Playing games would have made it impossible to imagine Qualitative Easing? I played a lot of SimCity and it taught me that tradeoffs are very real and that mayors have a tough job; but it didn't stop me from independently coming up with the idea of qualitative easing as it happens. Still, I take the point, one can't use QE every time or in just any year to avoid a tradeoff - only when deflation is a real possibility.