LIFE Now Takes Visa
Tuesday May 15, 2007
The game of life, that is. A new version of The Game of Life called Twists and Turns will be released in August 2007. Rather than paper money, the game will use Visa-branded card.
Even though the game will include some financial literacy pamphlets, I still believe this is a marketing tool to get younger kids thinking about credit cards. This strategy is very reminiscent of those used by tobacco companies to get kids to smoke.
Previous version of LIFE and other board games used money that was obviously fake. Using different colors and currencies that don’t exist in real life kept somewhat of a distinction between spending play money and real money.
The fact that Twists and Turns uses a Visa card and not a generic, pretend-company credit card makes it seem that like the new game is yet another marketing tool for Visa – this time one that caters to children.
Whether the new game rewards players for wise credit card use and penalizes them for misuse of credit card (and I hope it does) remains to be seen. It’s important for parents to start teaching their children about credit before they are premature exposurely to information that instills bad credit habits.
Even though the game will include some financial literacy pamphlets, I still believe this is a marketing tool to get younger kids thinking about credit cards. This strategy is very reminiscent of those used by tobacco companies to get kids to smoke.
Previous version of LIFE and other board games used money that was obviously fake. Using different colors and currencies that don’t exist in real life kept somewhat of a distinction between spending play money and real money.
The fact that Twists and Turns uses a Visa card and not a generic, pretend-company credit card makes it seem that like the new game is yet another marketing tool for Visa – this time one that caters to children.
Whether the new game rewards players for wise credit card use and penalizes them for misuse of credit card (and I hope it does) remains to be seen. It’s important for parents to start teaching their children about credit before they are premature exposurely to information that instills bad credit habits.
Comments
No comments yet. Leave a Comment