Financial games: Another roll of the dice

New ways to take your friends and family to the cleanersTHE most famous board game of them all, “Monopoly”, was launched during the Depression. This crisis may not produce anything quite as successful, but it has also spawned a crop of new financial games. “Billionaire Tycoon”, which will go on sale this autumn, is one engaging example. You are an entrepreneur who has been wiped out by the crash; you win when you have GBP1 billion on hand through the strategic acquisition of cash-generating firms, starting with car washes and pet shops and building up to oil rigs and private banks. Along the way, you can bargain, trade, steal, borrow and even engineer military coups to gain businesses and outfox opponents. Its co-creator, Shameek Upadhya, says his entrepreneur friends like to play—as do, apparently, their children. ...