The title of this campaign just shouted out at me: ‘Finliti: Game of Gains—A Behavioral Finance Board Game.’ The blurb says, ‘Defeat your financial foes and max out your gains! The only board game built with behavioural finance experts that teaches you to buy, sell and trade all the while overcoming the psychological biases that derail investing.’ I definitely find this intriguing, though it comes across more as an educational tool than a game. However, none of this actually addresses the question of what the thing is!
Well, let me see… In Game of Gains, you act as a ‘hero’ who, um, buys and sells stocks in some heroic manner (via card drawing and dice rolling, I guess, based on the pictures and video on the campaign page), to reach a target score of some sort (monetary, but that’s all I know) while the market moves around you all the while. Along the way you tackle 9 ‘financial foes.’ This is a fine example of the sort of Kickstarter project I’d think long and hard about before backing, due to a game description that’s so vague it’s practically missing.
It must be said, though, that the foes are quite amusing, such as ‘FOMO, fear of missing out personified’ or ‘Regretta, master of second-guessing and regret.’ I could well imagine a variant of the game set in the world of crowdfunding backers!
The game’s creator, Jennifer Schell, says Game of Gains ‘transforms real behavioral finance concepts into a social, strategy-based tabletop experience that encourages self-awareness, conversation, and better decision-making—without lectures or jargon.’ I am of the opinion that people generally are fairly ignorant about how money works, especially scary things like stock markets, and a lightweight educational tool would be welcome. I can’t tell based on the information in this campaign if this is such a tool. I’m also dubious about the use of the term ‘experience’—can we be safe in assuming that translates as ‘fun game?’
The campaign’s reward structure is interesting, to say the least. The basic (‘lapis’ edition) game is priced at the normal level you’d expect from crowdfunding. But then there’s the deluxified ‘silver’ edition at a huge step up—almost 4 times the cost—where everything is a bit shinier: ‘great for anyone who loves bright colors.’ I I can’t tell if there’s any actual silver in the product, though ‘silver edge dice’ are mentioned, whatever that actually means. However, the ‘gold’ edition includes ‘premium 14K gold finishes,’ so I guess there’s real gold in there, and the game figures are made of semi-precious stones—all for slightly north of £800. And this is a game that purports to teach people how to invest sensibly, hmm? Perhaps selecting the ‘right’ edition is the first test in Game of Gains.
You’ll need to make up your own mind about this project, but it’s a solid no from me with the current level of game description. I’ll still be keeping an eye on it, though, to see if more information becomes available before the end of the campaign.
About the author
When not playing boardgames or blogging about them, L.N. Hunter keeps himself occupied writing fiction: a comic fantasy novel, The Feather and the Lamp, sits alongside close to 100 short stories in various magazines and anthologies, and on websites and podcasts (see https://linktr.ee/L.N.Hunter for a full list). L.N. occasionally masquerades as a software developer or can be found unwinding in a disorganised home in Carlisle, UK, along with two cats and a soulmate.
