Is money "real"?
Nope, as others have pointed out, it is merely representative. There is a quiet pact with extremely flexible rules that a certain style of paper is worth a certain amount and other styles are worthless. Is it abstract? Yes, very. Is it a game? No.
People follow these conventions because they are useful. Money is a useful thing. It makes it easy to convert goods or services into other goods or services. If we had a barter economy, I would have to trade my services in drafting a document for some good or service, probably one undesirable to me. I would have to continue trading until I could obtain those things I need or desire. The overhead of doing these trades would be excessive.
The evolution of barter to money makes sense. The evolution of hard currency for paper currency makes sense. The evolution to digital currency also makes sense. It eliminates barriers, allows for greater convenience, and greater liquidity. It does this at a risk, of course, just as there was a risk of counterfeiting.
To say that "the economy is a videogame" ignores the real world implications. The calculations people make are not arbitrary, though, as I said, the rules are flexible. The numbers assigned mean something... they correspond in varying degrees to the real world. That's why one electronic card yields no results while the other makes it possible to get a Mercedes SLR McLaren.
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