It’s remarkable that the same concepts that allowed me to be effectively retired by my mid-twenties allows me to frequently become rich in video games. That’s the nature of compounding.  It is a law, exactly like gravity.

This weekend, Ashly and Ian drove in from Columbus to visit – they are thinking about relocating to this area next March so that she can work with us on the businesses and he can work as a nuclear engineer at a nearby facility.  Right now, she’s a risk mitigation analyst at a well-known bank, so her skills would be a useful addition to the staff.

Anyway, as we were out having Chipotle and Coldstone, we stopped by a nearby video game store and went in just to see if anything was new.  I came across a game called Fable 2 and, having seen the preview of the original fable on the XBOX 360 Live service, it interested me.  Long story short, I picked up about $100 worth of games and merchandise, figuring I’d get to play them when I had time.  Given the fact we’ve quintupled the number of e-commerce sites under our control in the past six months, that seemed like a long, long time away, frankly.

Um.  No.  As Aaron et. al., made the Julia Child beef bourguignon recipe, Ashly suggested I start playing the game (I’d grown hesitant when I realized it was rated M, which I incorrectly assumed was used only for grotesque violence).  None of us had any idea what we were getting into when we turned on the console.

The Premise of Fable 2
The premise of Fable 2 is simple.  As in life, every choice you make influences the quality of your soul and the outcome of your journey.  Your choices are pretty much like those that every man and woman has when they are born – be good by giving money to orphans, helping those in distress, donating clothes, charging below-market rent to those in poverty, and working to rid the world of evil, or you can be evil by murdering innocent people, having unprotected sex and catching STD’s, terrorizing cities, gambling, stealing, sacrificing people … you name it.

When I say there are practically no limits, I mean it, even in details that are absent in other games such as growing fat if you eat too much food or your character’s sex life (e.g., you can raise a family, go the church (in the game, “The Temple of Light”), and become known as a prude, or you can have homosexual orgies, get drunk, and vomit in the town square after a night of pub games during which you amassed large gambling debts).  Before I continue: For those who think games like this are offense, that’s irrational and unjustified.  We, as humans, have these same choices in life.  It’s called free will.  Why is it okay for us to have the God-given right to self-determination in the physical world, but demand punishment for software studios that do the same in virtual ones?  It’s a mental malfunction to think like that.

Sometimes You Just Have to Accept Who You Are – And I’m a Capitalist
The first three days I played Fable 2, I did nothing but work in the game, earn money to buy real estate and businesses, and then for the rest of the time, didn’t need to exert any effort because I was able to live off the dividends generated from these assets.  It mirrored the precise course of action I followed in my own life beginning with my decision to become an investor when I was ten years old.

Here was my plan for becoming a millionaire without cheating …

Secrets to Making Money in Fable 2

1. When you first begin the game, get a job as a blacksmith.
The blacksmith job is the most difficult way to make money in Fable 2 but when you start out, it is the most readily available.  Work your way up to a 5 star Blacksmith until you’ve earned roughly $50,0000 to $60,000.  If you’re any good, you can do this in a couple of hours at the most and even then, it shouldn’t be that difficult.

2. Buy a few cheap houses and then the Pants! store
By purchasing a couple of intelligently selected houses and the Pants! store just off the city square, you can earn a base rate of $450 per 5 minutes in real world time.  If you do this before you go to bed, you can wake up the next day, go to work, and come home 24 hours later to find that your character has amassed roughly $129,600.  As in life, by using your earnings to first buy cash generating assets, you can save decades of work later.

3. Use the earnings to buy the pub, blacksmith shop, and some more houses.
The pub and the blacksmith shop will boost your earning capacity substantially, doubling or tripling the amount of gold you make every 5 minutes of real world time.  At this point, you can proceed with the game and use your excess cash to buy additional real estate and businesses as money becomes available.  The next store on my list would be the furniture shop so you can buy furniture to improve your rental units, increasing the rent you earn.

4. Viola! By the third of fourth day of playing the game, money will never again be an issue.
By following this recipe for making money in Fable 2, you shouldn’t have to work another day in the game.  You can avoid the misery of spending hours upon hours pounding out swords, cutting woods, or pouring drinks.  It’s very much like real life.  If you spend your teenage years, twenties, and thirties buying up cash generating assets, you don’t need to worry because there’s a constant stream of cash that comes into your life with very little additional effort on your part.

This is no different than me owning stocks in high dividend companies or private businesses such as our e-commerce sites.  In the time it took to write this blog entry, my character on Fable 2 made roughly $42,623.  As we speak (so to speak), my money is earning dividends and interest, my companies are generating sales throughout the world, and the assets the businesses owns are appreciating.  It’s just not that hard.

Maybe I enjoy Fable 2 so much because, like my character, I had to basically start with nothing other than what God gave me in terms of intelligence.  I was the first to graduate from college in my family, the first to really own any stocks or other investments, the first to write a book, the first to move away from home (as in, halfway across the continent), the first to … okay, you get the idea.  As a result of my past, the idea of anyone starting from scratch and building a fortune resonates powerfully within me.

Related posts:

1. Final Fantasy XIII Is Released Tomorrow
2. I Beat Final Fantasy XIII Tonight
3. Why Don’t People Realize You Can Do This In Real Life?

It's not about the economy ... it's all about the games.

According to an AP Article, sales of video games have plunged 29% year-over-year and Wall Street is concerned that it is proof the video game market isn’t as recession-resistant as everyone believed.  Seriously.  That’s the crap that’s coming out of these news rooms.  News flash: Look at the game release schedules.  Last year saw a host of relaunches of various Final Fantasy titles, new version of the Civilization franchise, another installment of Harvest Moon, and the updated Soul Calibur.  Nothing really exciting has been released for six months.  The real action comes in the back half of the year.

My household spends a lot of money on video games.  We have virtually every system imaginable and we are big RPG and action players.  Right now, I’m working my way through Blue Dragon and Aaron is in the middle of Lost Odyssey, both released by the Mistwalker company setup by the genius behind the Final Fantasy series.  We aren’t spending any money on games now.  That will change when Aion – The Tower of Eternity is released.

You have the new Madden coming out on August 14th, Wolfenstein on August 18th, Halo 3 ODST on September 22nd, and Assassin’s Creed II on October 17th, just to name a few.  The video game industry does not follow the same pattern as furniture sales or theme park admissions.  It is all about the games. If a new Final Fantasy was released tomorrow, I don’t care if I hadn’t paid my electric bill and needed to come up with money to eat dinner, I’d find a way to get my hand on the title.

Aion Tower of Eternity

It’s only 1/10th as Expensive as the Movie on a Per Unit of Time Basis
Why?  Hour for hour, video games represent the single greatest value for your money.  A good RPG, for instance, will require you to play for at least 100 hours.  I typically level my characters up, maxing all of their stats out so I can dominate.  If you pay $50 for a game, that’s $0.50 per hour of entertainment.  Compare that to a 2 hour movie where you pay $10 for admission, costing $5.00, or 1,000% more per unit of time.  That assumes you don’t get popcorn, a Coke, and some Reese’s peanut butter cups which are, of course, absolutely required.

People who don’t understand a market should not be allowed to write about it.  It is almost as bad as Tech Ticker on Yahoo Finance, which is, in my personal opinion, the single worst source of financial or investing advice that has ever been sponsored by a major media company.  It takes all of my resolve not to hurl things at the screen when those idiots open their mouth.  It’s a fairly good bet that we are doing almost exactly the opposite of what they say at any given time on the webcast.  The civilization would be much improved if the plug was pulled on that monstrosity they call financial journalism.  Again, just my personal opinion.

Related posts:

1. Final Fantasy XIII Is Released Tomorrow
2. First Impressions of Final Fantasy XIII
3. Nothing Like Being Down $100,000+ In the First Few Seconds of Morning Trading on Wall Street