I have long been a fan of playing games for free, but this game made me reconsider my stance. Maybe there are times where spending money on a game is justified. If there is a game worth spending money on, Offworld Trading Company is the one.

It is a real time strategy game where players try to control the supply of resources on Mars. Players do everything they would expect to do in that kind of game: make farms, pump water, and manufacture glass from mined silicon. While most economic games involve getting all of these resources for yourself, though, OTC doesn’t give players enough resources to make all of these themselves; instead, they must buy the resources from other players.

It uses a believable market system where prices go up when people buy and down when people sell. To make the most profit and expand, it makes sense to attempt to build whatever is the most expensive. If all players do this, however, prices plummet down, sending everyone who made that item into bankruptcy. Winning, therefore, is about predicting what’s valuable now and will likely stay valuable later before establishing a place in that market.

Not only is it a good game, but it’s also an extraordinary tool for teaching how capitalism and free markets work. The game’s mechanisms lead to a showcase of the economics of scale, continuing specialization as real companies do. This specialization naturally allows players to establish monopolies, which means letting prices rise to allow for massive profits. OTC even has scenarios showing various forms of government intervention and letting the players figure out how to exploit them.

Overall, I’d highly recommend giving the game a try if you have the cash. It’s a great experience I’ve never had anywhere else and probably my favorite video game. It’s not always what I want to play, but it has such a good premise that I can’t stop coming back. I rate it a 9.3/10.