The final impetus for me was realising that I was spending something close to £200 ($300) a month on cigarettes. Nearly 4 months now, and I reckon in a year or so I'll have enough to replace my macbook :)
I've been a smoker for 9 years now, and I still smoke at most 2 packs per month. I buy the most expensive cigarettes that are still mass-market, and still I only pay ~$20 per month for my habit.
If I were poor, I'd have to look more closely at that $20, but for anyone in the middle class $20 is the price of a good meal if that.
With the game, I found myself questioning a lot of the priors such as---why when I'm living <5 miles away from work, do I lose my job the moment I don't have a car? Can't I walk?
Why do I even have a car in the first place? Also, why do I have a mobile phone on monthly contract? Was pre-paid not available in my area?
It's just a game but it seems pretty unfair even for small choices.
That's atypical, the typical smoker smokes between a half pack and a pack a day. I'd even say you're not really a smoker, you just dabble in smoking.
A pack of 20 in the UK costs about £6, which is about $9.
It's going up in the next budget.
People who are depressed, whose friends mostly smoke, and who can't see how they'll ever get out of this financial hole that seems deeper every month. Assuming it costs $80 a month to start smoking, the difference between $0 and $80 at the end of the month looms larger than the difference between -$100 and -$180. In the former case, you're going broke smoking. In the latter case, well, you were already broke, so hey, no change: still broke.
[Edit: I didn't actually play the game. I'm just responding to your comment about it. :) ]