Not all games are designed purely for entertainment, some also double as educational tools that teach you new skills and knowledge as you play. Build Your Stax is one of such games.
It’s an interactive finance-related game that requires you to create and grow a virtual investment portfolio over a period of time using strategies that you think are best.
It helps you prepare for what it takes to grow your wealth and achieve financial independence in the real world. How? By immersing you in a simulated environment and giving you different investment opportunities to try your hands at based on real-world concepts.
You might be wondering just how immersive Build Your Stax is or if it leaves up to the hype and actually teaches you how to get started with investing.
Or maybe you’ve already been playing the game for a while and want to know how to level up your portfolio and grow your investments at a much quicker pace.
Fret not. In this in-depth Build Your Stax game review, I will explain everything you need to know about this online recreational and educational game from how it works to how you can game the system to your advantage.
How Does Build Your Stax Game Work?
Build Your Stax starts with a simple premise: you’re given $4,000 every 6 months (30 seconds) and you have 20 years (20 minutes) to spread your money across different investment opportunities and boost your wealth so you can retire comfortably.
The game allows you to leverage seven methods for growing your money: Savings accounts, Stock Market Index Funds, Government Bonds, Individual Stocks, Gold, Commodities, and Certificates of Deposits.
I like that it leaves it up to you to choose what to invest in and how you wish to diversify your portfolio. You get to experience the volatility that usually accompanies the stock and financial markets and see if you can create a thriving portfolio and expand your net worth.
As you unlock new investment opportunities, Build Your Stax will provide a brief explanation of how each option works and how it can influence your portfolio positively or negatively.
The company, Next Generation Finance created this game to help everyone from high school students to established professionals, learn the basics of investing and the investment options that are open to them.
One interesting thing I love about Build Your Stax is that it utilizes actual U.S. stock market data that spans 20 years and changes with every new gameplay. All the game’s stocks are based on real stocks and how they performed in reality during that period.
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This means that you’ll be able to see the consequences of your investment decisions over 20 years in real time without having to put your skin in the game to learn those lessons.
Whatever funding option you choose to put your money in will come with some degree of risk and the potential to make small or significant gains depending on your investment strategy.
So while the game is fictional, it draws inspiration from financial concepts and happenings that exist or have occurred in the real world.
As a result, you’re able to get a sense of how a real portfolio would have performed if you had invested actual money in the opportunities you chose over the 20-year period.
Another great thing about the Build Your Stax game is how it breaks down investment concepts that you ordinarily assume are too difficult to understand.
I found that it helps to wean you off detrimental practices and attitudes towards money that you might have picked up along the way by encouraging you to find an easy and consistent funding approach.
While most other market games may get you all hooked up on the adrenaline rush that comes with practicing short-term speculation techniques, Build Your Stax offers a different perspective.
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It teaches you the value and prudence of adopting a long-term passive investment strategy.
Build Your Stax requires no special platforms, devices, or operating systems to play the game. You don’t even have to download and install any app as the game works within your browser.
All you have to do is visit the game’s website and select whether you want to play alone or as part of a group. If you choose to play as part of a group, you can either create a group and invite your friends or join an existing group.
Should you decide to play by yourself, you will face off against the computer to see if you can get better outcomes compared to its standard and simple strategy: dollar-fee averaging into low-cost index funds.
What’s more, the game doesn’t cost anything to play so you’re actually getting free finance lessons and exciting gameplay in one package.
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Build Your Stax Game Features
There are several components and functionalities that make Build Your Stax an incredible, unique, and fulfilling game to play. They include:
Market notifications
To up the stakes and simulate the experience of dealing with the stocks and commodities markets, Build Your Stax will send you updates and nudges during your gameplay to let you know when stocks are rising or crashing.
Using these notifications I was able to take immediate action during the game to protect or maximize my investments and gains by buying or selling assets as the situation demands.
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Multiple use cases
Build Your Stax is designed to be used in classrooms as part of course materials and assignments. It makes it easy for teachers of high school or college students to introduce their students to the concept of investing by allowing them to learn while having fun.
It can also be used by anyone outside of academic environments who is interested in playing exciting educational games. Or someone who wants to learn about investments without having to lead long articles and books on the subject.
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In-game learnings
The Stax game doesn’t just leave you to figure out what the funding options you choose mean or how you can leverage them in your portfolio.
It guides you and teaches you these financial concepts during gameplay so you’re empowered to make the best decisions for your money.
Along the way, you’ll also figure out what your risk tolerance is by evaluating the decisions you make and how you feel about your investment outcomes compared to those of your peers or the computer.
For example, after repeated gameplays, I’ve come to discover that I have a low tolerance for risk and tend to favour conservative approaches. Although they do not offer the most generous returns, they drastically reduce the chances of losing my money, which works for me.
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Immersive design
Although Build Your Stax doesn’t involve shooting, running, fighting, and other kinds of energy-packed activities that make action games so exhilarating, it is still entertaining in its own way.
It is fast-paced so you will get to experience the highs and lows of investing over 20 years in just 20 minutes.
Your attention will be hooked to your screen for all of that time as you scramble to put your money in the right funds, sell your stock before prices dip, and keep from losing your retirement savings to the shifting markets.
Two game modes
Build Your Stax lets you play in competitive mode amongst your group of friends or in single-participant mode against the computer.
You can make your group games even more fun by setting targets and monitoring the leaderboard to see who’s on their way to building a robust and cushy investment portfolio and who is heading for bankruptcy.
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Intuitive interface
This interactive game is easy to play so I can promise that you will have no trouble navigating the interface and figuring out how things work for yourself.
Build Your Stax offers tips and guides to aid your gameplay and keep you attuned to the state of your portfolio. If you forget how any of the investment options work and need a reminder, the game has a question mark icon that you can click on to get a refresher.
Extensive replay value
Each Build Your Stax game round only lasts 20 minutes. So after your investment period ends, you can restart the game and try out a different strategy to see whether your investment outcomes improve or worsen.
You can repeat the game over and over as often as you want. The more you play, the more you learn about investment possibilities, your preferred approaches, and the most profitable funding models.
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Build Your Stax Game Cheats
Are there tips and tricks you can use to earn more money or produce better outcomes on your investments while playing Build Your Stax?
The answer is no. Unfortunately, there are no existing cheats that enable you to get ahead faster in the game.
This makes sense as cheat codes would defeat the essence of the game which is to help you learn about investing and develop profitable strategies of your own that you can apply to the real world.
You simply have to study the market and apply the lessons you learn along the way. Then analyze your portfolio to understand why you were successful or unsuccessful, and use those insights to improve your gameplay next time around.
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Wrapping Up
Just because investing seems like a challenging concept that’s reserved for the ultra-rich and highly intelligent doesn’t mean it is.
Any average person can learn the basics of investing and practice their skills by playing Build Your Stax.
Based on my analysis and review of Build Your Stax, there are no downsides to playing the game. It can help you manage your finances better by showing you how to make your money earn you considerable passive income via investments.
So if you enjoy playing online games, don’t hesitate to give this a try.
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