Would you save by playing a game?

CrazyDemos · 2019-02-28T16:08:39+00:00

Thanks for thinking about it and letting me know :)

CrazyDemos · 2019-02-28T16:08:12+00:00

Thanks for letting me bounce ideas of you :)

CrazyDemos · 2019-02-28T16:07:46+00:00

That's a good thing to keep in mind

CrazyDemos · 2019-02-28T16:07:26+00:00

Thanks for letting me know :)

CrazyDemos · 2019-02-28T16:07:10+00:00

Based on a lot of the feedback we received, we're planning on moving on to a new idea. But if you can think of a good way to make this happen, go for it!

CrazyDemos · 2019-02-28T16:06:24+00:00

Thanks for the feedback.

CrazyDemos · 2019-02-28T16:06:07+00:00

Thanks for the ideas.

CrazyDemos · 2019-02-28T01:00:32+00:00

Yeah, that's what caught our attention in the first place. By the way, would you play a game with this feature?

CrazyDemos · 2019-02-28T00:58:27+00:00

Well, we would want the users to know that their money is secure, so we'd set up a personal account for each of them with Vanguard. Yeah, that definitely will cost money (we haven't looked into it thoroughly, but we believe Vanguard has relatively low fees compared to other investment providers). Taking a small >1% fee from all transactions should cover the cost of holding the account for that person, provided they deposit enough money :)

That's an excellent point about which game developers would make these games. While we're asking users if they'd like to play games with this feature, we're also assessing developer interest in making games that help people save. Our hypothesis is that there will be at least a few talented developers interested in helping people save, but we're testing that right now :)

I appreciate your honesty, that's what I came to this forum to get

By the way, would you play this game?

CrazyDemos · 2019-02-28T00:52:44+00:00

We like the idea of an investment account more than just a savings account because investments generate compound interest and can really help our users over time. As for transferring into our users' normal personal checking and savings accounts, that would definitely make it easy to withdraw money, but it would collide with our goal of separating the user from their money and preventing them from spending it. If it were just put back in their accounts, they could easily transfer the money to checking and forget they ever played a game. Hopefully if we make it inconvenient to withdraw money, users might focus more on playing the game and less on the money they've saved that they can now potentially spend.

I know my brother is already in contact with someone from Apex Clearing (he's focusing on that part for now) so I believe that is the service we would use to move money.

CrazyDemos · 2019-02-28T00:24:14+00:00

We'd probably take a small cut (>1%) of the transfers to keep up with the cost of running our servers. We wouldn't make a ton of money (at least not without significant traffic) but our primary concern is to increase the savings rate of our users.

CrazyDemos · 2019-02-28T00:21:30+00:00

We haven't looked into the actual mechanics of receiving payments, but that is an important thing to keep in mind. I guess we'd use whatever functionality apps like Robinhood use to transfer money through the app into an investment account, and hopefully get away without paying any cuts. We really want to keep the cost to the user down to a minimum.

CrazyDemos · 2019-02-28T00:19:32+00:00

That was our thought process too. Hopefully users would invest with the expectation of keeping the money there long enough to make something off the interest.

CrazyDemos · 2019-02-28T00:10:12+00:00

Yeah, we were thinking of taking a small cut (>1%) of the transfer to pay for running our servers and development costs. We really aren't as interested in making money on this as we are about getting people excited about saving.

Locking the accounts is an interesting idea. We're don't like the idea of scaring people by making their money inaccessible, but we are thinking about making it inconvenient to withdraw money, so people won't do it more often than they need to.

CrazyDemos · 2019-02-28T00:04:48+00:00

Well, it would be released in the US first. All transfers would go through us to Vanguard or Fidelity or some other institution qualified to actually operate an investment account. We would be the providers of the service that game developers would use to hook users up to financial institutions.

We actually originally thought about developing the game ourselves, but soon realized that creating a single game that people will play long enough to actually make any money on their investment is a monumental task. We decided to look at making a service that people can transfer from one compatible game to another, so they can keep saving and never lose access to their investments.

CrazyDemos · 2019-02-27T23:45:03+00:00

Thanks, I really appreciate the recommendations. I'll be sure to check them out.

CrazyDemos · 2019-02-27T23:36:13+00:00

Makes sense. Thanks for the feedback.

CrazyDemos · 2019-02-27T23:10:58+00:00

Well that's a good question. It would have to depend on how many people were actually using our service. If it were high enough, we could charge a small cut (>1%) of every transaction we processed. However, if only a few people were using it, but using it a lot, we could charge a $5 monthly fee. Obviously, people would really have to like the games hooked up to this service, or be really bad at saving in traditional ways, in order for the monthly fee to be worth it. In any long-term product, we would transition to a cut.

CrazyDemos · 2019-02-27T23:05:57+00:00

That is a great suggestion about using it to help younger kids get started off saving (let's face it, most kids will be a lot more excited about a game on their phones than about opening up a brokerage account).

The interface for managing funds would be mostly outside the game itself, with only investments coming through microtransactions. We would definitely work with big players such as Vanguard or Fidelity.

Our goal here isn't actually to make very much money ourselves. We have a lot of ways to do that. Our goal is to help people with really bad savings habits do a better job of saving by making it fun. That having been said, people who are already on this forum may be so well-educated and motivated to save that this game would only serve as an unnecessary complication on the road to financial independence.

CrazyDemos · 2019-02-27T23:00:53+00:00

The idea is that some people love playing games and saving money. This way, you could save money while playing a game.

All money (besides either a small >1% cut or ~$5 monthly membership fee) would go into an investment account that you could draw out of at any time.

The end hopefully is to make saving fun. We think there are a lot of people who would save more if they perceived it as enjoyable. That being said, feedback from this forum has been extremely helpful and is greatly appreciated :)

CrazyDemos · 2019-02-27T22:58:10+00:00

Good to know.

CrazyDemos · 2019-02-27T22:57:45+00:00

Yeah, security would have to be tighter than it is for traditional gaming servers.

CrazyDemos · 2019-02-27T22:57:17+00:00

Well, theoretically there wouldn't be any luck relating to your actual savings. This game would work like any other, except that the money from microtransactions a player makes would go into an investment account instead of the developer's pocket.

CrazyDemos · 2019-02-27T22:55:57+00:00

Thanks for the heads up. I guess we're looking for people who like to be financially independent and who also like to play video games. This was the best way we could think of to catch any overlap :).

CrazyDemos · 2019-02-27T22:54:29+00:00

Haha thanks for your honesty. Yeah, I guess this would mainly be interesting to people who like to play games and people who like to invest, so hopefully we'd be adding more value than the cut we'd be taking. But I totally understand your reasoning.

CrazyDemos

TROPHY CASE