Children’s influence on purchases has increased over time, making marketers focus on schools as a means to expand their audience. Although efforts have been made to protect children, there is little research on how organizational digital games could offer training opportunities for children to solve money-related problems from early on. This study proposes to present a digital game that presents children with a problem to solve through the interpretation of task demands, strategic planning and the implementation of plans to reach objectives. Another aim was to understand how the interpretation of task demands, performance and working memory capacity could moderate the relationship between perceived money value and perceived cost. Data were collected from 196 primary school students in central Portugal. Those who attributed higher value to their money, were more self-regulated (interpreted half or all of the task demands and performed the tasks according to the objectives proposed by the game and their plan to achieve those objectives), found it easier to purchase the digital items in the game. Moreover, those who attributed higher value to their money and revealed less working memory capacity, found it easier to purchase the digital items in the game. These findings provide an interesting contribution to the consumer behavior literature, suggesting that cognitive development plays an important role in early stage decision-making. Our findings highlight how self-regulation, working memory and performance play an important role in children’s perceived value and cost from early on. These skills can be encouraged through organizational digital games that provide opportunities for training in real life settings.

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