(Our) Futures Market

So, let me start with what Futures are and how they operate in a Futures Exchange.

A futures exchange is like a marketplace where people can buy and sell contracts that promise to buy or sell certain things in the future. These contracts are called "futures contracts" but most simply call them "futures".

Imagine you're a farmer, and you grow corn. You're worried that the price of corn might drop by the time you're ready to sell it. To protect yourself, you could go to a futures exchange and buy a futures contract that says you'll sell your corn at a certain price on a specific date in the future. This way, you're guaranteed that price no matter what happens to the market.

On the other side, there are traders who think the price of corn will go up. They might buy futures contracts from you, hoping to make a profit when they sell the contracts later at a higher price.

So, a futures exchange is a place where farmers, traders, and other people can come together to make these agreements. It helps manage risks for people who produce or use things like crops, oil, or even financial assets, by allowing them to lock in prices for the future. 

With that said, futures can be traded for many different things, because most things can be commodified.

Step into a world where an entire trading market exists based on the futures of individual school-aged children, and brokers can make investment judgements on the potential future financial net worth of students based on grades, extracurricular activities, relationship status, and hobbies and interests. Students are aware and actively involved, trying to increase the value of shares of their own futures to help fund their college education or future entrepreneurial pursuits knowing they will have to share a fraction of their future success with their investors.

This game explores what it is like being an advanced placement high schooler applying for colleges in this reality, where scholarships have larger been replaced by funding through the sale of these futures.

The game would examine the negative effects of commodification and would create a hyperbolic microcosm of the already stressful college prep nightmare facing too many of our children. It would look into the culpability and complicity of colleges and universities in their attempt to increase profitability and to appear more meritocratic.

The setting of this game would be a fairly big bummer, but there would be an undercurrent of hope and defiance in the value of bucking the system and setting your own path, regardless of whether you succeed.

When we talk about people pursuing their dreams we immediate focus on whether or not they managed to make it. This undermines the value in embracing the pursuit to begin with. The risk and chances will play out how they will, but the choice is ours and what remains important.

I would recommend some financial reading to do this pitch justice.