INVESTMENT RETURNS
Committing money now for delayed, larger payoffs — funding businesses, buying property that yields rent, backing ventures with returns arriving over time.
- SOLO-DEV COST MEDIUM
- TIMING REAL-TIME / TURN
- COMMON IN RPG · OPEN-WORLD · SIM · LIFE-SIM
Assassin's Creed II's villa renovation established the open-world template (spend on upgrades, collect the chest forever after), Suikoden and Yakuza run business-management minigames whose profits dwarf street earnings, tycoon games are the mechanic as genre, and RPGs like Pillars of Eternity and Fable let players buy shops and property portfolios. Designers add investment because it gives surplus wealth a job: mid-game economies reliably produce more money than gear sinks can drain, and investment converts that surplus into engagement — a reason to return, a growth curve to optimize, and a fantasy (proprietor, landlord, magnate) orthogonal to the main power loop. Delayed returns also reward planning in a way instant purchases can't. Key decisions: passive returns versus managed ones (rent that accrues automatically versus businesses needing decisions — passive risks becoming an ignored faucet, managed risks becoming a chore), how return rates compare to adventuring income, and whether investments can fail or be threatened, since risk is what makes returns feel earned. Pitfall: the money printer — investment returns that compound past the game's sinks break the entire economy's tension, making every future price meaningless; returns need caps, diminishing curves, or sinks that scale alongside.
SEEN IN
- ASSASSIN'S CREED II
- YAKUZA 0
- PILLARS OF ETERNITY