the guy you're shooting will ''abandon their ship'', allowing you to claim it and sell it for probably more than the cargo was worth. Not to mention [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential snatching up the jettisoned pilot and selling them into slavery.]]

* The majority of stealables in the ''VideoGame/{{Thief}}'' games exist to be sold. The entire point of the games (at least initially) is that Garrett steals valuable trinkets for a living. You can't pay the rent with arrows and smoke bombs, at least not in a way that won't attract guard attention.

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'':
** Anything you can convince the GM to give a value can become shop fodder. As a wise gamer once wrote: "if all else fails, steal the doors straight out of the dungeon".

* D&D's spiritual successor ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' {{reconstruct|ion}}s this trope with treasure bizarre enough to make a small side story out of finding a buyer and arranging the sale. Items include embalming oils from a famous tomb and a legendary GadgeteerGenius' room-sized vintage calliope (with further notes on the difficulty of getting it out in mint condition and the depreciation rate for wear and tear).

* In ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}'', you can find blueprints for a Kavat Incubator segment even after crafting and installing one, after which all its duplicates might as well be extra credits.

* ''[[VideoGame/BloonsTowerDefense Bloons TD 6]]'' has the Rare Quincy Action Figure, which can be bought at Geraldo's shop. It does literally nothing when placed. The sole purpose of the figure is to be sold at a profit later on, as the action figure increases in selling value after placing it.

* In the SNES/PSX game ''VideoGame/OgreBattleTheMarchOfTheBlackQueen'' several items have in their descriptions that their only use was to be sold off for money; the player could also find that different shopkeepers would offer varying amounts (or trade goods) for certain items.

** In Book II of ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemMysteryOfTheEmblem Mystery of the Emblem]]'' you occasionally find Silver Axes, and never recruit anybody who can equip them. In the DS remake you do get several axe fighters, and the Silver Axes are replaced with what they were worth in the first place: gold.

* You can literally sell anything you find in the trash in ''VideoGame/{{Chulip}}''... and this includes piles of Poopie.
* A big part of the Space stage in ''VideoGame/{{Spore}}'' is gathering spice, which only exists to be sold for absurdly high prices.

* ''VideoGame/NoMansSky'' has several categories of items that have no use for the player aside from being sold for units. There are various types of slimes usually found clogging damaged machinery worth only paltry sums of units, various archaeological curios that fetch quite a sum and commodities which can be bought cheaply in a system that produces them to be sold in another where they are in high demand.

* In ''Literature/BeyondTheBoundary'', defeated youmu monsters turn into stones, which are taken and sold to humanoid youmu appraisers. This is how most Spirit World Warriors make a living.

* In one of the ''Literature/SixteenThirtyTwo'' stories, a mercenary captain asks his XO why there are three packets of tampons in the strongbox, beside bags of various coins. The XO calmly explains that women are paying through the nose for the things, and there aren't any more being made, so they were a better investment than keeping the silver.

[[AC:Web Comics]]

* In "[[https://scrivnarium.wordpress.com/2016/06/30/video-game-people-do-not-act-like-normal-people-3/ Video Game People Do Not Act Like Normal People]]" by Jeffrey C. Wells, Madeline Chesney, Savior of Arcanum routinely searches trash cans for pairs of boots, which she then sells to the nearest shopkeeper. Her companions are bewildered by this.

* In one of the early episodes of ''WebVideo/CriticalRole'''s first campaign, the players pay in part for one of their shopping sprees at [[BazaarOfTheBizarre Gilmore's Glorious Goods]] by trading Gilmore the scales and teeth of a blue dragon they captured. The scales and teeth aren't really useful to the party, but Gilmore can use them in his own ItemCrafting.

* ''VideoGame/FableI'' and ''VideoGame/FableIII'' include trade items that are only good for resale, keeping an eye out for vendors that will buy them at a higher price than you paid. Examples include sacks of flour, barrels of ale or coffee, and boxes of fish -- fortunately, the Hero has a HyperspaceArsenal..

This will often take the form of gold or jewels -- if those aren't the very things which constitute the GlobalCurrency. In games that follow ColorCodedItemTiers, such items are almost always in grey color (junk tier) if it's not used for generic weapons.

** Zigzagged by the body parts of various monsters, such as a beholder's eyes or a dragon's teeth. Some sourcebooks note that these can be used in ItemCrafting and players can either sell such items as Vendor Trash or even use the parts to make their own magic items.

* ''VideoGame/FableI'' and ''VideoGame/FableIII'' include trade items that are only good for resale, keeping an eye out for vendors that will buy them at a higher price than you paid. Examples include sacks of flour, barrels of ale or coffee, and boxes of fish -- fortunately, the Hero has a HyperspaceArsenal.
* Some RPGs like the ''VideoGame/StarOcean'' series, have MutuallyExclusivePartyMembers. Sometimes these games have equipment that can only be used by certain party members. If you find a weapon that can only be used by a character you can't recruit, it's likely useless and can be sold without consequence.

** Modules both old and new have all sorts of unusual things that have treasure values. These range from gemstones, jewelry and goblets to statuettes, paintings and vases to rare clothes and furs. Most of them aren't of any practical use to adventurers, and serve as Vendor Trash to increase the amount of treasure the players acquire.

* ''Literature/FightingFantasy'' have a few entries where you can collect items, which doesn't serve any purpose for your quest, other than something you can sell for money after the adventure is over (assuming you survive). Notably the golden statuette of a skeleton in ''Literature/TempleOfTerror'': you come across a wounded adventurer who's looking for it, and later on you do find the statuette, which the narration tells you finding it gives you a sense of satisfaction, boosting your LUCK, but othetwise doesn't contribute anything for your quest.