What can Games teach us about Money Part 1

Well let me tell you about my story 8 years ago.I was involved with a network marketing company and to be honest they were great. They teach you a lot of good stuff about sales , marketing, motivation and dealing with people. No matter how bad or good the product is , you still can grab good life lessons for success. While I was with them , one day, I was reading a very successful network marketer’s website  in the US. He was talking about a life changing book that affected him deeply and made him focused about success especially in his financial life. The book Rich Dad Poor Dad which was written by a very famous American entrepreneur Robert Kiyosaki. I immediately bought the book , and I was too shocked by the way he presented life facts and money issues. He mentioned something very important about GAMES and that’s what I want to focus about in this post. He said that playing games and not any game but games about or involves money is a good exercise for real life and real money. He took this advice from his rich dad and the only game that was available back then was the famous Monopoly board game.

So what can Monopoly can teach us about money ?

According to John Rosenberg from Best Family Games there are few lessons:

1-  Invest your money

2-  Negotiate always

3- Take chances

4- Always have cash

Another game that I really enjoyed and learned a lot from it about money is “Cash Flow” made by Rich Dad Poor Dad company. The basic goal of this game is how to escape from the rat race. The rat race is a financial predicament in which many people fall into. They are trapped by the excess of expenses over income and by bad debts other than assets. The game comes into two forms: board and video game.

Famrville in Facebook is very popular and a hit. The game brings many lessons about money . One of the lessons is how to understand a very important financial concept: return of investment (ROI). Christopher S Penn suggests a useful economic principle on how to invest in frequent sellable items with small margins rather than investing in big margin items.

These games above illustrate  an example of the power of gaming. Like I mentioned in my post Stock Market Simulation Game how you can practise investing your virtual money so you can feel comfortable doing it and confident about your skills. I believe that the gaming industry is shifting towards providing good games with special experiences that can teach us and our kids many lessons that we can not do in real life. This part is a start and Part 2 is a continuation of this gaming journey.

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Tags: Cash Flow, educational tools, Farmville, Games, Money Skills, Monopoly, Video Games