The End of the Game?

I have been playing Animal Crossing: Wild World for some time now and I'm near the point where I have almost all of the items I care to collect and the amount of money ("bells" in this case) I have is irrelevant because it far surpasses the cost of anything I would buy. There are no ongoing costs so nothing I have is at risk of being lost. I'm in a similar position in Nintendogs, with only the most expensive living room style to purchase (Outer Space) and I'm only a few disc competition victories from that purchase. In Tiger Woods golf the money became irrelevant to me a long time ago, but there are still so many accomplishments left so that is what's driving me to continue to play the game occasionally.

This phenomena is driven mostly by two factors. One, the game can only be loaded with a finite variety of things to purchase and secondly, the publisher wants you to move on to the next game because they can't make any more money from you otherwise. These factors are both reversed in the case of MMORPGs. They can provide more and better goodies and costs over time and they don't at all want you to leave their game for another. I would, however, expect a little better balance in the game so that the money continues to be relevant up until the point you feel satisfied with you accomplishments and are itching to move on to another game.

For game titles that have sequels - some on an annual basis like Tiger Woods and other sports offerings - there still is something missing. What about keeping your funds from your earlier game version(s) in an acocunt (file) that can be accessed by all of the games in that franchise. So, the money I earned in Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005 can be used when I start TWPT 2006. Whatever I earn in 2005 or 2006 goes into the same "fund." The games could have hyper-expensive items that rely on you to have played multiple titles in the franchise. You could go back to earlier versions to earn the basic items more easily, so this strategy might even drive retro sales. You shouldn't have to buy a predecessor title to enjoy the latest edition, but it would enhance and extend your experience if you did.

Nintendo has achieved this with their Pokemon titles which let you transfer Pokemon caught in different editions of the game (Ruby, Sapphire, Fire Red, Leaf Green, Emerald, etc.) between game cartridges. The transferred Pokemon even grow up faster if they have been transferred so there is a benefit to trading with friends or buying multiple cartridges so you can trade among your own (guilty as charged!). While you can't trade money directly between games, you can pass valuable items across cartridges and then trade them in for cash at one of the Pokemarts in the game world.