Bottle Cap-onomics

[shadowravyn]

So I'm still baffled by how Nuka-Cola caps became the currency of choice in Fallout 3. It just doesn't make sense, which means that I've wasted a lot of time thinking (and now typing up this post) trying to figure out how it could have happened

Comments

[ddrpolaris]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_money
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_anthropology

Most likely, something small, lightweight, and easilly strung together was needed. Bullets do have value, but they also get heavy (heavier than bottlecaps), and having currency that is continuously used up presents another set of problems.

It's been a couple hundred years, maybe it was something arbitrarilly decided upon by whoever designed the Vaults to have instructions to use bottlecaps, or some other small common (but not too common) item as currency to keep capitalism alive and not let the reds win. Who knows.

[shadowravyn]

In the game, ammunition has no weight. It doesn't matter how much you are carrying (and that includes missiles), ammo has no weight.

I agree that the trade-off between usefulness and value as currency would be problematic, but I still feel it's more organic as a currency than bottlecaps. That being said, I like the idea of the Vaults being instructed to use something useless as currency (sponsored, of course, by Nuka-Cola), considering they were all meant to be used as social experiments anyway.

[shadowravyn]

Also, I'm not saying that the bottlecap economy isn't a viable one (obviously, by the time you walk out of the Vault, it totally is), I just want to know how it started.

[londo]

Did you not read the "History" paragraph in that article?

I mean, the real reason for this is that someone at Interplay thought it was funny, but...

[ddrpolaris]

what article?

[londo]

The one she linked to.

[ddrpolaris]

ah, did not see the link the first time through. thanks.

[holy_whatever]

Omg, bullets WOULD have been interesting. Don't get me wrong Fallout 3 is probably...oh, #3 on my top list of favorite games ever. But the bottlecap thing has always just been handwaved away in my head as, "Well, it's scavengable and money prolly all just BURNED UP."

And then I got distracted by blowing up Megaton or something.

[doompuppy]

I've got an explanation that makes for a good story

[mariaklob]

This is the best story I have ever read.

Excuse me while I go build up a stockpile of Nuka-Cola caps and associated merchandise.

[zombie_dog]

THIS THIS THIS