What Playing Video Games Can Teach Us About Money

Back in my younger years, I was a frequent video game player. Playing it occupied a good portion of my time. But when responsibilities started mounting up, they were relegated behind until I had little to no time for it.

Video games are more than just an entertainment to me. They are also a replica of reality. Which is why we sometimes tend to overdo it in a sense that we substitute it for reality.

However, through this replica of a reality, we can explore, experiment, and experience different aspects of life virtually. One of these aspects is money. Which often plays a crucial role in many video games.

But how does playing video games affect our understanding and attitude towards money in the real world? Can we transfer the skills and lessons we learn from video games to our financial life?

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Video Games as a Playground to Learn About Money

Video games offer us a relatively safe and fun environment to learn about money through the various activities we perform. Just like in life, money plays an important role in the fabrics of many video games. Money activities are usually earning, spending, trading and managing.

To briefly go over each of them, earning is done through completing quests, defeating enemies, selling items or performing other related tasks. The lesson here is the value of work, specifically strategic work to earn big. The value of time and effort is also evident.

Spending is a bit straightforward in that it is basically buying other items, equipments, or capabilities. Here we learn about calculating opportunity cost and trade-offs between one choice over another.

In many video games, we can trade money with other players or NPCs(non-player characters) by exchanging items. This teaches us the principles of supply and demand.

Tying it up all together is managing money. We have to manage money by balancing our income and expenses. Allocating our resources wisely and planning for the quests or battles ahead.

This is where I sucked at big time. I'm always in for the doing. And management deals with both doing and not doing. At its core, it teaches us the skills of financial literacy, accounting, and overall strategy.

Over time and through these activities, we learn a bunch about money in a fun and engaging way.

Lessons Learned About Money from Playing Video Games

If you've ever played a video game and achieved great riches then the feeling of money is not everything has probably dawned on you.

My first tangible experience of it is when I completed the story mode of GTA V and received all that millions in the bank account. The feeling was very similar to having more money than you can ever spend. And then asking yourself what's next?

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Although money is important and quite useful in both video games and reality, it is not the only thing that matters. In reality, we should also value other things such as happiness, health and relationships to have a wholesome experience.

Money is neither fixed nor equal in a sense that it is always changing in value, quantity and availability. And there are gaps and disparities between different groups of players based on their game level. Albeit almost anyone can start from the bottom and climb up the levels just like in reality.

I believe we could be aware of these inequalities and strive to overcome them if we find ourselves on the lower end. Also, we could learn the lesson of being adaptable to the changes in the market and the economy.

Money is not easy to earn or manage both in video games and in reality. It requires knowledge, hard work and patience.

For me, this teaches us that we should not take money for granted or waste it on unnecessary things despite the superficiality of it (money). It is a tool.

In Closing

Playing video games can teach us some valuable lessons about money that we often overlook. While in reality, it can be applicable to real life.

The key is to be reflective of what we are doing/learning in the virtual world. And how it relates to our real world.

Gamifying life (or aspects of it) through video games can be an engaging and great tool to learn about life.


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