“So, we’re out, huh? I mean we’re out: this is retirement money. This is ‘go legit and buy an island’ money.”
-Hardison, Leverage, “The Nigerian Job”
One of the things I find Shadowrun and other cyberpunk “let’s be criminals” roleplaying games do poorly is the whole money thing. Shadowrun never gave good examples of what one would expect to get from a criminal gig, and they’ve got a whole economy built in the game, down to the cost of a combat knife. Yet in play, the protagonists seem to live paycheck to paycheck. There’s no real incentive to do criminal work when the same amount of income (or more) could come in from a safer job elsewhere.