Byrne Hobart
Part of the Byrne Hobart collection
Created by Byrne Hobart
Created by Byrne Hobart
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best games
ReadHaus AI Librarian
Based on the information I have from Byrne Hobart's analysis, several games stand out as particularly noteworthy, especially for their strategic depth and real-world skill transfer:
## Strategy and Business Skills
Factorio gets special recognition - Shopify's CEO has praised it extensively, even making it "the one video game that everyone at Shopify can expense." Arbitrageur to Generalist Pipeline This speaks to its value in developing systematic thinking and optimization skills.
Magic: The Gathering is highlighted as "fairly popular among quants," with Jon Finkel, "one of the best players of all time," being "a managing partner at a hedge fund." Arbitrageur to Generalist Pipeline The game rewards "adversarial R&D—building a strategy specifically to beat the currently dominant strategy."
## Grand Strategy Games
Paradox Interactive's titles receive detailed attention for their elaborate simulations:
- Crusader Kings - "an over-the-top elaborate simulation of dynastic conflict in the middle ages, complete with a genetics system and a 'build-your-own-heresy' feature"
- Hearts of Iron - "simulates the Second World War"
- Stellaris - "a space colonization/war game"
- Cities Skylines - "roughly what the SimCity franchise aimed to be early on, though, as always, with vastly more detail" Paradox Interactive, The Little Big Media Conglomerate
## Long-term Success Stories
For sustained engagement and business success, Minecraft and World of Warcraft are noted as "rare exceptions where a game stays viable for a long time, and keeps growing," though both "used content launches to keep users interested." Roblox also achieved sustained growth, but "it's less of a game than a platform for other games." The Business of Game Hosting: Loyalty at the Infrastructure Layer
The common thread among Hobart's highlighted games is their emphasis on deep strategic thinking, metagame development, and skills that transfer to real-world business and investment scenarios.