I am in love with Oiligarchy, Molleindustria's latest "serious game" that puts the player in the role of an oil tycoon who, if successful, will somewhat indirectly destroy the world. Molleindustria's most famous game before this was the McDonald's Game which I thought was informative, but didn't function quite as well on the game side of things. I consider Oiligarchy to be the best mix of education and game I have ever seen, with many points to be learned and/or earned (a bit cheesy, I know).
So, you're an oil tycoon. At the start of the game in 1946 (each turn is a year) you have available to you a small strip of Texas, where you can search and mine for oil to your heart's content, no regulation. It's not too difficult to start turning a profit, but the world quickly starts to want more and more oil, forcing you to find new areas of the world to drill, baby, drill. Each other area in the game (Alaska, Nigeria, Venezuela, and Iraq) has its own problems that discourage drilling. To overcome most of those issues, you need to control the United States government.
Elections happen at the end of every decade. You are given a quick mini-game of sorts in which the "Donkey Party" races the "Elephant Party" to the presidency, with their popular support at the times and your money donations determining who will win. The parties have no actual difference inside the game, so you quickly figure out that party loyalty will get you absolutely nowhere. In fact, for real control and keeping down the growing environmentalist movement, you have to keep donating to the loser to some extent as well. Anyway, enough money for the winning party, and you'll receive access to the "secret room" below the Capitol Building that will allow you to pass special measures to help your own profits, like a whole event chain leading to the Gulf Wars.
A successful gamer will follow history exactly up to the present day. After that, oil peaks as supplies suddenly begin to dry up, and the game becomes much more satirical. Humongous catastrophes begin to strike the economy and the people start to reform absolutely everything in their lives in an attempt to get by, but if you successfully kept them hooked on oil and kept the government in your hands, then the game will (SPOILER ALERT) end with the Mutually Assured Destruction of the Earth over your oil. Other endings are possible if the gamer takes different approaches, but according to the victory matrix the game sets out, if you win, the world ends.
The game is very fun to play overall, even though it's (perhaps realistically) stupid-easy to turn a profit. Keeping the government in your control is a bit more difficult, especially as popular opinion becomes more and more skewed towards environmentalism, eventually leading them to vote out the incumbent party by huge margins over and over as they realize whichever president they elected was just as oiled as the last guy. Anyway, it's a brilliant game, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone. Experience it yourself.
