Awesome computer gaming for CA's
Bill Kennedy wrote an amusing post posing the question, are there any good accounting games out there for Xbox?
Being a partisan PC gamer of sorts, my answer is, "are there any good games out for Xbox?"
Seriously, you'll have to pry my mouse and keyboard out of my cold dead hands.
If you're trying to interest your kids in business, the AAA "Tycoon" titles are, however, where it's at, as are titles like Simcity. Anything where you manage some sort of economy is the current pinnacle of 'awesome'.
You could make an intelligent case for the original Railroad Tycoon and Simcity pushing me down the road towards my CA.
Railroad Tycoon, and it's two strong sequels RRT2 and RRT3, have you in the role of a tycoon trying to make a fortune with railroads - had you guessing there, didn't I?
Originl RRT, being a vintage 1990 game, was relatively basic, but the strong gameplay was there. You needed to make more money than you spent, had to decide on financing options - issue new shares of stock, or sell bonds? - and expand, all while competing against railroads controlled by the computer.
Your goal: dominate the map and by out some or all of the competition.
Having started in the 1830's, anti-trust laws were pretty weak. You could do all sorts of naughty things that get you Enron'ed these days. Learning in school about how anti-trust and Canadian anti-combine laws work makes a to more sense when you were able to play around with the stock market in a simulator.
And that's where RRT2 and RRT3 shined - they let you buy and sell stock on margin. Short selling, marging calls. It was both scary and awesome.
And it delivered home the lesson that our third year finance prof was imparting: you ultimately can't create value by manipulating the stock market. Need cash to pay for those stocks? Sure, issue somes bonds, but you're going to have the pay interest on your borrowings or you'll risk bankruptcy when the economy crashes - as it does every few years, with at least some kind of recession.
It's one thing to discuss the risks of being "highly leveraged", and something else entirely to watch as your poorly planned expansion isn't generating the revenues you thought it would and your pile of cash is steadily dwindling into the negative.
Did I forget to mention how insanely fun and addictive the RRT games were - and really truly still are? You bought locomotives and sent trains around the country delivering passengers and freight. Trains! Steam, diesel, electric. Oh what fun.
Above: A TGV in Zurich
I lost many nights of sleep to them, and if you ever think this stuff doesn't interest you, it's a good way to rekindle your interest in the business world.
Fans of governance - the municipal kind - will find similar challenges with the Simcity series. Read the Wikipedia articles on it if this is all new to you, but just thinking about that game makes me want to find the CD to start playing it again. Balancing your infrastructure spend with the growth of your city? While also laying out your own utopia - or distopia? What's not to like!
There was a console version of Simcity, and I'm sure some of the more 'basic' Tycoon type games have come out on console systems, but if you really want to get your kids 1. interested in computers, and 2. experiencing a simulated version of economic enterprise, look into those titles. For younger kids, the Rollercoaster Tycoon series is still pretty challenging - but equally fun and addictive. I remember getting some 8 year olds hooked on it.
Will they turn out to be CAs? Or theme park tycoons?
Perhaps. And all thanks to me, no doubt, and some CD's packed with awesome. Awesome trains. And surprisingly sophisticated financial simulators.
P.S., I would've loved to have left a comment directly at accountingweb for Bill, but after shovelling snow I am too tired - and mostly lazy - to fill out a form with SEVENTEEN required fields to leave a comment.
Honestly.
Krupo.ca and Steeplemedia.com only ask for an e-mail address and a new username. That's it. We don't care if you lie about your timezone, we'll just pick an arbitrary one for you unless you want to pick something else. Blogger lets you type in whatever you want. Glad that Bill's main blog is much more open - yay easy posting!