BOARD GAMES 3: What’s in a name?
Planet Money

BOARD GAMES 3: What’s in a name?

Jan 22, 2026 · 36 min

About this episode

Planet Money has teamed up with the company Exploding Kittens to make a board game inspired by the legendary economics paper The Market for Lemons. We’ve decided we want a mass-appeal party game that quietly sneaks in the economics, so that we can report from inside a world that no other Planet Money project has entered: the real shelves at real big box retail stores. <br/><br/>We have a great game mechanic and a set of rules. Now all we need is a good name and theme. <br/><br/>Turns out, that is way harder and way higher stakes than any of us could have imagined. <br/><br/>In the third episode of our series, we learn the importance of a good game name and theme and try to come up with one for our game. <br/><br/>Find our previous episodes in the <a href="https://www.npr.org/series/g-s1-89455/planet-money-makes-a-boardgame"target="_blank" >board game series</a>, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/10/01/nx-s1-5558425/planet-money-board-game-episode-1"target="_blank" >here</a> and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/10/03/nx-s1-5561924/planet-money-board-game-episode-2"target="_blank" >here</a>.<br/><br/><a href="https://www.planetmoneybook.com/"target="_blank" ><em>Pre-order the Planet Money book and get a free gift</em></a><em>. / </em><a href="https://n.pr/3HlREPz"target="_blank" ><em>Subscribe to Planet Money+</em></a><br/><br/><em>Listen free: </em><a href="http://n.pr/PM-digital"target="_blank" ><em>Apple Podcasts</em></a><em>, </em><a href="https://n.pr/3gTkQlR"target="_blank" ><em>Spotify</em></a><em>, </em><a href="https://n.pr/3Bkb17W"target="_blank" ><em>the NPR app</em></a><em> or anywhere you get podcasts.</em><br/><br/><a href="https://n.pr/3h92GwS"target="_blank" ><em>Facebook</em></a><em> / </em><a href="https://n.pr/3FqLuws"target="_blank" ><em>Instagram</em></a><em> / </em><a href="https://n.pr/3sGZdrq"target="_blank" ><em>TikTok</em></a><em> / Our weekly </em><a href="https://n.pr/3zrFvUB"target="_blank" ><em>Newsletter</em></a><em>.</em><br/><br/><em>This episode of Planet Money was hosted by Kenny Malone and Erika Beras. It was produced by James Sneed and edited by Marianne McCune, fact-checked by Willa Rubin, and engineered by Cena Loffredo and Kwesi Lee. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.</em><br/><br/>See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.<br/><br/><a href="https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy">NPR Privacy Policy</a>