Economic Games

Demand and supply are what drives our market. You can get a pretty good idea of how demand and supply affect the prices of goods and services after playing some of these online games. I played the McVideo game and the farmers game to get a better understanding of these market driving forces.

The McVideo game was definitely entertaining, but I don't think it painted as good of a picture as some of the other games. While it did give a good idea of demand and supply, it was very fast paced and a little harder to get the hang of. You could fail at it very quickly. Although once you get the hang of it you can see how you would need to manage supply based on demand and vice versa. I did however find that it was much easier to manage an increase in the demand, so long as you have the supply to cover it. It's a lot harder to increase the supply for the demand after the fact.

In contrast, the farming game was quite a bit different. It made you think a lot more, and gave you the time to do it. ;)  It also made you watch your costs and decide where the best place was to sell your goods. You learn quickly to invest as much as you can in land first, as it goes quickly and the price goes up quickly because of the high demand for it. And without the land you could not make money as you needed it to grow your cattle and your grains. Then you need to keep an eye on the local market and the foreign market to get the best price available for your goods.

All in all they were pretty neat games and each game had its own lessons to be learned. I am glad I played 2 of them to give different perspectives of demand and supply.