This post is part of the book Game of Life — you can read the introduction and all other chapters here. Summary We have seen that the challenges designing a game and running a country are remarkably similar. Game Designers have the big advantage that they can alter their systems much…

This post is part of the book Game of Life — you can read the introduction and all other chapters here. Problem 10: Community Abraham Lincoln defined a democratic government as “of the people, by the people and for the people” in his famous Gettysburg Address. Let’s assume that the community of a…

This post is part of the book Game of Life — you can read the introduction and all other chapters here. Problem 9: Analytics Measuring the right Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) is crucial for a gaming company in these days. Forgone are the days where you could just create a game which looks…

This post is part of the book Game of Life — you can read the introduction and all other chapters here. Problem 8: Cheating Cheating does not only happen in taxes — people will always try to “game” the system to get advantages for themselves. This of course can either directly hurt other…

This post is part of the book Game of Life — you can read the introduction and all other chapters here. Problem 7: Achievements What have achievements in games in common with taxes in real life? This chapter will try to give an answer to that question. Achievements are very popular among…

This post is part of the book Game of Life — you can read the introduction and all other chapters here. Problem 6: Monetization With the rise of free2play games both the gaming industry and real world governments have one thing in common: They need to raise revenues but cannot charge an “entry”…

This post is part of the book Game of Life — you can read the introduction and all other chapters here. Problem 5: Virtual Currencies Oh boy, it’s hard to design a monetary system for an economy — even in such a controlled environment such as a game. It’s easy to put prices on…

As you may have read I am currently building a team collaboration tool called Alldone.app on the side. However somebody gotta do the actual development work so i needed an outsourcing partner which i can afford without needing sweet VC money. As described here I eventually decided to go with…

This post is part of the book Game of Life — you can read the introduction and all other chapters here. Problem 4: Balancing A game needs to find the right balance between challenges and rewards in order to keep the gamers playing. It needs to give players meaningful things to do and…