Learning financial literacy doesn’t have to be boring.
That is what a collaboration between TD Bank and Venture Valley wanted to demonstrate at their gaming competition at Johnson C. Smith University on Oct. 21. Venture Valley is a video game where players compete to build the best companies from the ground up. In the process, players make decisions that affect the revenue of their companies and how they go about it determines their success.
TD Bank representative Amber Tofilon said the goal is to enlighten high school and college students about financial confidence as well as the importance of financial literacy when they graduate.
“We know that entrepreneurs and small businesses are a driving force of the U.S. economy,” Tofilon said. “They fuel innovation, job creation, economic growth, and we understand the importance of financial confidence for those small business owners. Financial preparedness is critical to the long-term success of those businesses.
“We are committed to helping small business owners get the financial education they need to make confident financial decisions, and we think that starts with our students and our future leaders, so we’re committed to making that kind of financial learning as accessible and engaging as we can.”
Venture Valley executive producer Nick Knight said the goal was not just to teach financial literacy but do so in an engaging way that keeps gamers playing and learning.
“[The game] was created with the express purpose of helping young people with their finances,” he said. “They tend to leave school, and they’re saddled with debt. They didn’t learn in school about how to balance their bank account or anything. You just don’t teach it. So, they wanted to create a foundation that helped young people with that mission, and they knew the only way to do that was through entertainment, because otherwise it’s boring and they’re not going to study it.”
Rather than come up with a run of the mill movie or TV show, the mission was to create something engaging. In a world where younger people are into gaming, Knight thought it would work.
“Venture Valley is a business battler, multiplayer, esport style game,” he said. “Players go into the game. It’s like a Sims-type environment. You go in, you build your businesses. Other players are building their businesses at the same time, and then you compete for goals in the game. It might be to sell the most coffee, it might be to have the highest evaluation of your pizza shop, whatever those goals are, and you have to make all the decisions to have a better coffee shop than the guy across the street.
“You have to decide: how much should I pay my employees so they’ll work hard, how much should I sell my product for? Should I have a high-quality product, which costs more because of the cost of goods? Or should I have a lesser, discount brand. You have to decide when you want to pay off a loan, for example, you take out a loan to start your business, all the things like you do in real life.”
DeShawn Davis, a student at Garinger High School and member of the Wildcats esports team, said he learned from playing the game and trying to beat his friends.
“I just hope to have a good understanding of how to be financially responsible,” Davis said. “With this game, it requires the understanding of how to make purchases without overspending. I just want to be able to learn how to do the proper stuff and spend appropriately so I can make more money.”
Davis added Venture Valley makes those lessons fun, because they get to play games while ingraining key financial concepts.
“Us kids love to play games and stuff like that,” he said. “I feel like that’s a way to grab students’ attention, but also while making them learn from the game also. So, that’s a good way to teach us about these things because it isn’t boring.”
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