And this is the bit that always makes me sit up, because in a business, the gem tokens are revenue. It comes in, you spend it, it's gone. It's easy to spend years just chasing more of it. The permanent gems are the things that make everything afterward cheaper - a reputation that means clients show up already sold, systems that cut each project's effort in half, a body of work that closes deals before you open your mouth. You build those once and they quietly discount everything you do, forever. The studios that only chase the next bit of revenue stay stuck grinding, paying full price for every single project. None of this came from a gem game, obviously. But Splendor lays it out very clearly than most business books I've read.