INVESTMENT GAMES AND SOCIAL APPLICATIONS

The importance of electronic education has been increasing, steadily developing and constantly changing in the last decade in the Czech Republic. Hand in hand with the development of computer technology go computer games and simulators. The article is focused on the utilization of technologies in the educational process in the connection with playing of the on-line investment games. The purpose of computer games development is not only fun but also the demonstration of technical possibilities. They include some educational elements. It depends on the target group, on the budget for development, on the number of involved people, on the used technology and artificial intelligence, on the goals of games or simulators and so on. Computer games and simulators can positively stimulate different human skills and personal development. Like most things they have their pros and cons. The benefits are for example better imagination, logical thinking, mathematical, strategic, economics and other abilities. Negatives can be the dependence on computer games, an escape from reality and worse face to face communication abilities, aggressiveness and others. Using simulators by investing can help to enhance financial literacy without loosing of real money in the bad decisions.

In the first part of the article there are shortly presented the criteria that should be used for comparison of the games and also the basic definitions from this field. The main part of the presented article is in the second part. There is presented the comparison of the selected investment games together with the social applications that should be used. In the comparison are involved the simulators that are used for simulating of the trading with stocks, bonds, currency or commodities. Those simulators can support better decision making of involved people into investment. There will be also presented student´s results from the Faculty of Informatics and Management at the University of Hradec Králové.