A draw of luck or strategy? | Board Game on Entrepreneurship
To all the people reading this without reading the previous articles, I am in the middle of making a startup themed board game and am documenting my progress as I move forward. I keep on discussing the various roadblocks, the attempted solutions and my next step through these articles.
The objective behind the game is to get entrepreneurship and starting up in the mainstream and I find board games as an excellent way to do it. If you like the idea or would like to contribute in some way, please visit entrepi.world and reach out to us!
Monopoly. Chess. Risk. Bridge. Game of Life. Go.
Above mentioned are some commonly played board games and while almost everyone might have played a majority of these, very few will be able to distinguish the major factor of differentiation here.
Monopoly, Risk, Game of Life — extremely luck dependent games.
Chess, Bridge, Go- extremely strategic games.
What is it that one wants in a game? More of luck like Monopoly, or completely strategy based like Chess?
While there is no fixed answer, and it depends from creator to creator, I was in a fix for deciding what to go with for my game Startup High.
Luck in board gaming is the random element that can affect the outcome of a game. This can be anything from rolling dice to drawing cards.
Strategy, on the other hand, is the use of planning and forethought to increase your chances of winning. This can involve things like choosing the right cards to play, building your engine correctly, or making alliances with other players.
Having a more luck based game makes your game more accessible to a wider range of players as they do not require a high level of skill or knowledge. It also makes it more unpredictable and exciting that keeps the players engaged and on their toes, as they never know what is going to happen next. Most importantly, it is less frustrating for beginners as they are less likely to make mistakes that cost them the game.
Whereas, having a strategy based game is more skill-based. This means that the outcome of the game is more likely to be determined by the players’ skill than by luck. It is more rewarding as players feel a sense of accomplishment when they win due to their own skill. It is generally more replayable as players can try different strategies and tactics to see what works best. Most importantly, your loyalists are not being disappointed as it is less frustrating for experienced players as they are less likely to lose due to bad luck.
Having understood the pros and the cons of both the types of games, I wanted to create something that resonates with my target audience. Hence, seeing my target audience, that makes the game very similar to the actual journey of starting up, a combination of luck and strategy. But what %? Let’s figure that out.
The journey of entrepreneurship requires both luck as well as strategy.
There are certain things that entrepreneurs can control, such as their business plan, their marketing strategy, and their team. But there are also many things that they cannot control, such as the economy, the competition, and the whims of consumers. While we as humans have almost understood the strategic aspect, luck is something that is highly misunderstood.
I remember reading the book ‘The Psychology of Money’ by Morgan Housel a long time ago, and I absolutely loved the understanding of an average human’s understanding of luck.
Humans tend to overestimate their own luck and underestimate the luck of others. This is known as the “lucky-me bias”. The lucky-me bias is a cognitive bias that causes people to believe that they are luckier than they actually are.
This simplified is that if I win, I must have won because of luck, and if others win, they must have won because of their skill.
What people do not realise is that luck is an integral part of everyone’s life and we cannot do away with it. Sometimes, it would be in our favour and sometimes it wouldn’t. One way to challenge your thoughts about luck is to keep a record of your lucky and unlucky experiences. This will help you to see that luck is not as important as you may think it is.
More importantly, I have always believed in only worrying about things that are under our control and hence, have always realised the importance of strategizing and focusing on own’s actions.
Additionally, it is often said that you cannot control your luck, but you can definitely increase your surface area for it. The concept of “surface area for luck” was first introduced by entrepreneur Jason Roberts. He argues that the more you do something you’re passionate about and the more people you tell about it, the more likely you are to experience serendipity, or “lucky accidents.”
In simpler words, sitting inside your house would not make you luckier as compared to you hustling out on the streets, working and meeting new people.Hence, while both are important, luck can, till a certain extent, be strategized as well.
So, what is greater in entrepreneurship, luck or strategy? The answer is that they are both important. But if I had to choose one, I would say that strategy is more important. This is because entrepreneurs can control their strategy, but they cannot control luck.
Of course, luck can still play a role in entrepreneurship. But if an entrepreneur has a sound strategy, they will be more likely to succeed, even if they are not lucky.
Hence, observing the theme of my game, and perceiving as to how the audience would want it to be, I decided that the game should be more strategic than luck based, minimum by at least 1% if not entirely.
Having a strategic game definitely makes my game less accessible to beginners, but if they played Startup High, I hope those people are aspiring to be or already are in the startup ecosystem and would understand why the game has been designed like that.
It makes the game more complex too, as players have to understand the rules and apply their minds, but there is nothing short of what I would expect while playing a game based on startups.
Lastly, luck also plays an important role in my game not because it might become boring without it, but because I cannot ignore how the ecosystem works, that is full of surprises and sudden twists and turns that also makes entrepreneurship exciting for what it is.
Having decided a crucial part of game designing, I progressed further to come up with a game version after discarding the BMC version. To know more about this, stay tuned!
