"Observations on converting Pokedollars to US Dollars"

Pokemon is a Japanese game, and Japan uses the Japanese yen. Knowing that, and that the pokedollar symbol looks like the Japanese yen symbol if you replaced the Y with a P, its pretty safe to say that the Japanese yen was the currency they had in mind when creating the games and maybe even when pricing items. At any given time, the exchange rate usually hovers somewhere in the 100-110 Yen per US dollar. For the sake of ease, I am just dividing everything by 100 to get approximation of what the dollar cost of something in pokemon might be, but please note that these are going to be a slightly high end estimates because of that.There are some things that are definitely off, but overall, I think a lot of these prices actually seem to make some sense. Some things I thought were pretty interesting when looking at the games through this light;The player usually starts the game with $30. Seems like a reasonable amount of pocket money for a 11 year old kid to have on them.In most games I have personally found that I tend to naturally end the main story with somewhere between $1,200 and $2,500. So you make a lot of money for a young kid, but you don't exactly get adult money by becoming pokemon league champion. Explains why so many gym leaders have other jobs, honestly.Pokeballs and potions are $2 and $3 respectively in most games, but you end up needing things like Ultra Balls ($12), Hyper Potions ($12), and Full Restores ($30) by the end of the game. Not totally sure how to feel about this, but I think that's probably about right. The stuff well suited for beginners and casual hobbyists is really cheap but for more serious trainers who need higher quality goods, the price increases by a lot.Want to evolve your Eevee? That'll $21 in regions where evolution stones are sold. On the other hand, the cheapest they'll sell you a mega stone in pokemon X and Y is $100 but it starts out at several times that much.TMs range from about $10 to $55 for single use and $100-600 for unlimited use. Interesting but I'm also not sure what to make of this because I can't really think of any sort of real world comparable.A bicycle in RBY is $10,000. Yowza. That guy reeeeallllly needed someone to talk about his rapidash to that badly he's give you a coupon with a 10k value?Prize money can be as low as like a dollar per battle, but the more serious ones are significantly more. Red pays out $77, so like I touched on before, even with the highest stakes battles, people aren't putting serious amounts of money on the line.Vending machine drinks cost between $2 and $3.50. A little pricey, and it does not look like I am getting much milk for the $5 I am paying for it either.The regional foods specialties (rage candy bars, lava cookies, etc) are all in the $3 range. Actually pretty reasonable for like a local specialty tourist snack.Cheap clothes go for like $15-$20 (with accessories costing less), whereas higher end stuff goes for upwards of $1,000. Seems pretty true to life but it does make me think differently about buying the good stuff in the games with player customization.Catching a cab in Lumiose city can range from $7 to over $20. I'll buy it. That's about what uber rides have run me in the past.Staying at the hotel Richissmee is a thousand dollars a night. Seems about right after doing some quick googling of Four Seasons Hotel last minute room rates for one person.Museums and other attractions are pretty cheap. Most are under $5 to enter. The safari zones also seem like a pretty good deal at $5.Pearls are sold for $7, big pearls $37.50, Nuggets $50. Less than I'd have thought but maybe that is about right if you're just selling the raw materials (we also don't know the weight of a nugget).Big mushrooms ($25) and Balm Mushrooms ($100) are some gourmet shit apparently.Postcards (wave mail, harbor mail, etc.) cost like 50 cents. Pretty true to life, I think.And through it all, Pokemon centers are still free not matter the exchange rate :'). God bless them. They're the real heroes. via /r/pokemon https://ift.tt/3qpT68q