The stupidest videogame currencies of all time

5:00 PM on 07.29.2009   |   Jim Sterling

133 comments

Money makes the world go round, and whether you're trading in gold, bottle caps, scrap or Drebin Points, nowhere embodies that phrase more than the world of videogames. Just like in real life, you're going to need cash to get by in most interactive adventures, and whatever's in your pocket needs to have a name.

Many games are satisfied to simply have gold or dollars, but that's not enough for some titles out there. A great deal of titles, through misguided dreams of originality or just good old-fashioned arrogance, feel the need to invent their own currencies. It should come as no surprise that most of these currencies are absolutely awful. 

Videogames should just stick to classic coin, and we're going to prove it. Because this is a serious problem that has legitimately made me furious, let's all take a look at the stupidest videogame currencies of all time.

Currency: Gil
Game: Final Fantasy series
Sounds like: A wallet full of fish heads

Final Fantasy has become such a venerable series, and its sensibilities are now so well established, that its more ludicrous elements have become accepted as perfectly normal. However, just because something's been around a long time, that doesn't mean it isn't ridiculous, as Roget Ebert proves every time he tries to talk about things he doesn't understand.

I mean, Gil? Seriously? One letter removed from a fish's breathing orifices? You'll notice that RPGs will be the main offenders in this article, especially Japanese ones. It seems that Japanese developers are just really, really good at making up awful sounding names. Like Rupees? Only Japan could have thought of such a nonsensical currency!

Currency: Potch
Game: Suikoden series
Sounds like: Some easily marketable children's TV show puppet

When in doubt, just pull a stupid, one-syllable word out of your ass and say "yeah, that's what our money is." This seems to be the main way in which currency names have been chosen by RPG developers, and it makes me want to throw up. Potch is a prime example, a name that's clearly just been scribbled down at the last minute, or pulled out of a hat. A hat covered in shit. 

I don't think about money when I hear that. I think of some awful Kid's TV show like Yo Gabba Gabba involving two brightly colored puppet animals that may be teddy bears. Potch & Patch, every weekday morning at 7am. The kind of TV show that idiot children will watch for ten hours a day until their parents pull a Chris Benoit and go absolutely insane. 

Damn Japanese RPG nonsense. 

Currency: Munny
Game: Kingdom Hearts
Sounds like: A three-year-old came up with it

I hate the word Munny in all its applications, even those weird little toys that weeaboos love so much. There's something about the word that makes me cringe, in the same way the words luscious, bisexual and ketchup do. I have absolutely nothing against the meaning of the words whatsoever, but the simply way the words look and sound make me shudder for reason. Munny is no exception. It just sounds embarrassing. 

Currency: Meseta
Game: Phantasy Star series
Sounds like:  A formal Mexican family occasion

Meseta has two meanings in the real world, referring either to Meseta Central, the high plains found in the middle of Spain, or a partially collapsed volcanic vent of Volcán de Fuego in Guatemala. Quite how Sega was able to extrapolate a form of space money from that name, I do not know, but they did and it sounds absolutely stupid. 

Niero thinks it sounds like a Mexican restaurant, and I'm inclined to believe him. In fact, I'm sure I've read this word on a menu somewhere. The word conjures up images of obnoxiously large temple steps and tall stone pillars with silly faces carved into them. When I hear the word "Meseta," I don't immediately think of science fiction money. Whoever came up with the currency for Phantasy Star probably deserves to be made bankrupt and have his entire family disenfranchised and blacklisted from all respectable hotels. 

Currency: Fol
Game: Star Ocean & Infinite Undiscovery
Sounds like:  They were really fucking reaching

Yet another developer that thinks its enough to just pull a one-syllable word out of thin air. Fol? Really, Fol!? What the hell IS that, even? Did they just cut random letters out of a newspaper, jumble them all together, throw them on the floor and then let a retard masturbate all over the mess, picking out the letters that his demented jizz landed on? That's obviously what they did ... it probably explains how tri-Force came up with the name Infinite Undiscovery in the first place. I'm convinced that studio is full of jizzing spastics. 

I can't even begin to describe how imbecilic Fol is. Most made-up names sound rather desperate and grasping, but Fol is a landmark when it comes to a lazy, blatant example of developers really unable to think of anything respectable. Just further evidence that everybody involved with Infinite Undiscovery needs to be shot. I know Fol made its debut in Star Ocean, but it doesn't matter. In fact, the idea that they thought the name was good enough for use in TWO IPs is absolutely abhorrent.

Currency: Credits
Game: Sci-fi titles, most notably Mass Effect
Sounds like: Uninspired claptrap

Like I said with Gil, just because something's been around for long enough to become established, that doesn't make it less stupid. Credits is a sci-fi staple, most notable for its use in Star Wars, which wasn't even very good and never got truly interesting until the expanded universe stuff (most of which got ignored or ruined), mainly because George Lucas is bad at films. Ever since Star Wars, sci-fi universes have believed that they can get away with a form of universal, non-committed currency that sounds sensible. Well they CAN'T get away with it, okay!?

You can't see it, but I am visibly shaking with rage over use of the word Credits. It's stupid, and it's not just because Mass Effect uses them and I'm harboring an illogical grudge for that game, due to the fact that people like it and I can't understand why they do. Seriously, though, Credits weren't all that original or clever when they were first used, choosing to copy them these days is just cheap. 

Yes, in this article, I am criticizing people for being both original and unoriginal. Nobody said this article would be fair, consistent or justifiable. N4G can shove it up its arse.

Currency: Goth
Game: Ogre Battle
Sounds like: ... Uuuuh ...

Yeah. 

I've never played Ogre Battle, and I probably never will. However, upon discovering that the name for its currency is Goth, I simply had to include it. We're all reading this correctly, right? I'm not imagining it, am I? They seriously called their money Goth. Fucking Goth. 

I'm fairly certain that Enix only made twenty-five thousand copies of the first game for North America out of sheer embarrassment. They knew that Goth was one of the stupidest currencies to have ever been invented, and wanted to keep this humiliation out of as many hands as possible. I mean, what kind of place names its money after Robert Smith? A country headed toward financial ruin, that's what!

Besides, I hear the exchange rate's terrible. It's two Goths to the Emo right now.

Currency: Gald
Game: Tales series
Sounds like: Someone should have gotten fired for it

Pathetic. Utterly pathetic. Perhaps they thought we wouldn't see what they did there, but the fine folks at Namco Bandai couldn't have made their inability to invent a decent currency more obvious. Changing one letter in the word "Gold" is a fucking embarrassment, and whoever invented the word "Gold" should sue for plagiarism. Fort Knox or whoever he was. 

It's just sad, really. Actually, it's more mortifying than sad, but the tragedy of the situation cannot be ignored. Just a horribly miserable, pathetic situation. I hope whomever came up with the idea of changing one letter around has killed himself. I sincerely hope that, with all my being. 

Currency: Pokédollars
Game: Pokémon
Sounds like:  The creepiest money in the world

There's one thing I've never felt comfortable with in the world of Pokémon, and that's how the game's world has an incredibly creepy "cult of personality" thing going on. It's not just that the titular Pokémon are popular in the game's fictional universe -- it's a fucking obsession of everybody, young and old, male or female, whatever the social strata or boundaries. Anybody playing Pokémon will tell you this. Every NPC talks about nothing but Pokémon, every bookshelf has a Pokémon book on it. Every TV you watch has a show about Pokémon in some way, shape or form. It's some proper Charles Manson shit, and it freaks me out. 

Is it surprising that the entire world moved its currency over to a system named after, and possibly governed by, Pokémon? 

Pokédollars sounds stupid, but it's the money's sinister implications that really upset me. The hold that these "pocket monsters" have over the hearts and minds of the people is unsettling. Go play Pokémon again, go talk to some NPCs, and you'll see what I mean. Absolutely frigging terrifying. 

Pokedollars ... for the love of ...

Currency: Blingz
Game: Bratz
Sounds like:  The most cynical thing a marketing executive could come up with

Bratz is one of the worst things in the world, and a constant reminder of why society is now a piece of slimy, poisonous shit being flushed down the cracked toilet tube of history. The Bratz franchise, in case you don't know, is a series of toys, games and (I think) cartoons that ostensibly tell young girls that they should act like spoiled, vapid, shallow little sluts, idolizing Paris Hilton and only caring about whether or not their nails are the fashionably determined optimum length. In a way, it's almost a noble cause -- I'd sometimes rather be as vapid and shallow as the females who fall for this, because then I'd be too stupid to realize just how horribly idiotic the general public has become. 

• Anyway, this chic lifestyle espoused by the Bratz is something cooked up not by women, but by out-of-touch, balding, suit-wearing white men who have heard one of their son's "colored" friends say the word "bling" once and now jump on the word in a pathetic and desperate bid to cash in on stupid teenagers who are too ignorant to realize who is really pulling the strings of their faux-urban culture. 

Okay, so we all know it, but that doesn't stop "Blingz" from being the worst videogame currency I've ever heard of. Mixing a stereotypical cultural slang word with the beautifually unoriginal and overdone "z" juxtoposition is absolutely perfect. It's the kind of cynical, gormless, absolutely awkward marketing bullshit that America should be proud of, and it's also the reason why Bratz has just gotten more coverage on Destructoid than on any other gaming blog in the world. The game's creators must really be proud of that one. 

Blingz, you are the stupidest videogame currency ever invented. ConBRATZulations!

Hahaha.

Haha.

Ha.