Feature Preview - Year-by-Year Billionaires
Posted: Sat Aug 22, 2026 2:54 pm
Billionaire Life DLC New Feature: Year-by-Year Billionaires — race the real richest people of every era
Full details: https://www.capitalismlab.com/year-by-y ... lionaires/
The Billionaires 100 ranking used to be a single fixed list for a whole game — the same names, in the same order, whether it was 1990 or 2030. With the Billionaire Life DLC it now uses real historical data for each year, so the people you are ranked against are the ones who were actually at the top at the time.
It is on by default. You will find it at New Game → Billionaire Life DLC → Career; switch it off there for the classic fixed list.
What changes
Open the Billionaires 100 report at different points in a long game and the top of the world looks genuinely different:
The figures are real, so the growth is visible too: the fortune that made someone the richest person in the world in 1990 would not even reach the bottom of the list by 2026.
Where you fit in
Your character is ranked against these people using your live in-game wealth, so the target keeps moving. A few billion dollars puts you near the top of the world in 1990; the same fortune in 2020 barely registers. Start early and play a long game and you have to keep growing just to hold your position, because the list is climbing underneath you.
That is the real appeal: reaching number one stops being a trophy you keep forever and becomes a position you have to defend against a world that keeps getting richer.
Good to know
Full details: https://www.capitalismlab.com/year-by-y ... lionaires/
The Billionaires 100 ranking used to be a single fixed list for a whole game — the same names, in the same order, whether it was 1990 or 2030. With the Billionaire Life DLC it now uses real historical data for each year, so the people you are ranked against are the ones who were actually at the top at the time.
It is on by default. You will find it at New Game → Billionaire Life DLC → Career; switch it off there for the classic fixed list.
What changes
Open the Billionaires 100 report at different points in a long game and the top of the world looks genuinely different:
Code: Select all
Year At the top of the ranking
---- ---------------------------------------------------
1990 Yoshiaki Tsutsumi, Taikichiro Mori - Japan's boom
1996 Bill Gates, as software wealth arrives
2010 Carlos Slim Helu, on telecoms
2018 Jeff Bezos, as online retail overtakes everything
2026 Elon Musk, at a scale no earlier entry approaches
Where you fit in
Your character is ranked against these people using your live in-game wealth, so the target keeps moving. A few billion dollars puts you near the top of the world in 1990; the same fortune in 2020 barely registers. Start early and play a long game and you have to keep growing just to hold your position, because the list is climbing underneath you.
That is the real appeal: reaching number one stops being a trophy you keep forever and becomes a position you have to defend against a world that keeps getting richer.
Good to know
- The shipped data runs 1990–2026. Past that, the ranking grows with your own game's economy, so a late-game fortune still has something to measure itself against.
- It changes who you are ranked against and nothing else — no prices, incomes or AI behaviour move.
- MOD authors: the ranking is driven by a simple data file and is not limited to 1990–2026. Supply any years you like, for a Victorian scenario or a far-future one.