Llama & Griffin · The Pattern Recognition · Live Data
The Price of Play Money.
In 2025, people put $6.8 billion into Robux alone and creators earned more than $1.5 billion from it, both the company's own numbers. The generation holding the rest is a few years from its first salaries.
Last Christmas the most requested gift among American children was in-game currency: 43% of kids aged five to seventeen, according to the ESA. This is the first money a generation actually holds, and nobody was keeping a public record of what it costs them.
This desk tracks what that money is actually worth: one benchmark bundle per currency, priced in every market that sells it, converted daily, measured against the US. Built for the parents paying in it, the studios pricing against it, and the analysts covering the first economy a generation grew up inside.
This is Big Mac Index but for game currencies, rebuilt for the first money a generation actually holds.
FX source: loading…
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Most expensive market
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Cheapest market
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Widest spread (Robux)
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Most distorted market
6
Live indexes
Average world premium / discount vs US baseline · normalized to cost per 100 base units · 22-day backfill + daily live FX · all six indexes
Today's Picture
Cross-Index Premium / Discount
Median world premium or discount vs US baseline, per currency.
Robux
-0.0%
India -16.9% to United Kingdom +20.9%
V-Bucks
-15.2%
Singapore -40.6% to Mexico +22.1%
Minecoins
+9.3%
Brazil -25.7% to Germany +14.3%
Oneiric Shards
+4.0%
Japan -24.4% to Germany +37.2%
Valorant Points
+3.0%
Philippines -35.0% to Germany +14.5%
Genesis Crystals
+0.3%
Japan -24.4% to United Kingdom +34.4%
Median premium or discount across all non-US markets for each index · normalized to cost per 100 base units · hover for cheapest and dearest market
Country Leaderboard
Where Play Money Goes Furthest
Average premium or discount across all indexes a country appears in.
🇯🇵 Japan
-24.4%
2/6
🇵🇭 Philippines
-20.6%
3/6
🇰🇷 South Korea
-14.7%
2/6
🇧🇷 Brazil
-12.7%
6/6
🇿🇦 South Africa
-11.6%
2/6
🇮🇩 Indonesia
-8.9%
3/6
🇮🇳 India
-8.5%
5/6
🇸🇬 Singapore
-1.1%
5/6
🇦🇺 Australia
+1.9%
6/6
🇲🇽 Mexico
+11.2%
5/6
🇩🇪 Germany
+18.9%
5/6
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
+19.8%
6/6
Countries ranked cheapest to dearest · average of premium/discount across indexes tracked · minimum 2 indexes required · n/6 = indexes included
Section 00
Today's Moves
What shifted since yesterday.
A move prints when a market shifts past its confidence threshold: 2.5 points for verified prices, 5 for provisional. The cause, FX drift or a publisher repricing, is reviewed before it is published. Quiet days say so.
No moves today. All markets within threshold.
Full Picture
Market vs Currency Heatmap
Every market, every index, in one view.
Market
Robux
V-Bucks
Minecoi
Oneiric
Valoran
Genesis
🇯🇵 Japan
—
—
—
-24%
—
-24%
🇵🇭 Philippines
—
—
—
-13%
-35%
-13%
🇰🇷 South Korea
—
—
—
-15%
—
-15%
🇧🇷 Brazil
-2%
-30%
-26%
+4%
-22%
+0%
🇿🇦 South Africa
+12%
-35%
—
—
—
—
🇮🇩 Indonesia
-12%
—
—
-7%
—
-7%
🇮🇳 India
-17%
-23%
—
+4%
-10%
+4%
🇸🇬 Singapore
+5%
-41%
—
+14%
+3%
+14%
🇦🇺 Australia
-2%
-7%
+4%
+7%
+3%
+7%
🇲🇽 Mexico
+2%
+22%
—
+14%
+3%
+14%
🇩🇪 Germany
—
+14%
+14%
+37%
+14%
+14%
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
+21%
+4%
+14%
+34%
+10%
+34%
Premium / discount vs US baseline per market-index pair · deep teal = large discount · deep coral = large premium · — = not tracked
The Currencies
Index Universe
One method. One currency per page.
Same formula, same FX source, same confidence rules, every page.
Six live indexes. The country leaderboard is active.
What This Is
The Big Mac Index of Game Currencies
Because parents are giving allowances in Robux.
The Economist has tracked the price of a Big Mac across countries since 1986. The logic is simple: one product, sold everywhere, reveals how far purchasing power stretches across markets. This index applies the same move to game currencies.
In households across twelve countries, parents top up Robux, V-Bucks, and other premium currencies as a regular allowance. The amounts feel similar. The real cost is not. A parent in India topping up 800 Robux spends the equivalent of $8.29. A parent in the United Kingdom spends $12.15 for the same thing. Neither parent is looking at exchange rates. They are looking at a number their child asked for.
This index tracks that gap daily, across every major market where these currencies are sold. It uses the same FX source, the same confidence-tagging system, and the same normalization formula for every currency it covers. The question it answers is not which store is cheapest. It is who is being asked to pay the most real money for the same unit of digital play, and how far that gap moves when nobody is watching.
The Method
Common Framework
One formula across all indexes.
Every page in the series uses the same calculation, the same FX source, and the same confidence-tagging system. This is what allows the homepage to compare across entirely different game currencies without bundle-size distortion.
The normalization step
Robux, V-Bucks, Minecoins, and Oneiric Shards have different bundle sizes and very different per-unit economics. Different pack sizes lie when compared raw. Everything on this desk is normalized to the cost of 100 base units before any comparison happens. The series therefore normalizes every benchmark to cost per 100 base units before comparing across currencies.
Convert to USD
Implied USD = Local Price ÷ FX Rate
Normalize per unit
Implied USD / unit = Implied USD ÷ Bundle Size
Scale to 100 units
Implied USD / 100u = Implied USD / unit × 100
Measure vs US baseline
Premium / Discount % = ( Local ÷ US − 1 ) × 100
Base units only. The face value on the pack. Bonuses and promotional extras are secondary panels, never rows. Standard always-on bonus units, first-time double bonuses, and promotional extras are excluded from the primary calculation. They appear as secondary panels on child pages, not in the main ranking.
Data rules
Every market uses the identical bundle size. Every market prices the identical pack. Tier substitution would smuggle the distortion straight back in.
A promotion is not a price. Launch bonuses and monthly passes are secondary panels on the child pages.
Mid-market rates blended from 84 central banks, refreshed daily, no key, no vendor. Every page draws from the same well.
The index compares the price displayed on each regional storefront. UK and EU tags include VAT. That premium is disclosed on each page, not normalized away, because tax is part of what a player pays.
Official, Confirmed, Third-party provisional, Contested. Lower confidence, higher bar before a move prints.
The dirham and its siblings appear in the tables but not the drift charts. A peg has no story to tell.
The Play Money Index is independent analysis by Llama & Griffin, affiliated with and endorsed by none of the platforms it covers. Product names refer to the products. Nothing here sells, resells, or advises on acquiring any game currency.
Why It Matters
The Reframe
Store credit, dressed as money.
Every currency on this desk borrows the grammar of money: the coin, the wallet, the balance in the corner of the screen. Almost none of them grants the one right that makes money money, which is the right to leave. A generation is learning what a price is from inside these systems. Somebody should be keeping the ledger.
The numbers update daily. The read on what they mean ships on The Pattern Recognition. Get the weekly close
