playspent.org - What Are Your Thoughts? Am I Missing Something?

[nvestysly]

I recently stumbled across the playspent.org web site. The "game" if you want to call it that is Spent so I guess the web site is playspent.

I think the object of the web site is to get people to understand how quickly a person can move from employed and paying their bills to unemployed and in financial ruin.

Take a look when you have time and post your comments. I think playspent is enlightening to some degree but falls short because the choices are many times the lesser of evils. Yes, life can be like that but playspent only seems to allow the player to make marginal to poor choices rather than permitting a wider variety of choices over a wider time horizon. For instance, playspent forces me to include housing costs in my scenario but doesn't give me a choice to have a room mate. I have to admit I'm technology challenged at time so maybe I don't understand how the web site works.

[clifp]

I saw an earlier version of this (done before ACA had passed.), I don't mind when the make stuff like the and stack the deck against your. There is always a series of catastrophe waiting to happen and basically you will always go broke.

So step 1 was take a $9/hour job ok fine that happens.

Step 2 you need to get insurance the lowest cost bronze plan was $232 a month with a $45.

That is BS. I don't believe there is a any state, where a 20 to 40 year old person with a child making 18K/year is going to pay that much for medical insurance. In most states they are going to qualify for medicaid, and I would guess a bronze plan would under $50/month.

[nvestysly]

I agree the PPACA would kick in so the person would not pay nearly as much for insurance as the playspent.org game indicates.

I've worked through the game several times. I remain disappointed that the game seems to rigged against making good decisions. For instance something came up that indicated my child was eligible for advanced learning classes but there would be fees associated with allowing the child to participate. The choices were to 1) pay the fees, 2) apply for a scholarship, or 3) ignore the advanced learning classes. I chose to apply for the scholarship. That turned out to be a bad choice since the game then said that I had to take a day off of work to fill out the paperwork for the scholarship, which made my boss angry, so I received a "strike" against me. Doh! In real life I would have realized the paperwork was going to require time away from work so I would have arranged an alternate approach.

I'd like to believe the playspent game is a useful tool but it does not allow the participant to make informed decisions. Rather is seems to take a random walk down Main Street and applies a series of bad scenarios to situations that are already questionable.

Somebody should make a Richest Man In Babylon game which allows the player to make choices in difficult situations that have the chance of leading to positive outcomes. This type of game would demonstrate that you are responsible for your own destiny to a great extent and good decisions can lead to good results. Instead, playspent seems to indicate that good decisions and poor decisions both lead to homelessness although poor decisions will get you there more quickly.

[marko]

Seems like this 'game' has an agenda....along with carefully imagined roadblocks.

"Get food stamps or starve" well, duh!