The PokéYen in context

[Beth Pavell]

This is a topic I've been trying to dodge with my fic, but it's becoming steadily more difficult to. So, I've been thinking, how much is the PokéYen or whatever you want to call the currency worth in context? The games don't really give us much help when it comes to this, since everything is costed up in relation to how useful it is in the game. Surely a bottle of lemonade isn't worth more than a Poké Ball. But then, how expensive should Poké Balls be? What about TMs, healing items?

This is a tricky subject because, usually, trainers tend not to be priced out of training by the expense of basic items like these. What do you guys think?

 

[Persephone]

I tie mine to the modern us dollar and just equate every USD with 100 PokeYen. For item costs, if there is a real world equivalent (fresh water) I use it. If there isn't, I just kind of figure what a trainer would likely pay for it. I have no grand formula for prices. I just kind of think over what it would likely cost in the real world, assuming that the technologies for balls and potions are apparently widespread and reasonably inexpensive.

 

[Instrutilus]

I used to imagine PokéDollars were the equivalent of 1 Penny Sterling, with

100 = 1 Pound Sterling. So the

350 for Lemonade wasn't 350 quid, but more £3.50. Still not a reasonable amount for Lemonade, but much more reasonable to assume. Nowadays I just imagine the

symbol is simply an experimental universal currency, ala the Euro, that's caused the markets to crash...ala the Euro.

 

[LightningTopaz]

In my Pokeworld, 100 credits=1 US dollar. By that logic, basic Poke Balls and healing items are their in game prices converted to US dollars (Poke Ball=$2.00, Antidotes are a dollar, other status meds are $3.50, etc.)

Higher end items are actually cheaper compared to their in game price. Super potions are 500 credits, Hyper potions are 750 credits, and so on

 

[Life]

I just use dollars in my world. Makes things a lot easier. Another reason is that the name "PokéYen" never made sense to me. Why does the name of their currency have to have "Poké" in it?


But if I had to equate it, I would say that 10 PY = 1 USD. Sounds kind of ridiculous to spend $20 on a Poké Ball, but I think most trainers should be able to afford it. I also like to think that people in the Pokémon World are loaded. ^^

 

[Beth Pavell]

Well, in terms of the name of the currency, I don't use PokéYen either. I use dollars - since the dollar slang is more interesting than sterling slang - and a concept I called PokéGelt, essentially League-backed currency that can be used exclusively on training-related items.

Anyway, I suppose it's not so much a straight conversion system that's providing a problem, so much as worth. How much should, say, a Poké Ball be worth compared to a cup of coffee?

 

[Life]

I think that's really up to the author.

But for me, I think the cost of a Poké Ball depends on your setting. Take Legacy's The Green Chronicles for example. In that story, only the rich are trainers, so Poké Balls are expensive and rare because so few people have them. But in a story like mine, they're super inexpensive and cheap because training Pokémon is a common thing to do. I would probably price Great Balls at 1.5 times the cost of Poké Balls, because that's the catch rate of it compared to a normal ball. Ultra Balls would be twice the price, and the same equation continues for the rest of the balls.

For things like potions and medical items, I would probably say the same thing. Are they rare, or common? Are they hard to make, or easy to make? In my opinion, it really just depends on the economy of your world.

 

[Misfit Angel]

I would imagine Pokeballs being kind of expensive, since they're so crucial to just about everyone who has a job/hobby relating to Pokemon and they're so high tech. I'd say around the $15 to $20 range for the basic ones, while higher qualities scale exponentially.

 

[Absent]

Personally I think there's many types of currency in the Pokemon world. I always thought that PokeYen is the currency used by Trainers to buy things regulated by the Pokemon League, that's why they added Poke to it. Perhaps they use a separate currency for other things, and I guess what type of region also matters.

I always equated it as 100 PokeYen= 1 US dollar.

 

[Dieter]

I actually saw someone do the math on this somewhere, but I forgot where ^^;;

Probably if you take at least several common items we have in our world here as well, take the average prices of those and compare to Poké prices, you should get an indication of what would/could be a reasonable price

And when it comes to comparing between items themselves, I dunno, cause the system itself is a bit wacky (like the Bike in GenI/III which is extremely overpriced, for obvious reasons, but still)

But a couple hundred PokéYen/Dollar for for example a bottle of water or lemonade sounds reasonable. I also noticed normal pokéballs are the same price as a bottle of water XD but considering they're probably mass-produced (or might even be partly subsidised) that would still seem like a fair price

So yeah, the lower priced items (also for example the Stick, which is just a leek, but only has a selling price) seem to have a relatively stable price that is neither too high nor low (though depending on circumstances in your story, you might still have to change them)

 

[Glitchipedia]

I treat Pokémon Dollars the same way as real-world yen, use the prices directly from the games, and have the characters hang a lampshade on how ridiculous the whole thing is.