Life Is a Badly Designed Game
What Games and Life Have in Common — and Why Most People Lose
The sense of life is to grow yourself through constant sacrifices, while doing it playfully.
-- Jordan B Peterson
Life consists of real problems to solve, and those who can solve them better usually thrive.
But how to struggle with real problems through play? Well, we build stories and that’s an amazing concept, but I can think of another example, which is gaming.
In this letter, I’ll talk about the concept of gamifying wealth generation, but you can apply this to any important problem you face, and try there.
About a little idle game
Let me tell you a story.
There is a mobile game, named “The Tower” - straightforward idle game, where the goal is to perform recurring runs defending your tower from incoming enemies. After each run you’ll inevitably loose at some point, you use the earned coins to upgrade the tower a bit and try again against harder waves.
Classic loop. Nothing fancy.
So why bring it up?
Because in this game, there are 8 (eight!) different currencies to manage:
Cash
Coins
Stones
Cells
Module Shards
Reroll Shards
Keys
Time
Each currency is earned differently. Each unlocks different upgrades. And each affects overall progress in non-obvious ways.
Still, though, what’s the point?
That complexity doesn’t repel players.
It attracts them. Why?
Because the game provides:
Clear feedback loops
Visible progress
Community strategies
Step-by-step optimization paths
People have essentially solved the game.
Kids. Teenagers. Non-technical adults.
Some of them run spreadsheets more complex than small businesses!
When it was shown to me that’s when it hit me:
Why can people master insanely complex games - yet struggle so badly with real life?
And here is why.
Why people struggle in life, while perfecting their games?
The same people that can optimize every single asset to built the best empires or collect most powerful equipments in-games, struggle with getting rich in real life.
Have you ever wondered, why?
We play games of all sorts, solving different problems, from puzzle-like, through calculations and cryptography, through economical optimizations and strategical thinking, to memory and pure action-like quick reflexes.
All that require effort, and usually we don’t care - we have fun by doing so. In games, effort feels light. Even enjoyable.
That’s sth I find extremely interesting and inspiring, so I’ve decided to use this concept and adapt it to a real-world problem, of wealth generation.
This is provoked me to ask a few questions, mainly: What’s the difference, between people playing economy-based game, vs real-life asset accumulation?.
The unconfrotable answer
Life is a badly designed game.
And humans prefer to play games that are designed well.
10 things that games & life have in common.
Good games reward us for the same behaviours, that life does:
Patience, gratitude, emotional control, learning from mistakes. Look around.
Study the behaviour of successful people and you’ll see some patterns.
They understand what actually matters to make progress fast.
Here are a few game principles that games and life share - and most people ignore:
Early Progress is Boring by design
Skill > Luck over time
Assymetry is the real game
Resources allocation beats the raw effort
Meta knowledge separates elites from the rest.
Progress is non-reversible until it is.
Identity drives outcomes
Long-Term players win
Most people quit early
Let’s deep dive into them! 👇
