I have a confession to make. Ever since the StarCraft 2 Beta came out, I’ve been watching StarCraft videos on YouTube. And now just the new ones, from the new game, but videos of Korean Tournaments playing the original StarCraft, which, by the way, came out in 1998. For those of you that don’t know, StarCraft is a Real Time Strategy (RTS) game, made for the computer. In it, you control one of three races in an attempt to create a war force that will bring down your opponent. In order to do so, you must first gather resources, build up the required technology and buildings, and then produce warrior units with those buildings. You then use those created units to do war against your opponent’s warrior units in an effort to destroy his army, and then his buildings. The person that destroys the other person’s buildings win.
So as I’ve been watching these videos, of crazy tournaments worth thousands of dollars (playing a 12 year old game), I’ve been thinking about a number of the strategies that each player uses. They break down into two main categories, “macro”, and “micro”. The “macro” is the big picture, and essentially relates to one’s economy. In the game, you have the ability to create worker units that harvest the resources, and build the buildings. The more worker units you have, the more resources you capture, the better of an economy you will have. The “micro”, on the other hand, is what you do with those units that your economy has produced. At a high level, players need to control every single click, action, movement, and attack of their created units. Otherwise they risk losing their units to the other player. Some players with amazing “micro” skills can beat a larger army simply by exerting better control over their forces.
Of course, as humans, we are limited in our ability to control multiple things at once. If one player is focusing entirely on macro, they may not have built up a large enough army to deal with his opponent’s forces. You cannot win the game with a lot of worker units. The player may have a great economy, one that is producing them lots of resources, but if they do nothing with those resources, then they will lose. On the other hand, if one player is so focused on his micro of his few units that he forgets about his economy, then as soon as he loses his units, he will lose the game as he forgot or is unable to produce any more. He will eventually be overwhelmed by the sheer size of his opponent’s army.
So what does this have to do with your personal finance? It seems to me that we can approach our finances from two different angles. The “macro” angle, and the “micro” angle. The “macro” angle is one that is more often employed by those who are financially wealthy. They already have built up a significant income, so they are less worried about the minute details of where their money goes. $5 here, $20 there, it doesn’t make a difference because there is a strong economy backing up the loss of those units. For example, we can focus our efforts on acquiring a strong income (better job, a raise, a second job, etc) in order to support that type of lifestyle. The second option, the “micro” option, is one that would be synonymous with coupon clipping and reading personal finance websites. Instead of trying to get through life through sheer quantity, one instead focuses on maximizing their dollar, and making sure that each “unit” is “spent” accordingly.
Like in StarCraft, neither option is “right” or “wrong”. Each one is simply a different strategy designed to get you where you want to go. But also like StarCraft, each has its own weaknesses, and clearly the best option is not to focus on one area of your finances in detriment to the other. There is no worth to doubling your income if you never use it, and there is no future if you spend all your time micromanaging your very last dollar. Instead, the ideal is to find a balance between the “macro” and the “micro” in our life. Sometimes the best option is simply to make more money, where other times it might be better to simply spend more wisely. It might become a dangerous habit to always answer financial questions with “more money” or “tighter budget”.
What do you focus on? Where is the weakness in your game?
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Alan Schram writes about personal finance and his encounters with it in his everyday life. Alan is recently married and is looking to save money on expenses and reduce his debts.
Cool post. I like posts where the author teaches a lesson from an unexpected angle.
I used to play Starcraft too, but only at home. No tournaments for me. Age of Empires 2 was fun too. I liked starting from scratch and building a huge empire.
Like most people I think I focus more on the micro. But I agree that you need to keep the big picture in mind too.
.-= Mike – Saving Money Today´s last blog ..What Adam Sandler Taught Me About Priorities =-.
I was also a StarCraft, WarCraft, and Tiberian Sun player. I never would have thought a financial lesson would have come from those games…good angle!
One thing I also learned from the RTS games is to diversify. I found a successful strategy was to send scouts to a remote area of the map and start building a secondary base as soon as possible. This way if my primary base came under attack I was not under as much duress. I guess this could be equated to multiple streams of income.
I LOVE Starcraft. My sons, aged 6 and 8, both play it avidly. My husband and me play against each other. I think it’s amazing that a 12 years old game is still our favorite computer game.
One of the reasons we feel this is an educational game is that we believe it teaches kids the very principles of management. Production, planning, creating a strategy and implementing it – it’s all there.
.-= Anne´s last blog ..Amazing Grace – Cirque Du Soleil Juggling Show =-.
Never played StarCraft but I was a huge Civilization fan. It sounds similar with regard to gameplay. I played the GAME on a MACRO Level but I manage my finances on a MICRO level. Maybe that disconnect is why I’m still in debt:) I am actively trying to make it out of the “NEED to count every penny” so I can focus on bigger picture things.
.-= Stay at Home Mom CFO´s last blog ..Don’t Count Your Money Until it’s “There” =-.
I never played StarCraft buy your description of it makes me want to
…. As for the Macro/Micro things I am definitely Micro right now with a plan to macro a few things once straight with some capital behind me.
.-= Forest´s last blog ..FREE DOWNLOAD -Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin =-.
Gaming and personal finance geeks, unite!
Great analogy for those of us that understand it. Gotta watch out for the Reaver drop into your mineral line…
.-= No Debt Plan´s last blog ..Why You Need a Rewards Checking Account =-.
Good point – best defense against that is to prevent the dropship from getting too close into your town.
.-= Anne´s last blog ..Why Smart Phones Are Dumb (And How They’ll Get Smarter) =-.
Interesting comparison, one I wasn’t really expecting. I’m definitely better at the macro game than the micro, which is sometimes to my detriment since my micro game isn’t good enough to just put it on autopilot. I need to shift my thinking a bit, and focus more on the micro stuff.
Am I the only one who thought that somewhere in this article there would be a mention of a ‘zergling surge’?
.-= Roger, the Amateur Financier´s last blog ..Wacky Wednesday: To Catch a Leprechaun =-.
Genius post. You should fire this over to Get Rich Slowly so you can get the attention this deserves.
This is hilarious. I can’t believe you actually just made an entire post on personal finance with StarCraft as a the basis. Haha.
Agree with @Justin King, J.D. Roth from Get Rich Slowly used to be a avid World of Warcraft gamer. He would definitely appreciate this post.
.-= Mike´s last blog ..700 Pennies – How to Stay Motivated and Reach Your Goals =-.
The only lesson learned from the health care bill is that the democrats can do whatever they want to America and we can’t do anything about it. We got screwed on health care and we will get screwed on financial reform.
I hope that no one is taking this seriously. Obviously it is a vast oversimplification.
Quite funny, though!
hello there love this site,I have been playing starcraft for one year and I can tell you that this game is simply beautiful:X