Billionaire Tycoon the Board Game comes out this fall according to the Economist.
THE most famous board game of them all, “Monopoly”, was launched during the Depression. This crisis may not produce anything quite as successful, but it has also spawned a crop of new financial games.
“Billionaire Tycoon”, which will go on sale this autumn, is one engaging example. You are an entrepreneur who has been wiped out by the crash; you win when you have £1 billion on hand through the strategic acquisition of cash-generating firms, starting with car washes and pet shops and building up to oil rigs and private banks. Along the way, you can bargain, trade, steal, borrow and even engineer military coups to gain businesses and outfox opponents. Its co-creator, Shameek Upadhya, says his entrepreneur friends like to play—as do, apparently, their children.
“Billionaire Tycoon” takes finance seriously. Rather like “Credit Crunch”, The Economist’s own board game that appeared in our Christmas 2008 issue, “Crunch”, a card game launched last year by TerrorBull Games, is pure parody. As the boss of a global bank, players have to trouser as much cash as possible by leveraging up, awarding themselves bonuses and stealing (literally) others’ cards. When the crunch-card turns up, a bail-out card offers a way out. As the game’s creators put it: “It’s your personal responsibility to do whatever it takes to ensure a comfortable retirement.” (source)
This sounds like a brilliant improvement on the old classic Monopoly. Click to play real life tycoon.
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