MassMutual is introducing a new way to promote retirement savings: A video game for smartphones and tablets.
“FutureJet” game is available as a free download from the Apple App Store and Google Play app store. MassMutual’s RetireSmart website for retirement plan savers offers a YouTube-based demonstration video of the game.
FutureJet allows players to “fly characters with helmets and jetpacks through FutureJet City, whose lights are flickering out due to dwindling energy supplies.” Players must collect power pods while flying over, under and around obstacles as fast as possible. Collecting the pods models two savings goals: fueling the players’ jetpacks to continue flying in the short-term while conserving extra energy to power FutureCity in the long-term.
MassMutual emphasizes connecting with its customers in whatever medium wherever they prefer, including the Internet, email, direct mail, individual and group meetings, and now video games, a release said.
The Pew Research Center reported in December 2015 that 49% of American adults play video games on a computer, TV, game console, tablet or smartphone. The percentage of players is nearly identical for men (50%) as it is for women (48%), according to the Pew.
Two-thirds (67%) of adults ages 18 to 29 are the most likely to say they play video games, Pew reports. Three-quarters (77%) of young men and three out of five (57%) young women play, according to the study.
By comparison, only 47.6% of Americans participate in an employer-sponsored retirement plan—nearly two points below those who play video games, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2014 Current Population Survey and the Employee Benefit Research Institute.
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