$20 in League of Legends vs $20 at the Dollar Store

May 26, 2017 3:59 PM

What can you get for $20 in-game vs IRL? Polygon investigates.
posted by Foci for Analysis (19 comments total)

Wow your dollar stores are full of so much more and such a greater variety of awful plastic chemical earth-destroying shit than our dollar stores. I don't know how to feel about that.
posted by turbid dahlia at 4:02 PM on May 26, 2017 [2 favorites]

I've spent a fair amount of real world dollar$ on in game cosmetic loot. I'm looking at you Overwatch.
posted by Fizz at 4:27 PM on May 26, 2017

You can't buy Pool Party Leona at the Dollar Store for any amount of money. Advantage: LoL.
posted by tobascodagama at 5:30 PM on May 26, 2017

Wow your dollar stores are full of so much more and such a greater variety of awful plastic chemical earth-destroying shit than our dollar stores. I don't know how to feel about that.



"AMERICA!!!!!!!" he shouted as a joke in response, before he collapsed, ashamed, in tears.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 6:40 PM on May 26, 2017 [6 favorites]

Wow your dollar stores are full of so much more and such a greater variety of awful plastic chemical earth-destroying shit

So now I'm curious, what are your dollar stores full of?
posted by Dr. Twist at 7:05 PM on May 26, 2017

That was NOT a dollar store.
posted by Small Dollar at 7:10 PM on May 26, 2017 [3 favorites]

Usually if I'm spending money for in-game content it's for something I'll be able to get without real money eventually I just don't want to take the time and/or wait. So that $20 is buying me time.

Do they sell that at the dollar store?
posted by VTX at 7:39 PM on May 26, 2017

Do they sell that at the dollar store?

there -are- a large number of plastic wristwatches
posted by solarion at 8:37 PM on May 26, 2017 [6 favorites]

I never saw a dollar store that well stocked. Never. Where is that store?
I don't want to buy any of that crap, I just want to see the store
posted by james33 at 4:39 AM on May 27, 2017 [1 favorite]

That was like a $1.50 store... not a dollar store...
I remember back in the 90s when the exchange rate from US->CN was 66%. I went into a Canadian dollar store (which had a lot better stuff) and was impressed by the $0.66 store! Now that was value!
posted by Nanukthedog at 5:35 AM on May 27, 2017

Not just a $1.50 store; one of the items he bought was $4.99. That's not a dollar store, at all. At a dollar store, $20 will get you 20 items (minus sales tax). His entire premise is flawed. Note that not all dollar stores are equal. The one closest to me has a much more limited stock, while one that's 10 minutes farther away is jammed like the one in the video with lots of items not in the closer one.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 6:14 AM on May 27, 2017

Ah shoot, I'm a little disappointed, I was hoping for an actually interesting comparison. This is ok too I guess. I mean I guess the joke is you can waste money everywhere, so don't feel bad about in-game purchases if they make you happy? I dunno it still feels a little disingenuous somehow.
posted by Flaffigan at 6:22 AM on May 27, 2017 [1 favorite]

I dunno it still feels a little disingenuous somehow.

I know, I was hoping for a genuine effort. But I was also earnestly *expecting* a genuine effort, so the ultimate disaster still made me LOL.
posted by BaffledWaffle at 8:19 AM on May 27, 2017

For some reason American discount stores like Dollar Tree and Dollar General are incredibly depressing, as if you are a bad person and should feel bad about being poor or wanting cheap things. Daiso stores -- their Japanese counterpart -- are not only nicer, the products tend to be better quality. Every time I travel where I can stop at a Daiso, I end up filling my suitcase with Daiso notebooks (the paper quality is good!), laundry bags, soap, hand lotion, pens...

The over-the-top perkiness of the music played in Daiso stores can be punishing, though.
posted by ardgedee at 8:39 AM on May 27, 2017 [2 favorites]

Kirth Gerson: "Not just a $1.50 store; one of the items he bought was $4.99. That's not a dollar store, at all. "

Yeah, I grew up going to places like Dollar Tree where everything is literally $1, but apparently the term is also used to mean "variety store" or "discount store" generally, a la Family Dollar and my local shop, "Dollar Star". My favorite was staying in Granada, Spain where the most common chain of these was "Super Euro" so of course one of the local stores had to one-up them with the name "Hiper (Hyper) Euro".

But getting back on topic, my reaction to the video was basically the same as BaffledWaffle's. For what it's worth, I spent about $20 to make this costume. (Reference.)
posted by capricorn at 8:41 AM on May 27, 2017

I confess that we continued to call the Woolworth's store "the five and dime" long after they stopped having anything that cheap.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 10:22 AM on May 27, 2017 [1 favorite]

What a trip- that store is MY discount store! It's a block away from my office, and if I turn in a circle in my apartment I can spot like ten things that came from there. As noted, it's a 'discount store' rather than what I'd call a dollar store, which in downtown Manhattan are pretty hard to come by.
posted by showbiz_liz at 12:05 PM on May 27, 2017

So now I'm curious, what are your dollar stores full of?

Exactly the same sort of stuff, just less of it. If I go into the dollar store here to buy duct tape that doesn't work, I only have one type to select from. You guys have like four. Mental.
posted by turbid dahlia at 2:38 PM on May 27, 2017

Aww, I was hoping for something more like "you can buy this food ingame for $20, how much does that meal cost IRL?"
posted by divabat at 5:11 PM on May 27, 2017 [2 favorites]