Paying for virtual action

The heroes of the world of video gaming have to work hard to earn a virtual living, writes Daniel Etherington of BBC Collective in his weekly games column.

Take a ride in the world of Westerns

It is tough being a video game character.

Aside from such simple matters as exacting revenge, destroying the monsters and saving the world, frequently you also have to earn a living.

Games like the classic Shenmue may have explicitly involved getting a job, but even titles less concerned with a realistic world may include the process of earning a bob or two.

Two titles gracing my Xbox of late are Red Dead Revolver and Thief: Deadly Shadows.

The former is a gleeful hash of Western cliches - gunfights, saloon brawls, injuns and dusty frontier towns.

Bounty hunter

Red Dead Revolver is realised with a Leone-esque washed-out look, rather than a crisp Fordian grandeur, shot through with a dash of wickety-wickety Wild Wild West.

It just seems ironic that our key leisure activity is so fixated with toil and earning, albeit through killing and stealing Discuss this story on BBC Collective

A series of short but sweet levels, its story mode concerns the efforts of gunslinger Red to avenge his parents, victims of a plot involving renegade Mexican army officers and a gold mine.

Although Red's actions are interspersed with those of other playable characters - a feisty homesteader, Red's Indian cousin, an English gunfighter, a Buffalo Soldier - he is the main focus.

And guess what? Each new fight involves earning bounty, which can then be spent in shops to upgrade your weapons or buy items that unlock showdown characters.

Red is an industrious bounty hunter, slogging his way through a vast rogues' gallery of Wanted: Dead Or Alive.

You would hope one day he could actually enjoy the fruits of his labours, but at least his means of earning a living provides a good dose of lively gameplay.

Shiny loot

Garrett, the (anti)hero of the Thief series of games, also does not seem to benefit much from all his hard - and risky - work in the new franchise instalment, Deadly Shadows.

Like the previous games from developer Ion Storm, it involves open-ended, mission-based gameplay within a fairly large city environment.

The gravel-voiced master thief who first appeared in trail-blazing 1998 stealth game Thief: The Dark Project, criss-crosses the semi-medieval town eluding guards, shooting out torches with his water arrows, picking locks and nicking stuff.

This consists of nice shiny loot and more significant items, liberated at the behest of cryptic employers.

Garrett can trade in his loot to fences, then spend the cash in black-market crime emporia.

Again, all that toil and what do you get for it? More tools of the trade, to do more work. As with Red, you would hope Garrett could at least get a holiday away from the gloom of the city and his own grubby abode.

Gathering currency of one form or another and using it to buy more weapons, upgrades or a stash of shiny new projectiles or potions is a mainstay of games.

It just seems ironic that our key leisure activity is so fixated with toil and earning, albeit through killing and stealing.

Thankfully, it remains considerably more enjoyable, for the most part, than the real-world equivalent.

Red Dead Revolver is out now on Xbox and PlayStation 2. Thief: Deadly Shadows is available now on Xbox and PC