Sources of lifestyle inflation

[Ian]

Not asking for myself, but for a game (pretty sure that's a first on this forum). I'm helping to design a game related to money management and I think lifestyle inflation would make a central mechanic more interesting.

Without going into too much detail, the idea is that players undergo a challenge to get a promotion at work. The trick is that each promotion causes lifestyle inflation (new optional challenges representing specific things). I want to balance the system so that unless you tackle the individual expense challenges, your expenses always rise with income. I think that's a pretty accurate representation of reality.

My problem is getting the new expenses right, especially at higher levels. Your character starts out at grunt level, $10/hour with debt, so I started with the basic expenses of someone who doesn't give money much thought. To be realistic, I know various expenses should increase, but that's way more detail than would be fun for the game, so I tried to give each upgrade a basic theme:

Promotion Level 1: Rent, Utilities, Food, Phone, Health Insurance, Gas, Car Insurance, Debts
Promotion Level 2: (no lifestyle inflation, since this promotion just lets you break even)
Promotion Level 3: Social Drinking, Lattes, Gym Membership, Vacations, Hobbies
Promotion Level 4: Mortgage, Wine
Promotion Level 5: Fancy Clothes, Housekeeping

Maybe levels 1-4 don't make perfect sense (there should probably be a clothing or household item in there) but in game terms they balance perfectly. But for level 5, I don't have enough ideas for discrete new expenses (tech gadgets, maybe?). That's where I'd like some ideas.

I'm also open to objections about the former levels. This will likely be stuff that no one is really analyzing in depth, but it doesn't hurt to be more representative.

[GandK]

I'd probably make it look more like this:

Promotion Level 1: Rent, Utilities, Food, Phone, Gas, Public Transportation. You gain debt in this level.
Promotion Level 2: Car, Car insurance, Health insurance, Debt (re)payment. You break even.
Promotion Level 3: Social Drinking, Lattes, Gym Membership, Entertainment, Token Trendy Items. You use money to gain comfort, friends, and a mate.
Promotion Level 4: Mortgage, Wine, Vacations, Fancy Clothes, Gadgets. You use money to establish yourself and raise your reputation/image.
Promotion Level 5: Investments, Housekeeping, Lawn Care, Private schools, Political/charitable contributions. You use money to influence society and the future (your own, your family's and other people's).

This sort of mimics the way I see most people using money.

[vivacious]

Good post @GandK. Yeah that looks about right. @Ian is this a mobile Android game or something?

[Ian]

I'd probably make it look more like this:

Thanks for the feedback, I've incorporated some of it. I agree about cars and health insurance in principle, but I want them on the first level so players start with more baggage and disadvantages. I've also decided that big purchases like cars and houses should be separate decisions, not part of the default lifestyle inflation.

Promotion Level 3: Social Drinking, Lattes, Gym Membership, Gadgets, Entertainment
Promotion Level 4: Vacations, Fancy Clothes, Wine
Promotion Level 5: Housekeeping, Landscaping, Cruises, Massages, Club Memberships
Flexible: Mortgage, New Cars, Yachts

@Ian is this a mobile Android game or something?

It's in early planning and resource development stages, so I'm not sure. I'm hoping for a short RPG of reasonable substance but I don't know if I'll even try to make anything off it.

[jennypenny]

jet skis, small boats, motorcycles, campers, golf, season tickets to sporting events, timeshare, second home, "fun" car, wine cellar, home theater, pool/spa and poolhouse

I think some of the categories could be upgraded at each level. For example...
vacations -> expensive vacations -> timeshares -> second homes
golf -> golf club memberships -> high-end clubs -> weekend golf trips
gym memberships -> races (running/triathalon) -> high-end equipment -> traveling to expensive races
cooking -> foodie -> high-end kitchen -> epicurean travel
outboard -> inboard -> cabin cruiser -> yacht

[7Wannabe5]

What about people who are self-employed or retired at the various levels of lifestyle? Also, I think more people are all over the board in different categories according to their personal preferences. For instance, I know a retired guy who drives a Lexus convertible but scavenges and chops his own wood to heat his house.

[Ian]

Thanks for the continued ideas.

What about people who are self-employed or retired at the various levels of lifestyle? Also, I think more people are all over the board in different categories according to their personal preferences. For instance, I know a retired guy who drives a Lexus convertible but scavenges and chops his own wood to heat his house.

There's nothing stopping you from creating different kinds of lifestyles, I just want a default set so that promotions come with lifestyle inflation. For example, there's a challenge to drop your utilities to that inexpensive of a level. You could also choose to buy bigger things than even the default.

Self-employment and early retirement are possible, but they're special challenges. I want the core game to have medium difficulty for average people, so they can see significant returns from good real life strategies. Higher goals are optional for frugal or optimizing players.

[jacob]

I don't have any specific suggestion for levels because it always blows my mind how someone can spend 10x what I do without batting an eye. For example, we pay on the order of $50/month in electricity, but inflation can easily bring this to $500. So at different levels, we're both getting killed by utilities by percentage, but the inflated person probably lights up a house app. 10x bigger than what I live in.

There's also the laziness factor. The more people make, the greater their propensity to pay their way out or spend mindlessly. E.g. instead of walking a mile, they throw $10 at a cab. They drink $100 bottle wines just because they can.

[ether]

The game real lives 2010 does a good job of representing life style inflation, but with an international focus.

You can try out the game for free here: http://download.cnet.com/Real-Lives-201 ... 85137.html

Essentially there are 4 spending categories: housing, food, shopping, donations. As you get more pay the game automatically increases one spending category, and you must manually adjust your spending if you want to save money.

[Ian]

I don't have any specific suggestion for levels because it always blows my mind how someone can spend 10x what I do without batting an eye. For example, we pay on the order of $50/month in electricity, but inflation can easily bring this to $500. So at different levels, we're both getting killed by utilities by percentage, but the inflated person probably lights up a house app. 10x bigger than what I live in.

There's also the laziness factor. The more people make, the greater their propensity to pay their way out or spend mindlessly. E.g. instead of walking a mile, they throw $10 at a cab. They drink $100 bottle wines just because they can.

I know. I'm trying to find a middle ground here. Right now the game doesn’t even let anyone get expenses as low as yours, but I imagine there will be people saying they're unrealistically low.

The game real lives 2010 does a good job of representing life style inflation, but with an international focus.

You can try out the game for free here: http://download.cnet.com/Real-Lives-201 ... 85137.html

Essentially there are 4 spending categories: housing, food, shopping, donations. As you get more pay the game automatically increases one spending category, and you must manually adjust your spending if you want to save money.

I like how the game does that. I played around with it for a while, but it really is a life simulator - like reality, if you end up in the wrong circumstances, it's mostly depressing. My target is several steps less realistic, but all comparable games are interesting to me.

[leeholsen]

i think youre missing the ultra rich level, private jets, daily driver, nannys, etc.

i know thats completely reverse thinking from ere, i know i couldnt spend that kind of money and know i'd be giving most away to charity if i had it; but there's part of the population that live like that and its not too hard to get there if you did the right thing at the right time; like bought a whole lot of google stock when it was less than $50.

[C40]

Drug use:

- Malt liquor / Natty Ice
- Cheap/normal beer / Liquor in plastic bottles
- Snob beer. Nice liquor. Marijuana
- Drugs in pill form (Extacy, painkillers, muscle relaxers, anxiety or ADD drugs)
- Cocaine. Hormone replacement drugs (testosterone). Dick pills (Erections)

[Ian]

New question, which I'll ask here instead of making another thread. In the game, instead of using typical equipment like swords and armor, you use cognitive things. You have five equipment slots: Goal, Virtue, Book, Hobby, and Accessory. I'd like input on two things:
1) I like my first three slots, but I'm sure I could think of better ideas for the last two. What categories of things assist someone on a personal level?
2) I need goal suggestions - relatively abstract ones. For example, your starting goal is "Survive Today" which is pretty weak. Mid-game you might equip goals like "Escape Debt" and late-game you equip the things like "Financial Independence" or "Attain Enlightenment." But I need at least 20+ ideas to populate the game and I'm not coming up with them.

More info on the equipment for anyone interested:
Goal - your primary way of dealing damage to the doubts and difficulties of life, upgrades
Virtue - all are about equal, so you equip different ones for different situations
Book - equipping them long enough teaches new skills, so you read one and then equip another
Hobby - somewhat duplicating Books, maybe these encourage longer time investments
Accessory - the catch-all for other frugality-related situational equipment, Bikes and such

i think youre missing the ultra rich level, private jets, daily driver, nannys, etc.

That's true. If I wanted to better model reality I'd need to cover Levels 6-10, but the game isn't really set up to go to those income levels.

Drug use:

- Malt liquor / Natty Ice
- Cheap/normal beer / Liquor in plastic bottles
- Snob beer. Nice liquor. Marijuana
- Drugs in pill form (Extacy, painkillers, muscle relaxers, anxiety or ADD drugs)
- Cocaine. Hormone replacement drugs (testosterone). Dick pills (Erections)

I hadn't thought about drug use; I'll have to consider what role that might play.

[JamesR]

That you're doing a game on money management made me think of Rich Dad Poor Dad's Cashflow games. You can see an early version of it at https://webgame.richdad.com/Login.aspx (l/p: nospam@mailinator.com / nospam). Play a game by yourself with bots (it's tends to be buggy, especially multiplayer). Looks like there might be a newer version at http://www.richdad.com/classic too

[Ian]

Thanks, I'll look into it.

[Sclass]

Cash flow - I have that game in board form. My girlfriend bought it back in 1999 along with hundreds of dollars of other RK stuff. I recall begging her to stop getting cassettes because she was only making RK rich.

The game actually is pretty good in that the teacher and automechanic often win. Low expenses (e.g. Free car) and lots of discretionary money to invest. If you draw these pieces you can kind of win by being ERE. Like all the rich dad stuff there is always a gem hidden in all the hucksterism. But you need to read between the lines.

sorry, just had to toss that in. I was poor when we played. We played with three other couples who also owned their own sets as well as preached RK. They're all still struggling but in a funny way. They own unprofitable small businesses now, underwater rentals and they are still in the rat race to feed these ventures.

They literally played Cashflow in real life jumping on all kinds of "DEALS" they'd drawn. Because, that's how you win the board game. I got tired of playing cash flow with them. Met the couples last month at a party and they were silent when I told them I was still "unemployed".

Brings back good memories of being young with dreams.

[Ian]

I can imagine it being a fun board game, if you like random ones. I found myself focusing on the financial side and as a result the random events were frustrating. I started as a mechanic, slowly paid down my debts... then bought an 18k boat for some reason. I won, but I'm curious what the statistical spread on strategies would be given the game's inherent randomness.

They own unprofitable small businesses now, underwater rentals and they are still in the rat race to feed these ventures.

They literally played Cashflow in real life jumping on all kinds of "DEALS" they'd drawn. Because, that's how you win the board game.

Yeah, even though I figured out that there's little downside to rentals and properties in the game, I couldn't help but keep thinking that the strategy would destroy you in real life. Especially because the game doesn't really model stress or time commitments.

Ideas on these or other issues are welcome, or further game suggestions. Otherwise, I think I'll let this project keep working in my subconscious and build resources until I'm ready to move forward.