Economic and societal lessons from my most recent smart phone game
I almost NEVER play games on my phone anymore.
But sometimes they break through my defenses.
I got into this one over 4th of July weekend and this morning just completed building Europe (North America was first). The developers say they are opening up Africa soon, but I got the gist and I think I'm done at this point. Also, it got me to spend $12 to get rid of the ads, which would have made the experience INTOLERABLE. But that's all I spent. No way I'm dropping money in the store. Kind of defeats the point anyway, as you'll see...
I thought this game was worth sharing for the lessons it teaches about business, economics, and networking, and I've had the urge to write about it for you.
The premise: Connect cities with roads to facilitate commerce. Do this all across the globe 🌐 to build a flourishing economy.
The tools:
🛠️ Build roads between towns. Each road built generates regular income.
🛠️ Upgrade each town twice to increase its status (only possible after the town is connected to at least one other)
🛠️ Unlock new territory to find new cities
🛠️ Upgrade speed, income, and experience for the whole system
That's pretty much it. It's visually complex and appealing, and the music is soothing. Plus it gave me a sense of accomplishment (not entirely deserved I'll admit, but real nonetheless 😄) Watch the video to get a sense of the gameplay.
First the disclaimers:
✔️ There's no real challenge here. No politics, economic tradeoffs, maintenance, environmental risk, medicine, class struggle. All of the things that make building the actual global economy so challenging.
✔️ Investments ALWAYS pay off in this game. That's not like real life.
✔️ There is no creative problem solving. The path ahead is always obvious.
Now, the takeaways:
✅ You can ALWAYS be better networked. That's why we spend time on LinkedIn after all. Don't you find that every new connection teaches you something new about the world that you didn't see before, and opens up some kind of new opportunity? In this game, there are roads you can't build until you reach a certain density and gain the ability to build from new angles. Remember, every road increases prosperity. This is also true of real life connections if we look at them the right way.
✅ We constantly need to invest in order to grow. Investments happen on many levels. Sometimes it's our tools. Sometimes our products and services. Sometimes our facilities. Sometimes our team. Sometimes our education. We must carefully evaluate what to upgrade at what time, but ultimately they all work together to level things up.
✅ The economy is a collaborative effort, and we all have an essential place in it. We all win when we all win. And we're all necessary.
True, a game like this glosses over the mess of the human condition, but sometimes it's the simple abstractions that reveal the most useful perspectives about this wild, wonderful adventure of human life and commerce, for me anyway ☺️