Games are a great way to teach and an even better way to learn, especially for kids. Making learning fun is an excellent way to encourage learning. Learning with your child will build memories that kids will remember as they grow. Teaching your kids about business will expand their horizons. Business simulation games teach children in a safe environment without them taking on the risk of starting a business or doing the work to get it started.
Let’s talk about what simulation games teach kids and which ones are best!
Online Business Simulation Games
Invite friends to join in on the fun, play with family, or use computer players if your child prefers to play alone. Sit alongside your child and walk them through how to play or how to develop the best strategy to win the game. Learning by playing with your parents is a fantastic way for kids to learn. These games provide hours of fun to teach lifelong business lessons.
Zapitalism
This is a 6 player game with seats filled by computer players if your family and friends can’t fill the seats, so kids can play on their own if they want to. The objective of the game is to be the first player to have $5M Zables (the game currency) using your business to make money.
Kids can choose what type of business to run by reading company descriptions, and each player starts with 50,000 Zables to purchase supplies to start their businesses. Supplies are added to store shelves and advertised for sale.
Learn to:
- Take out business loans and decide what interest rate to accept to purchase supplies to improve their businesses
- Do market research on the competition
- Use building permits to increase the size of the store
- Deal with tax audits if taxes aren’t paid on time
- Employee relations
The tutorial allows players to learn about the game before diving right in. I’ve always loved tutorials because it showcases how to play the game, and I can develop my own strategy for how I want to play the game.
Gazillionaire
Invite friends via email to join in on the fun in this 6-person and 6 computer player game that teaches kids to start a company and build it to tycoon level by trading low and selling high to take profits.
Every player starts by taking out a loan for startup costs at 4% to buy a ship that is used to travel from planet to planet to buy cargo. Trading is a valuable skill because it teaches investment principles, and investing is important for kids to understand retirement accounts to set up their own accounts when they are old enough. Parents can set up real-life investment accounts for their children after kids learn how to invest from this game and purchase shares of their own.
Learn to:
- Choose whether or not to buy insurance
- Supply and demand of products
- Trading
- Startup cost
- Business loans
The first 20 rounds of gameplay are free, and then the cost is $14.99/yr for a subscription.
Marty Raygun’s Fistful of Dollars
When playing this game, your child will be the new owner of a company named Galactic Zappers and will learn how to keep the company as valuable as possible by keeping money in the business bank account to prevent bankruptcy. Order supplies and keep the factory running by paying fixed costs like electricity and property rent.
Kids can buy raw materials for the business using 30-60-90 day terms and choose which customers to do business with because not every customer is nice or professional. Teach kids to choose suppliers with a good reputation because this will also impact their businesses.
Learn about:
- Accounting
- Supply management
- Fixed costs
- Paying bills
Cookie Tycoon
This one-player game teaches kids how to run a bakery business and manage employees. Learn about customer feedback and use the feedback to make business decisions. Players get business statistics every day, giving business costs, profits, and losses. Earn more money as employees gain experience and make decisions on business upgrades.
Learn about:
- Employee relations
- Customer feedback
- Business decisions
- Cost
- Profit/loss
- Upgrades
Lemonade Stand
This classic game helps kids start a virtual lemonade stand and choose what to spend their startup money on. Choose between advertising, supplies, and how much to sell each cup of lemonade for. The game works in different types of weather to showcase how demand changes for lemonade, and players can choose how much to invest in their business for that day.
Learn about:
- Startup costs
- Advertising
- Sales
- Cost of supplies
- Spoilage of supplies
- Supply and demand
Board Games
I remember playing board games with my siblings every Sunday night after dinner before going to bed. My brother was definitely the most competitive one of us and he got mad when he didn’t win the game. Now, he is still competitive but has learned to lose with some amount of grace. We played with my grandparents when I was really young, and my grandad loved Monopoly. Adult monopoly was hard for young kids to learn at first, but our grandparents were patient teachers.
We learned how to make business decisions, manage money, balance how much cash we kept on hand, and how to negotiate the sale of property with our competition to develop win-win situations for both parties.
Ca$hflow for Kids
Gameplay can commence with 2 to 6 players during this eye-opening game based on Robert Kiyosaki’s award-winning book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. The book focuses on teaching what rich parents teach their children that poor and middle-class parents don’t. Cashflow for kids teaches about:
- Balance sheets
- Income statements
- Side hustles
- Passive income
- Assets
- Liabilities
- Expenses
- Personal finance
Ice Cream Empire
This game encourages players to build their ice cream shop empire to 8 shops to win the game. The changing cost of supplies for ice cream and the potential to create your own franchise of ice cream shops will teach kids important business lessons. Each player has $300 to start with and a delivery truck.
Gameplay consists of making choices between buying inventory, selling stock, and building a new store. Some game spaces have instructions that the player must follow, but these could impact other players. Examples of instructions include buying a shop from your competition for $800 or changing the inventory price for everything you have in stock.
Lessons include:
- Stock and inventory
- Supply sourcing
- Business expansion
- Money management
- Business decisions
- Supply and demand
- Purchasing and selling assets
- Hostile business takeovers
Mystic Market
Two to four players compete to make the most money from their potions and sales to customers. Players set out to find the ingredients they need for their potions and sell them for the highest amount of profit, but the catch is that the market price for raw materials constantly changes (much like in the real world). There are options to choose lower quality ingredients for lower prices, but players need to consider how this may impact their potions.
Lessons include:
- Currency management
- Logic skills
- Strategy
- Math
- Sales
- Inventory management
- Business decisions
- Market share
Monopoly Junior
This classic game is great for teaching kids basic business lessons and money management. The first round or two of gameplay will get kids in the habit of defining the need for diversifying their income and making decisions between purchasing property or holding cash reserves to cover expenses or emergencies if they arise.
Lessons include:
- Personal finance
- Property investment
- Cash flow management
- Profit management
- Investment diversification
Start Playing!
Playing games is an excellent way for young children to learn about business and how to manage money appropriately. I had a passion inspired for business when I was in middle school by a local businesswoman that I met, and that series of lessons has stayed with me for over 20 years now. I have started many businesses of my own and helped teens in my community to start their own businesses because my heart is set on teaching the lessons that I have learned from her tutoring.
Everything that I learned from her was from games she made up because we didn’t have these resources available back then. She would challenge me to learn about supply and demand and then taught me how to source local raw materials from vendors. When sales dipped for her business, we worked together to create marketing materials that motivated customers to purchase from her store again.
These games are available now online and in the traditional board game format so that kids can make an impact in their lives and that of their friends in ways that promote a desire to learn about business and start businesses of their own. Learning in a safe environment helps build confidence and encourages kids to accept some risk to bootstrap a business of their own when they are young to earn some extra spending cash.