This ain’t your father’s LIFE
Debt: Hasbro And Visa Pervert LIFE Board Game To Train Children In Racking Up Credit Card Debt
As if credit card-related debt wasn’t a big enough problem in the U.S., Hasbro and Visa want to fuel the fire. Hasbro is launching a new edition of The Game of Life called Twists and Turns that will replace play money with a Visa-branded card. Matt Collins, Hasbro’s vice president of marketing, said of the switch, “When we started to design a completely new edition of the popular game, we knew it was also time to reflect the way people choose to pay and be paid – and replacing cash with Visa was an obvious choice.”
They also changed the goal of the game from accumulating the most money to earning the most “life points.” Supposedly this a combination of wealth and life experiences, but it’s not hard to see parallels between “life points” and the reward points and airlines miles offered by certain credit cards.
For their part, Visa says they’re simply responding to what consumers want:
Does the game include a “sell a product placement” square? This kind of thing is so cheesy and so wrong.
I vaguely remember the same thing was done with some monopoly boards. Instead of having your cash, you had a visa card and a card reader thing instead of all the coloured notes.
Is Monopoly Hasbro as well? Maybe they just have a deal. Which is poor really, but hey, the only thing that matters to a company are its share holders, so make a deal here, get a nice big wad of cash for it, sell some more boards and there you go, more money, bigger dividend for investors.
I wonder if you can go into bankruptcy if you build up too much credit card debt.
Monopoly is from Parker Bros.
Try, just try explaining to a teen daughter, about getting a cell phone without being 18 yet and without a credit card.
I have tried to be without credit cards for the last 20 years, it’s impossible in NA. So I guess the game makers have it right.
Let’s just hope the game addresses the issue of bankruptcy, seven years without credit, and that impact on your life.
So it might not be such a bad thing.
The whole “life points” system reminds me vaguely of “The Sims.” I suppose you would need some kind of system to reward experiencing the fullness of life. Otherwise, why would anyone in the game do anything other than die alone like some Scrooge McDuck miser?
I think this could actually be good as long as they accurately reflect the way debt works in the game. If this can teach kids (and adults that should know better) that debt can get you what you want short term, at the expense of long term financial stability, then that would be good. There needs to be bonus ‘life points’ for outcomes like ‘not going bankrupt’, or ‘pay for kids college’.
On another point, I hope the new version is free or substantially cheaper, I dislike paying for things that contain ads. I am happy to pay for entertainment content with either money, or my attention to sponsors, but not both. XOR.
“…we knew it was also time to reflect the way people choose to pay and be paid…”
Pardon me but the way most people use credit cards, shouldn’t this read, “the way people choose to go into high interest debt”?
I also wonder what they mean by “be paid”. I don’t recall Visa ever paying me anything.