Every now and then I get really weird ideas. This is one of them :)
How about a startup game? Not unlike monopoly, but with a lot more realism to it.
The game would start off with a (possibly faily high) number of people being given a fixed amount of savings, say $5000 (play money).
After that they’d be given several opportunities: take an idea from a stack of predefined ideas that are ‘open’ by bidding for them, or a random idea from a blind pile.
The next step would be one where those that end up without ideas or have a ‘bad’ idea to join forces with others and the various negotiations around that.
People would take on roles and they’d start to work on the actual idea.
At some point the group reconvenes and they score each other as a team as well as per person and product, some kind of formula would then be used to figure out who ‘won’ the game, and there would be a ranking.
Now for the catch:
At this point there are a number of teams that have - in the eyes of their peers - done something that is actually worthwhile, these teams could now go on to either form an actual company to continue with the idea they picked or some other idea they come up with. Or you could bring in some group with money to spare to fund the top contenders.
That would give you all of the fun of being in a start-up and to learn a bunch of valuable lessons and if you find yourself in a group of good and capable people it could go a long way towards starting a real company.
There would be no limits on geography or the number of participants, simply start a new ‘batch’ once every month or whenever enough people are available for a new game.