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Nicholas Lovell
Home   >   Sandbox   >   Games used to stop money-laundering

Games used to stop money-laundering

By on April 8, 2009

The BBC has a video report combining the betes-noire of tabloid journalists and ill-informed politicians: money-laundering bankers and computer games.

Anti-money laundering training firm The Consulting Consortium has launched a game that puts players in the role of an under-cover agent trying to invest a corrupt accounting firm.

The BBC quotes some pretty low figures (6,000 copies sold in the first 2 weeks at £45 a pop means £27,000 in revenue), but it’s still interesting:

  • A training company which can normally only earn money by hiring out expensive trainers suddenly has a scaleable element to their business
  • Having attended lots of Anti-Money Laundering courses myself, I’ m sure that the games are a) more interesting and b) more memorable than the lectures (which are really just a box-ticking exercise)
  • It shows games penetrating even the most unlikely of areas: Financial Regulation would not be the top of my list of likely Serious Games candidates

The company offers a range of other games too. It’s yet another indicator that games are not only going mainstream, they are actively being embraced by companies seeking to prove to government that they are training their staff.

About Nicholas Lovell

Nicholas is the founder of Gamesbrief, a blog dedicated to the business of games. It aims to be informative, authoritative and above all helpful to developers grappling with business strategy. He is the author of a growing list of books about making money in the games industry and other digital media, including How to Publish a Game and Design Rules for Free-to-Play Games, and Penguin-published title The Curve: thecurveonline.com