Now, Learn Personal Finance From Video Games!
Finance | October 12, 2009 at 1:45 amYou might be aware that a really hungry stomach desperately searches for food everywhere. This recession has made us all hungry for money and we are searching for ways for managing our personal finances. Financial knowledge is found to be hopelessly low in the youth, children and the common man of this country and the government and private institutions are leaving no stone unturned to teach financial education to people. – zq4h7pgt5f
Schools, colleges and the human resources development departments are coming up with money management programs to educate people. Financial literacy programs may be too formal for you. Especially, children might not want to indulge in serious programs. For them, educational interactive financial applications have been developed to make them financially literate. You can opt for those. But did you know that even a simple video game with small money transactions involved, which is primarily meant for entertainment, has a lot to impart in terms of financial education?
Firstly let me tell you that sitting indoors, playing a video game is a more budgeted option for entertainment then visiting bars and pubs during the hard economic times. Secondly you’ve got lessons to learn from the games itself. Take the World Of Warcraft (WoW), for example. In this game, players are allowed to interact only after they pay all their dues. So what do we learn? We learn that having no pending debts improves the longevity and quality of your business or social relationships. Next, when you earn gold in the game, you’ll realize how hard and time taking earning wealth can be. You 
get to learn managing your earnings of wealth. For example, the game necessitates that when you buy some quantity of something the quantity of another is also affected. This game also teaches you that the harder you work, the more you earn.
How much do you think a month subscription of WOW cost you? $.50 cents per day! That comes to $ 15 per month which is much less than what you’d spend on your family on a single day out.
Children and even adults have a lot to learn from these simple gaming experiences. I’m also reminded of the business games that we’d play with cards which would teach us some aspects of saving. I learnt good investment lessons from the business board game that my parents bought me for my 10th birthday. 
The Oregan Trail is another game that is an inspiration in the present gloomy economic times which seems to be on its road to recovery now. This game is about a family that travels far and wide and encounters hardships to fulfill their goal (Manifest Destiny). The game teaches you how to cope up with your hardships even if you are poorly prepared for it. Can anything be more relevant in the present times than this lesson that lets you know that one should be hopeful about good times but should always remain prepared for the bad times? I personally feel, had we been more prudent with our money management and were more financially literate; we would have not suffered so much this depression. You agree with me, don’t you?
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