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FishBanks, page 8

Personal Comments:

What I've found interesting about this game is that it so fully captures the dynamics of what actually happened as the Cod fishery collapsed. The health of the fish population was assessed on the basis of catches. Fishermen were encouraged to buy more ships, based on overly optimistic estimates of fish populations. Before the fisheries finally collapsed, the need to pay on their loans for the new ships encouraged them to fish harder, confusing those who used catches to estimate fish populations. When the fishery finally did collapse, and regulators stopped fishing, there was nowhere to sell their ships and fishermen were stuck with large debts. In the game, those who borrow to buy lots of ships seem to do well at first, but in the end, there is no way to use their ships because there are no more fish, keeping them in port costs money, nobody can buy them, and they go bankrupt. For those who are careful and don't buy ships, the situation is bad, but somewhat better than the aggressive ones. They have fewer ships, still can't use them to create income, but have a lower debt level.