Sunday, October 9, 2011

A game about 'Poverty'

I came across an interesting article while browsing the news today.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/spent-online-game-forces-players-confront-challenges-poverty-211654558.html

The article is about an online game created for Urban Minsitries to help people understand what it is like to live in Poverty in the USA. You start with $1000 as a single, unemployed parent. I was able to finish the month with $92 but only because I didn't pay a collections agency, missed my kid starring in a play, and drove off from a fender bender because I had no car insurance.

Funny thing is, back home I didn't always have car insurance and I know my parents dealt with several of the things, but thankfully not all. While traveling and eventually running out of money and surviving for the past 2 months with no money and just one short job to get me by, I realize what it means to live on very meager wages or to live unemployed. You no longer can go out with your friends and have that beer and if you do you always feel like a moocher. It's an IOU or something even though they say it's not, you can tell they are wondering when you'll be able to pay for yourself.

This game is really informational and I think it'll be a challenge for a lot of you if you play it honestly. The thing is though, over 14 million Americans are unemployed today and it doesn't seem like it'll be getting any better anytime soon. Except you won't see a lot of the people that are barely getting by in the Occupy Wallstreet strike, because they simply can't afford to be out of work or they'll have nothing to feed their family.

Here's the link to the game.

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