Of the various ways of securing financial health, investing soundly is number one. But while seeing one’s money grow is very pleasurable, the homework that leads to the growth, is not. It is boring number crunching and quickly makes you yawn.
The creative right brain goes to sleep, and the process is robbed of interest. Often enough this leads to second rate investment decisions or worse.
On the other hand, playing games encourages creativity, keeps the emotional/creative right brain hemisphere active and is pleasurable. Also, generally it’s financially unproductive.
The Volatility Game, combines the best of both the worlds. In a most enjoyable gaming environment, it teaches the players to use the dreaded volatility factor of the market to ones’ own advantage and make ones’ portfolio grow faster, sustainably. As the game continually sends new information to the player, the enjoyable atmosphere makes the information sink in in the players’ minds and turn it into new financial knowledge which is retained very well and is forever accessible to the player.
Research firmly indicates that information gathered in a friendly and enjoyable atmosphere is better retained and better utilized.
Metaphor/Story
The Rotary Club in India had 28 members, all active people with considerable financial resources at their command. To attract investments, institutions like banks, Mutual Fund houses etc. often asked them for speaking slots at their meetings. The club agreed as they felt that some of these speakers, who were important people themselves, would eventually become members of their clubs.
As a rule, the fact rich presentations made little impressions on the Rotarians and little investment ensued. Even the little that did was not actively investigated and pursued.
One day a bright Financial Advisor asked for a slot to play The Volatility Game, an investment-oriented computer game with the Rotarians and the club agreed.
Throughout the game the audience remained curious and their attention engaged. They saw videos of the life of a common man. They saw the history of the financial markets’ ups and downs, the associated facts and figures, and spell-bounded, watched how it impacted the life of the man in the street.
As the rounds of the game proceeded among the hurrahs, the audience absorbed the concepts of the power of compounding, its huge importance in the long-term investment process, important financial ratios and their meanings, the concept of investments making for a stronger nation and such diverse ideas.
The 90-minute program was a resounding success and the net outcome was within about a month, almost all the members were invested and active in the investment field. The Financial Advisor had become a Rotarian himself.
The Rotary Club now had a solid program and became the center for Financial Knowledge dissemination all over the country. With the Financial Literacy as mission the Advisor became the chairman of the Financial Literacy Committee of the Rotary district. The momentum spread over the country and continent.
Gamification is a great way to make ideas, presentations and products interactive and user friendly.
The watchword is: “Play & Grow Rich”, “The best is yet to come.”
website – www.volatilitygame.com