SHOBO game guide: rules, assets, grades, achievements
SHOBO is an investing simulation game. You start in January 2008 with $100K and trade through 18 years of real market history.
The basics: $100K and a running clock
The game starts in January 2008 with $100K in cash and settles on June 30, 2026. The clock runs on its own. The controls at the bottom of the screen set ⏸ (pause), 0.5×, 1×, 2×, 8× or 32×. The game never pauses for you; on Easy it slows to 0.5× when news appears.
The chart only shows prices up to the current game day. Knowing how the history ends does not make a crash easier to sit through.
Three difficulties, set by how much news you see
Difficulty in SHOBO is about how much information you get. On Easy, the "WSJ subscriber" sees every news item plus early warnings and can pause without limit. On Medium, the "CNBC addict" sees major news without early warnings and has 10 pauses. On Hard, the "Castaway" gets no alerts and no pauses, only the chart.
Hard also charges costs. Every buy and sell pays a 0.1% fee, and realized gains pay capital gains tax (10% on Korean securities, 20% on foreign securities, crypto and property). Easy and Medium are tax-free.
Six asset classes
① Securities and indices: trade the KOSPI index and Korean stocks such as Samsung Electronics, SK hynix, Celltrion, Hyundai Motor, Kakao and EcoPro, plus the S&P 500, Nasdaq and Nikkei 225 indices and US stocks such as Apple, NVIDIA, Tesla, Coca-Cola, Google, Amazon and Meta. The English edition plays in US dollars, so Korean assets (the KOSPI, Korean stocks, Seoul apartments) are converted at each day's KRW/USD rate, and the Nikkei at each day's JPY/USD rate. Their dollar value moves with the currency as well as with their own price.
② Commodities: gold, silver, WTI crude and natural gas. Gold hit a record high in 2011; in April 2020 WTI fell to $8.90.
③ Derivatives: leverage ×2, inverse −1, and the so-called "double inverse" −2. Call the direction right and leverage doubles the move, but in a sideways market volatility decay (leverage decay) eats into the balance.
④ Real estate: 15 apartments and 5 land lots in Seoul and Gyeonggi. Only some units are available each month. Listed properties sell when a buyer appears.
⑤ Deposits: compound at US policy rates (the yearly average of the effective federal funds rate). This is the only asset that cannot lose principal.
⑥ Crypto: Bitcoin opens in January 2013 at $13, Dogecoin in 2014 and Ethereum in 2015. Bitcoin hit $19,665 in December 2017, then fell to $3,216 a year later.
Prices are actual daily closes from 2008 to 2026 (adjusted for splits; coins from when they unlock; gold and silver are futures prices). Apartments follow a series linking real turning points for each complex, and deposits compound at US policy rates. The Korean edition plays the same years in won, starting with ₩100M at Korean deposit rates.
Grades from F to GOD
When the 18 years end, your total return sets your grade: F below 0%, D from 0%, C from +1,000%, B from +10,000%, A from +50,000% and S from +2,000,000%. Above S are the hidden SS, SSS and GOD. For scale, buying NVIDIA on day one and holding to the end returns about +24,100% (B). Keeping cash in deposits, buying Bitcoin on January 5, 2013 and holding returns about +458,000% (A).
19 achievements
There are 19 achievements, each built on a constraint: finish the 18 years with deposits only, make no sells during the COVID crash, end positive using only inverse products, and so on. 3 are Bronze, 4 Silver, 9 Gold and 3 Platinum. Clearing one unlocks that era's history and real data. Achievements are scored separately from your return.
What eats your balance
Leverage and double inverse can shrink your balance even when you call the direction right, if prices swing hard (volatility decay). On Hard, every trade pays a fee and every realized gain pays tax.
The chronicle in nine parts
One explainer for each major event in the game's 18 years: 2008 financial crisis and the KOSPI cut in half · 2011 US credit downgrade and record gold · 2013 Bitcoin, from $13 to $1,000 · 2014–2016 oil crash and the boxed-in KOSPI · 2017 Bitcoin's 19x run and the kimchi premium · 2020 COVID shock and Korea's retail army · 2022 rate surge and the Luna collapse · 2024 Bitcoin ETFs and Korea's martial law night · 2025–2026 KOSPI 9,000 and the Iran war.
Lehman Brothers goes bankrupt in September of your first year. The 2008 financial crisis explainer covers that crash.