The Only Game I Play

May 27, 2016 — 1 Comment

Parcheesi board

We are at the end of our Hulu month, and I am fairly binged out on my TV watching. I freeze the membership for the maximum amount of time, 12 weeks, in between months of using it. That works around here since we already have Amazon and cable. There is only so much TV you can watch without loosing your mind. This time I have found a lot of new comics and seen some very funny as well as kinky new series. Warcraft is one of the shows we have not seen, although it is super popular. When an ad came on for the show last night it sparked a conversation between my partner and me. He is younger, but neither of us has ever been into computer gaming. I never even played Pac Man, and have not held a joy stick.  Bob did play a few games like Pac Man and Nintendo in his youth, but his interest died in these things.  We have not played World of Warcraft and don’t know anything about the story line even though it is a cultural and marketing fad of giant proportions.  I never developed a taste for games that take place in imaginary worlds, neither farms nor planets.  They are not my style…unless they are based on an imaginary stock market.

As a child I played dominos, Chinese checkers, checkers, and Parcheesi with my grandparents.  I looked forward to going to their farm and being involved in these games.  I remember them going non-stop at my insistence. I liked to keep the board out when we slept and finish in the morning.   My grandma was the Parcheesi freak.  When she was around we played that with a group.  Most of the time my grandpa and I went one on one in dominos or checkers.  My father did not play much, but at home he and I played Gin Rummy a lot.  He also played Gin with his friends.  I loved to play cards, and took them with me in order to play at the pool or wherever I went. War and Spit were very popular games in elementary school, similar in nature.  We played board games too, but they were less portable. I was into portable. I traveled with my bag of marbles and/or jacks to pick up games wherever I  went.  I seriously played jacks, and had no problem finding enthusiastic players, at my college dorm in 1968 at UT Austin.  As I reminisce I think jacks may have been my all time favorite game.  Since there is so little investment I feel like ordering a set from Amazon to see if I still have my chops.

Computers have been on my home desk for decades, but no computer games ever called to me.  My brother gave me a trivia game once called “You Don’t Know Jack”. I was highly amused with it for a couple of times, then never played it again. The whole world swooned over computer gaming, but I was not interested.  I still don’t know jack about gaming.  I have found my adult game.  It is called EmpireKred.  It mimics the stock market, which is really fun for me.  You may have heard of it as Empire Avenue, the original name of the game. On this avenue you purchase stock and pay dividends based on social media value.  I love being able to speculate without using real money.  My real money is safe in the care of a fiduciary, but I am high rolling success playing EmpireKred.

The reason this game has held my interest for years is the social side effect inherent in being a regular player.  By playing we meet each other and read each others’ content. Many internet groups do the same thing, sometimes with only quid pro quo support, and no genuine interaction.  I have met many extremely cool people from around the world with whom I engage on different platforms in different ways. I got into playing because I loved the statistics on my own on-line activity and the stock market metaphor.  I am a huge fan of graphs and charts.  I stayed for the supportive and interesting friendships I have found.  Once I am holding shares in someone I want them to thrive, so I pay attention to them.  I also feel very obliged to produce a high dividend for all my shareholders.  Dividends are based on social media scores.  An effort is made to score quantity as well as quality, which is hard to do with a mathematical algorithm.  What is sure is that if you just walked away from all your social media platforms for a while your dividends would drop from both lack of quality and quantity in your social media presence.

During my lifetime I have moved from dominos, an obvious math game, to EmpireKred, a simulated stock market based on math game.  My father was a heavy stock market gambler for his entire adult life, so this may be my natural inherited disposition. My dad called his broker early every morning on the phone, like calling a bookie, to place his bets. I do like to speculate, but am keeping my investments and my gaming completely separate. It is fine to get caught up in the social stock market.  I happen to be a great investment, and like all great investments I make sure I earn the trust of my shareholders.  By using this method I meet and enjoy the friendship of many like minded investments (people) all around the world.

We sometimes play games within our game.  I am very pleased to support a very cool effort This Memorial Day weekend that involves computer gaming.  By purchasing imaginary balloons which we drop full of imaginary EAVs (our imaginary currency) on our fellow players we will contribute in real life to Operation Supply Drop.  They live up to their motto, making fun where there is none, by distributing care packages of games and game related gear to deployed soldiers.  I am all over this creative idea.  We get to have fun within our gaming universe and share it with deployed soldiers in various alternate gaming universes.  How cool is that?  If you are a player already do come on out and launch a few balloons.  If you have not played this is a great weekend to join.  To play the game is free, but if you decide to buy balloons you will be thrilled at the exchange rate of Eav’s to real currency.  You get a lot of bang for your real bucks, and for this event 20% goes to the soldiers.   I plan to stay home and send balloons all weekend.

game over