The value of art I recently noticed that you can actually make profit when selling art objects like paintings and sculptures! Unlike the other objects (tables, chairs, ...) they are sold at a higher price than they cost you! Makes you think slightly differenty about those annoying Fortune sims doesn't it? Or if you've got some cash to spare, you can actually buy some art and take profit of its value increase. I haven't experimented with this so I don't know for sure if time also plays a role here (so the longer you keep the objects, the more simoleons you get when selling it) but I would hope it does...
In TS1 the value of art objects fluctuated over time. Sometimes you sold at a profit, sometimes at a loss. In my families that were really hard pressed for cash, I would actually check the value of all art objects every sim-night, and sell and re-purchase any that had increased in value. Anyway, I imagine it works the same way in TS2.
The point you're missing out on is that in the time it takes for the value of an artwork to appreciate, *IF* it appreciates, the increase in the bills you pay for them more likely than not wipes out any gain you expect to make. However, Fortune sims aren't quite as bad...as long as they're not generation 0. Generation-0 Fortune sims are a pain. Subsequent generations tend to be less annoying, since their desire to purchase garbage is much reduced: By the time you spawn another generation, you're settled into a house you'd actually WANT to decorate anyway, and once a Fortune sim maxes out his creativity, he will harass you far less about buying junk and instead want to sell paintings, not unlike Popularity sims, and also are less prone to power-want flooding. IIRC, time affected artwork only in the sense that each night, the value of the artwork had a chance of fluctuating either up or down by a random percentage. This, of course, means that the longer the artwork has been around, the larger the fluctuation percentage, but as this is essentially a randomwalk, it does not have the same effect as interest. Although that WOULD be an interesting thing to have, for Sims to be able to buy stocks and bonds....
We'll probably have to wait for the Wall Street expansion pack Oh, thanks to both previous posters for clearing this art value thing out, never having played TS1 I can never tell if something is new or not (obviously)
I guess this comment is without taking the gained aspiration points into account? Because otherwise the following scenario seems quite useful: Fortune sim wants sculpture of 4000 or more > get sculpture and gain 4000 aspiration poins > sell sculpture and get the 4000 simoleons back. Result: 4000 aspiration points gained.
According to the Prima game guide, the apprecition of art objects (paintings and sculptures) works like this: On each day there is a 50-50 chance that the object will either appreciate or depreciate a set amount. If the object is worth less than $100 that day it appreciates/depreciates by $2. If it is worth between $100 and $999 the value adjustment is $15. Objects worth $1000 or more change by $50 a day.
Aspirational gain is not accounted for in this, because this, too, is kind of a risky card to play: When you sell that sculpture back, you may get your money back, but you may also lose the ASP you gained from it in the instant "Miss This Object" thing. The Fireplace Worth $3000 want is great, though, because it'll appear fairly often, and when you buy him that fireplace, just tossing it on the lawn more likely than not because your home wasn't designed to actually hold a fireplace, and then immediately sell it back after being awarded, the sim never misses the fireplace! You get all of your money back instantly, along with a hefty ASP shot, and within a few rolls, he'll probably want the fireplace again. Not that any sims ever *USE* a fireplace, or even have a place in their homes to put one....
