For a game where you are a ruler of a small country (dictator) and you accept bribes (to your personal funds/swiss account). The question is what is the purpose of these bribes.


I have seen it implemented in 2 games:
* In Dictator on ZX-Spectrum your personal wealth was one of the scoring component, the game was survival and the goal was to steal as much as you can while you rule as long as you can before you escaped to another country.
* In Tropico it was some sort of "side quest", or some bragging rights number (it basicly had no use at all, just it grew and you could see it and get a steam achievement), it carries over between sceanrios in a campaign. In a few scenarios you were required to get a certain amount of bribes. Overall, it had no purpose whatsoever.

same as jeffery, but you also need to realize that any game mechanic could be designed for any functionality really. Bribing as a concept could be used any number of ways. If you are the briber, bribing could be a means of ensuring / increasing the chances of an external character/organization executing a desired action within the game context (i.e. "do this for me cause I have money"). It could be a ruse of some sort where the player's ultimate goal is the surreptitious transmission of funds from one party to another (for whatever reason the player wants that party to have more resources). Perhaps the player bribes as means of appeasing someone as no other negotiation can be done to convince the party to do something the player wishes to negate/prevent.

If the bribee, it could act as the skill tree system jeffery suggested (whereby choosing which group's bribe to accept can in some way affect the game's results, i.e. I accept the bribe of the militaristic gang over the ambitious politician because I want my reputation with the gang to increase more than I want the politician's view of me to increase - the increased reputation earning more "abilities" as it were). Honestly, a "bribe" is just an story-approved term for a transfer of resources that has a particular connotation associated with it. Any game interaction that involves a transfer of resources, for ANY purpose, that can appropriately be coined as a "bribe" within the story context will be a mechanic that could be acceptably labeled as a "bribe".

The question is what is the purpose of these bribes.

There's no other purpose than this.

I agree that in the real world the gain is always personal. However a game is a little different. In a game there's no friends with boats, no retirement plan, just winning and bragging rights.

Every dictator worth his salt needs a Mercedes. And a Lamborghini. And a useless tank bought at auction from the Americans. And an ancient Hind from a Russian junkyard.

Cool 'flair' that may optionally confer bonuses in game is a great sink for illicit earnings.