Your
questions and comments, and our answers
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Answer |
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It's
great you have the Hall of Fame
stuff, although we have trouble figuring out
exactly what goes into the
Investing IQ.
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There
are a number of factors that make up the formula
that calculates a players IIQ. These factors
include the number of times you have played the
game (we work on the assumption that it will take
a player two or three games to get up to speed
with how the game is played), how fast you take
your turns (faster turns improve IIQ), and most
importantly, a players wealth at the end of the
game.
We
also look back at recent games to see how a player
scored, so it's not only the last game but other
recent games also that matter.
After
three games players should see an increase in
their IIQ, and after 10 games they should be
scoring highly.
Having
looked at the playing habits of the Golden Guru
Club members, the reasons they have an investment
IIQ of 160 are: they trade very fast
(probably each turn takes less than 15 seconds);
they move to a +$55k salary position early in the
game; and they make "brave and bold"
investment positions when markets look to have
recovered from a downturn. - Frank Newman
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We
don't understand the logic behind how you are
restricted from buying derivatives
by value.
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In
the game a player is always able to buy a minimum
of one derivative contract but any more than this
is restricted. The restriction is that the
combined transaction and deposit value amount
can't be any more than 5% of the player's net
worth wealth. In real-world investing there is no
restriction, but I think it is fair to say that
most derivative traders don't punt any more than
5% of their wealth on any one time because they
are so speculative (they in effect have 20 to 1
leverage, compared to a maximum of 10 to 1 in this
game for property and 2 to 1 for shares).
Derivatives
are useful as a hedge to reduce risk (as detailed
in the Rule Book) and the a 5% wealth limit does
not inhibit them doing so.
The
other thing is that I did not really want to turn
the game into a derivatives contest. The wealth
accumulation strategy that this game tends towards
is gaining a high paying job, investing savings in
property and shares buy buying low and selling
high, while using risk minimisation techniques
like hedging. - Frank Newman
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| The
trend lines on the graphs don't mean anything that
we can figure out. |
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The
trend lines show the past trend, nothing more. In
the long-run the trend lines will be slightly
positive for the share and property markets so a
downward trend line is likely to be reversed in
the long-run as prices recover. - Frank Newman
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It
would be
great to get clarification on what is an
appropriate job to apply for.
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The
most important factor in deciding whether a new
job application is successful is the % difference
in salary (education and time in the job are also
important but not as important). For example if
you are on $44k, and apply for a new $100k job
there is virtually no chance of getting the job,
but if it were $47k the chances are very high. In
other words, applying for jobs with a small %
increment will work better than going for a big
hit. Remember, in the game, the first salary
target to aim for is $55k as this is the threshold
level that kicks in more staff shares (15,000
instead of 5,000). - Frank Newman
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| I
am running the game under Windows 7. Every time I
start it, it asks me to register, which I've
already done. Also, the market data graphs don't
update during game play, though all other parts of
the game seem to be working fine. Are these known
bugs? Do you have a patch?
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Thanks
for this. New security features included in
Windows 7 may affect the security features within
the game. To remedy this, to run the game
highlight the Investment Game icon on your
desktop, right click the mouse and click “Run as
administrator”. The game will function
normally. We will address this issue in our
regular updates. (To receive updates, make sure
you are online when you start a new game. The
update will load automatically.) - Frank Newman |
| Just
wonder how often the database of the game will be
updated online in order to track the real life
experience.
- Tony |
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A
fresh data base is generated every time the game
is loaded… no two games are the same. As
you can imagine, I have played the game thousands
of times and every game is unique and
interesting… I still get a buzz out of playing
it!
We are planning to do updates each month, and then
add new features on a less frequent basis as we
develop them as players give us feedback.
I am sure you
will not only be pleased with it… but blown away
with how “real” it is. - Frank Newman
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| Does
the game run on a Mac? |
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The
INVESTMENT game has been programmed to run on
Windows 98/2000/XP/Vista or later operating
systems. If you wish to run the game on an Apple
computer you must be using a virtual environment
such as Parallels or VMWare, or dual-booting
software such as BootCamp. - Kim Shpeherd |
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| When
a player lands on Auction Property, how many
attempts to buy or sell a property can they make?
One or numerous?
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Just
one. If I have a property and prices are a bit on
the high side I usually try to sell at market
price plus a margin. If prices look cheap, and I
have the cash available, I will try to buy a
property at a discount of at least 10% so if I
resell the property at my next turn I can cover my
selling costs and leave a profit margin. - Frank
Newman |
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| Frank's
predictions are not accurate, he continued to say
that the share-market was stable, yet it successively
dropped from $1.12 to $0.45. |
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As
with all advice there must be a time frame
attached to predictions: Short-term? Medium term?
Long term? In the game the advice is based on
medium and long term, so the immediate changes may
not be as predicted in Ask Frank. In my view this
is a perfect representation of real world
investing in that in the short term prices tend to
behave randomly but within a long-term trend.
If
Ask Frank predicted prices would be stable at
around $1.12 and they actually fell to 45 cents
that to me would suggest its a screaming buy at
45. Invest in more, to bring your average price
down, even if that means taking out a margin loan.
Or you could take a long derivative contract and
use your Share Wild Card or the Any Market squares
to trigger a change in the share price. -
Frank Newman
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| If
you have a question about the game, send it to us.
One of the Zillion team will respond. Send
us your question. |
