Financial Gains from Video Games

Can video games teach real-life skills?

It’s an age-old argument between child and parent:

With the quality and variety of video games in today’s market, we’d say yes, video games are one way for children to learn real-life skills – including personal finance! Many video games implement some form of buying, spending, supply, demand, and other core financial and economic principles that can help lay a foundation for development of future skills.

In this space, we explore this idea more deeply, drawing a connection between one of the most popular games on the market, FIFA by EA SPORTS, and the CFP Board’s financial planning process that serves as a structure for helping Clients achieve their financial goals.

An Overview of EA SPORTS FIFA

Personally speaking, I am not the biggest gamer on the planet (probably because I am not very good at them), but one game that I always loved playing growing up was EA SPORTS FIFA. FIFA is a soccer video game that is made every year with updated game modes, players, graphics, and more. In 2009, FIFA introduced a new game mode called “Ultimate Team”. This game mode quickly became a favorite, and I was no exception.

The Ultimate Team game mode allows users to build a team from scratch, using whatever players in the game they want to. You can then take the team you’ve crafted and play online against other people who have built their own unique teams.

So… how do you build a team? Believe it or not, the team building process works a lot like buying anything in real life. Within Ultimate Team, you receive coins for playing games, achieving objectives, and selling your players (a salary of sorts). Once you have enough coins, you can buy new players that you want on your team from other users who are selling those players (an open market transaction). Generally speaking: the more you play, the more coins you will have to spend, and the better the players you can purchase for your team.

How FIFA Mirrors the Financial Planning Process

Now, how does building a soccer team in a video game connect to lessons in financial planning? Well, the team building process is not dissimilar from the CFP Board’s 7-step financial planning process, a process that outlines practice standards for CFP professionals to ensure a comprehensive and client-focused approach to financial planning. Let’s go through a mock scenario to further develop the connection between the two.

Step 1: Understand Personal and Financial Circumstances

This step includes obtaining and analyzing quantitative and qualitative information about your life.

• Yeske Buie:
  • The first step in our financial planning process once we have decided to work together is the Discovery Meeting. This meeting is all about us getting to know you!
• FIFA Example: Let’s begin this scenario assuming the following…
  • Your family is from France, and you are a huge fan of their National Team.
  • With your current schedule, you are playing the game two hours per week but could allocate more time if needed to achieve your goals.

Step 2: Identifying and Selecting Goals

This step includes identifying, selecting, and prioritizing your goals.

• Yeske Buie:
  • A great tool Yeske Buie implements to help identify our Clients goals is the Wheel of Life. This exercise can help you determine your current levels of satisfaction in varying areas of life and provide an opportunity to explore planning goals to empower you to pursue your Live Big® life.
• FIFA Example: You’ve identified that your goals include the following…
  • You want a team where every player is from France.
  • You do not want any player that is below an 80 overall rating (ratings vary from about 45 to 99)

Step 3: Analyze the Current Course of Action and Potential Alternative Course(s) of Action

This step includes considering the advantages and disadvantages of your current approach to managing your finances and thinking strategically to come up with different approaches that may be better for you.

• Yeske Buie:
  • Once we learn who and what matters to you and what your vision for your Live Big life is, we get to analyzing your data in light of what we’ve learned. This includes a review of your financial hygiene to address any gaps we see. The other part of your initial plan is the aspirational realm – where we utilize extensive planning software to put together a draft of the path you’re on based on what we know.
• FIFA Example: Here’s a sample of what your current and alternative courses of action may look like…
  • Current Course:
    • You only play for two hours per week.
    • You are buying players that are not helping you achieve your goal.
  • Alternative Course 1:
    • Increase playing time to four hours per week.
    • Only use coins to buy players that are aligned with your goal (from France and above an 80 overall rating).
  • Alternative Course 2:
    • Continue to buy any players you like (whether they are aligned with your goal or not) but play eight hours per week as opposed to four to make up for the difference.

Step 4: Develop the Recommendation

This step includes taking everything we’ve learned and reviewed up until this point and making a recommendation for a path to achieving your goals.

• Yeske Buie:
  • When all of the preceding steps have been addressed, your Initial Financial Plan is formulated to share ideas for a path to achieving your goals. When developing recommendations, Yeske Buie employs creative strategies that are grounded in wisdom, exemplifying one of our core values, Think Big.
• FIFA Example: Consider the following as a recommendation…
  • Let’s say increasing playing time to four hours per week is reasonable, but eight hours is out of the question. In this scenario, the selected recommendation would be to play four hours per week and limit your spending to only players that are aligned with your goal.

Step 5: Present the Recommendation

This step includes sharing and discussing our recommendation with you.

• Yeske Buie:
  • When we get together for your Initial Plan Presentation, we share our findings related to your financial hygiene and the recommendations we have to fill those gaps. These recommendations could include updates to your estate plan so it aligns with current wishes, filling gaps in your insurance coverages, or reallocating various accounts to align with your long-term goals. We also share the long-term projections and assumptions used in your financial plan as the next step in an ongoing discussion around the possibilities for your Live Big life.
• FIFA Example: Since you are going through this process on your own for a video game, this step isn’t the most easily translated. Although many people have said that physically writing down their goals makes them take them more seriously; this could be an option.

Step 6: Implementing the Recommendation

This step includes all parties taking action related to the agreed-upon recommendation.

• Yeske Buie:
  • It is crucial to clearly illustrate the responsible party for acting on any recommendation. We send a detailed follow-up email after every meeting summarizing action items and next steps. We also have a live list of ongoing “Open Action Items” on your Client Private Page® to label who is responsible for completing each recommendation.
• FIFA Example: Time for action! Start playing four hours per week to earn more coins. While doing so, limit your spending to only players that are aligned with your goals.

Step 7: Monitoring Progress and Updating

• Yeske Buie:
  • Financial Planning is not an event, but an ongoing and collaborative process. The steps of the Financial Planning Process are formatted as a circle, not a ladder, for a reason. We connect in numerous ways throughout the year including TheLiveBigWay^® Digest, webinars, and ongoing personal communication related to your life and needs. If there are tax or estate law changes to be aware of or other planning opportunities (like roth conversions), we’ll reach out with any recommended action. We like to meet to review your plan annually, but there is no maximum number of meetings or calls we can have! We like to be your first call and think that we’re good people to think with.
• FIFA Example: Perhaps your situation changes and you need to adjust in one of the following ways…
  • Let’s say you gain more time commitments outside of the video game and can only play for a maximum of 1 hour a week. Due to these new commitments, the original goal may no longer be reasonable and could need to be adjusted.
  • Alternatively, let’s say you can commit to playing eight hours per week instead of four. These new circumstances could allow for a new goal that was previously not reasonable.

As we can see, when building a FIFA team, you are essentially going through every step of the financial planning process. And when approached with intentionality, you can develop a grounded plan that will put you on track to achieve your goals. Looking back, I believe this aspect was why FIFA was one of the few games that captured my attention growing up. More times than not I enjoyed the planning process more than playing the game with the actual team.

To stop dancing around the original question, I would argue that FIFA unquestionably helped lay the foundation of planning principles in my brain, whether I was aware of it at the time or not. We hope you found this piece both informative and fun to read, and perhaps it can serve as a resource for parents looking to encourage their children to think more deeply about the lessons they’re learning in whatever ways they’re spending their time. If you’d like to discuss any part of this process further, don’t hesitate to connect with us!