Video games, despite being a multi-billion dollar a year industry, remain a priceless form of escape and art to countless gamers and fans. One organization however, has chosen to display the intrinsic value within video games in a unique and fascinating way.
UK based company H&T Pawnbrokers has decided to not only assess the value of real life items, artifacts and art, but to create an approximate financial value for some of video games most iconic weapons, items and assets. Among the subjects featured is Minecraft's legendary Diamond Pickaxe, which will set any interested buyer back an incredibly large sum of money.
According to the assessment and calculations, the Minecraft Diamond Pickaxe would set the interested real world buyer back an eye watering £5 billion or $6.7 billion US dollars. While surprising at first, the real world cost begins to make sense when one considers the sheer amount of diamonds that would be required to make a functional pickaxe of appropriate size and strength. The current assessed value of a one carat diamond (US) is currently listed as any where in between, $1,910-$15,650, with a recommended average value of $4,280. With these figures in mind, one can quickly see that owning a real life version of this tool would be an incredible investment and endeavor.
H&T Pawnbrokers didn't just stop at Steve's glamorous mining tool of choice, however. In a fascinating and fun infographic, the company also showed the real world currency value and estimation of several other notable video game items, such as The Master Sword from The Legend Of Zelda, The Pip Boy from Fallout and the Froggy Chair from Animal Crossing. To the relief of many gamers and would be shoppers, not all items are as expensive to create and acquire as the Diamond Pickaxe or Sonic's Golden Rings.
This bit of fun lends itself nicely to Minecraft's resource gathering and value assessing that has created such a satisfying gameplay loop for nearly 12 years. One would hope that fans of the series could learn real life lessons about managing their resources, assessing value and using their time wisely. With a player base well over 126 million by all accounts and estimates, there certainly is a large enough fan base to find the prospect of bringing this digital item to life an intriguing, if unattainable fantasy. Minecraft itself has generated over 200 million sales and its developer, Mojang was purchased by Microsoft over 6 years ago for 2.5 billion, neither of which come close to the real life Diamond Pickaxe price tag.
It is both surreal and infinitely appealing to see iconic video game items brought to life and given value in our real world. The work accomplished here serves to further reinforce the wonderful fantasy of the worlds that gamer's love, through an often overlooked economic perspective. Video games offer very powerful lessons to be learned from the experiences fans spend time in, and after seeing the price of these legendary video game franchise assets, one would hope fiscal and financial responsibility is one of them.
Minecraft is available on mobile, PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.
Source: Nintendolife