The CEO Game

How can you best describe The CEO Game? Is it a Simulation game? Or is it a Tycoon game? A Business game? maybe its Management game?

The answer is: All of the above. The CEO Game is a management business simulation in which you play as the CEO. Your job is to increase your wealth and get rich but also to promote your company. At first you need to create your own company, analyze the market, and decide in which country you’ll build your HQ. This is a major step as once you build your HQ you can’t move it. The location of the HQ will give you some benefits in your home country and will determine the currency you mostly do business in. After this you’ll need to chose the city in which to build your stores—every city and region has its own unique population. Regions vary in the age, political leanings, and socioeconomic status of its citizens, so make sure you are selling the right products to the right population. For example, a luxury product will sell well in a region with high income and almost not at all in a low income region.

You will also have to deal with the storage and shelf life of your products. Managing the storage of your stores and factories will be easier over time after you collect some data on the sells rate. You’ll also need to manage the HR department by hiring the best employees at the lowest possible cost, as well as arrange the financial reports. If you manage to create a successful company you will be able to go public (sell your shares in the stock market) or take over other companies by hostile takeovers. As a creditor or as a major share holder you will also be able to develop new products and import and export foreign products—or even go global and start selling your product in other countries, or maybe just to move the production line to low cost manufactures contraries

You as a CEO can harvest much information from the newspaper and internet about your competitors’ stats and on macro data such as average income or interest rate. If you want to be successful you’ll need to utilize every bit of knowledge.

In summary, in the CEO Game you will aim to become a leader in the global market, a highly profitable company. You will be playing in a highly nuanced and sophisticated world more realistic than any other business simulation around. And, you will be competing against people who want it as bad as you. Good luck!

Serious Business Game

Omri.

The CEO Game.

In the past few years, simulation games have become so popular that, no matter where you look, you are likely to stumble upon a business game or some kind of management simulation, many of them alike but each unique in its own way, with popular titles ranging from “Roller Coaster Tycoon”, to “Hotel Giant” to “Sim City”. One of the titles that really caught my attention is the widely renowned “Tropico“. Now it’s more relevant than ever, with the upcoming release of the third game in the series, you guessed right, “Tropico 3″, which is already tipped to be one of the strategy game highlights of 2009.

Tropico. Management Simulation Game.

Tropico is strategy simulation game with a philosophical approach, developed by PopTop Software and published by Gathering of Developers. The game was first released in 2001 and is considered one of the finest construction and management simulations ever made and is influenced by other business game masterpieces, such as the aforementioned “Sim City” and “Railroad Tycoon”. Tropico packs up addictive construction-oriented game play combined with Latin American politics and economics, which together make an easy to learn, hard to master habit-forming package.
In Tropico, the Cold war is in full throttle, as the player takes on the position of the all mighty one “El-Presidente”, the newly-installed ruler of the obscure Caribbean paradise island country of Tropico, whose rise to power is doubted to be, how can one say, oh yes, democratic.

Once the game begins, the player must design the characteristics of the island’s leader: how he inherited the mantle of power, if he is allied with the Soviet or Western bloc,what are his strong points and on the contrary, his flaws. You may select a predefined character from a list of real life personas including America’s sworn enemy Fidel Castro, his comrade Che, Argentina and Hollywood’s sweetheart Eva Perón and many more. This phase of the game is a tradeoff, where each decision that the player makes influences the entire course of the game and the leader’s relations with the different factions of the island, so one should carefully plan his strategy if he wants to last in power. This is similar to a small business or entrepreneurship, where much relies on the CEO’s characteristics.

Enough messing around, leading an island is not a child’s play, as the governor you will have to take on all fronts, both domestic and international. Altogether, you have very few resources when you start (like most ambitious startups have in the beginning) and choosing priorities is the name of the game. You must decide whether to play out as an unscrupulous dictator and use brute force to secure your regime, or turn your island into an economic powerhouse bringing in tourists from all around the world, or perhaps become a modern industrial nation marketing yourself as an export giant. No matter which path you take, you must remember that as a leader, you are on constant trial and the jury is the people.

In order to last long, you must please that jury, or find ways to eliminate it if there is no other way. Your style of rule is entirely up to you. Running the island, is much like dealing with HR, finance and management issues that every CEO must take into account. The developers of the game did a fine job of creating balanced political, religious, economic and social factors in the island who spark up tensions all the time, that delicate balance (allowing victory when playing right) is a very complicated accomplishment, that each business game much deal with.

Furthermore, you must struggle to shape your vision, fight off and outlast your political rivalries either by “re-education” or by honest means and secure the people’s happiness by providing food via farms and fishing, housing, jobs and careers, human services like hospitals and schools, building island infrastructure, entertainment and even churches and cathedrals. Tropico provides over 100 of these structures, and many edicts and policies you can choose from and as the population grows and gets scattered around the island you must issue more and fast.

Don’t let your lust for Yankee dollars or a fat Swiss-bank-retirement account, fool you. You shouldn’t let your guard down; you must keep a sharp eye out because danger is always seeking you out, whether it is a coup d’etat led by militant guerilla forces or the private ambitions of the Uncle Sam or the Soviet Union for the island. It’s important to point out that game is not a real time strategy (RTS), at least not in the classic way, but the game is influenced by real historical events such as the Cuban missle crisis, earthquakes, visits from the Pope and more.

In short, the name of the game is cleverly plan ahead to stay in power. Ultimately, the CEO will be held responsible for the success of the company, because he is the one who dictates the way. The question for each CEO is whether he can play that role in history. Can he make the right decisions and invest heavily when needed in the right place and on the right time or cut short bad investments, before it’s too late? In a sense running a business resembles running a Banana Republic, just like the Caribbean island simulation shows; plan your growth well and lead a thriving stabile enterprise to gain your people’s favor, or plan your growth badly and watch as your resources decrease and your opponents get richer while they fantasize about teaching you a lesson in mob justice. Remember, if all fails there is always martial law.

Omer Shachnai

The CEO Game.

IBM returns to the serious game market with their new release Innov8 2.0. Innov8 2.0 is a serious game of business process management simulator (or BPM) . The main goal of this new IBM product is to improve the business productivity of IT and business professionals by improving their understanding of the processes that are critical for the company’s success. Innov8 allow business and IT players about the importance of managing businesses processes and how they affect the entire organization. The game itself is combined with 3 mini games which each one of them tries to simulate a different aspect of business process management. The 3 games are Smarter Supply Chain, Smarter Customer Service and Smarter Traffic. The game is currently open and you play it by entering innov8 page on IBM’s website.

Ailon.

The CEO Game.

People are supposed to reject changes, and most of the time that’s exactly what they do. Although the statement that “People don’t like changes” is too general. Since moving up and improving is constantly based on making changes you wouldn’t want the fear from the future to weaken the group’s initiative and the group’s unity.

Knowing How To Change

VP of human resources in one of the US top production companies once said: “I show people that the change is part of acceptable norm in our daily life. Most of the time people want, love and need changes. Those who oppose changes are usually those who lack self confident. They want to stay in the same place while the rest of the world is moving forward.”

People don’t like surprises. Only few among us are liked to get caught when we are not ready. The sudden deceleration of change or a new development can catch them in surprise and often cause them to oppose it. In the other hand knowing before a change can give people time to embrace it.

People also don’t like that changes that are made to their authority. This fact is true even in situations that are seemed fairly simple.

In the CEO game managing your employees is a key to succeeding. By managing your employees wisely you will be able to achieve much more with less investment. We are investing a fair amount of time to create the right tools in our business simulation and serious game which will assist you in learning how to manage HR more correctly. If you have any idea or points that you think that should be embedded in the game please content us.

Ailon.

The CEO Game.

The world constantly moves, changes, and we must adapt ourselves. It’s you’re in or you’re on your way OUT! There is not enough time or space to cover the meaning of learning, professionalizing, always in motion for every profession.
I would like to talk about the business value of the subject.

Getting ahead

Well, It’s a well known story that in Google every employee has its own 20% free time in order to innovate, to develop and to learn. The company leaders choose to let the employee free space, because of the huge potential each and every one of the workers have. When you take a step aside your daily routine, when you invest in acquiring knowledge, you can see things different, you understand things different and you may encounter new brilliant ideas. Of course it is also a matter of the workers satisfaction, the branching of Google as the paradise of Hi-Tech are another key reasons for that action, but in the bottom line, the main idea is based on the wisdom of the crowds.

What is the wisdom of the crowds?
The Terms describe why many people, opinions and sharing knowledge help achieving better business results, and actually change and shape businesses and economies.
In our case, the modesty of the management knowing that the next gold mine is more likely to grow from one of  its ‘human assets’ or, if you like, the crowd.

OK, and how it connects to books?
well, it is not necessarily books, and maybe (and especially) not that relevant for  the artistic kind (although they deserve a place of respect).

Knowledge and our senses…
Most of us (humans) don’t like to get stuck: not in traffic, not with the same pay check and not with the same amount of knowledge we posses. There are several leading ways to acquire knowledge: TV, internet, hard covered books. If we choose to look at it differently: you can hear (or watch) something someone said (or showed), you can read something someone wrote. But still- there’s something missing – the practice and experience. It is not a great secret that the major part of the knowledge acquire audience fulfill our satisfaction by hear, watch and read (how many of you guys watch cooking show and actually tried it at home?.

The importance of practice is what important when it comes to really acquire meaningful knowledge.
Will you hire someone to build your house who just read a few engineering books?
Would you choose a dentist to remove your damaged wisdom tooth who just read the last article of ‘dentists today’?
The same applies in the business world, software development and every other profession.
Practice Makes Perfection!

If you look at it carefully, not all experience acquired by work and tools.

• How many of you played ‘the memory game’ in their youth?
  • Science proved long time ago that game improves your memory abilities.

How many of you played (and still playing) chess?

• It’s a known fact that strategic games develop your mind in every aspect.

And what about the academy?

For nearly three decades the term of ‘Serious game’ is here with us, still keeping a low profile.
I won’t waste words, and it’s been approved above any reasonable doubts, that playing games is the best way for acquire knowledge!
Whether it is a basic human urge or the competition in games driving us to growth and self development? I’ll leave that for the experts.

And so, how does it improve my business value?
Business simulations and management simulations are an excellent way to check your ability to react. React to changes, react to opportunities and react to crisis.
Several companies adapt that model and are conducting business simulations at the level of junior managers, in order to find the player who can join the major league- in the real world.

Online Business Games are the best way to understanding your potential, acquire a lot of useful business knowledge and gaining experience and practice.  All that comes with hours of fun. The CEO game allows everyone to realize what it is all about being the CEO and compete with other ambitious players.

How does the future looks like?
We believe that in the near future ‘Serious Game’ will become the hottest Buzz in education, like a giant awake from its winter sleep.
Children will learn fast theory in class rooms and will play hours over hours in games made for the sake of education.
Great fun games will be what kids will play after school in games serves their intellectual interests, and provide them with a lot of useful tools.

What about serious business games?
We truly, deeply believe it won’t be just for junior executives or for academic simulations, but it will a part of the question you’ve been ask in your appliance process, you will be googled over and be a part of the training.
Moreover, we believe that the employees will be measured by serious games, online and offline.

Where the technology goes?
The market of serious games and business simulations is increasing. You can’t find open platform for serious games yet, but the CEO Game is planning to be a leading player on the field of Online Serious Games. For now on you can wait another few weeks for the release of the first serious business game that will improve your business qualifications and show the world your inner business potential. So get into action, learn and experience- because games aren’t just for children.
Not anymore!

Nimrod .

The CEO Game.

There are many business games out there – some for PC, others for consoles – so why do we need a serious game simulating a business?

moving forward with serious games training

Well, we need a serious game about business simulation because it’s fun. But more importantly, the main reason we need such a serious game is because of the lack of practical experience in the business management field.  The main reason for that gap is the high cost of good management training, and the lack of tools such as business and management simulations to train the next management generation. In the academy, many young students acquire the basic knowledge required to survive in today’s fierce business environment, but hardly anyone ever teaches them the real-life practices required to succeed. It’s a tough world.

In order to solve this problem, we at The CEO game decided to develop tools such as business simulations and management simulations under one serious game which is called “The CEO game”. This tool will combine the theoretical knowledge with the practical world in order to enrich its players’ knowledge.

We believe that by playing The CEO game, you will have a better understanding of how the contemporary business world works, and it will assist you on your way to bucome business tycoon.

Omri

The CEO Game.

The CEO game - Class starts at 1/1/10

As we advance with the development of the CEO game (Currently expected to release to beta at 1/1/2010) I thought that we should share with you the key points that will be focused in the first version of the game. As we mentioned in earlier posts the CEO game as serious game and as Web 2.0 will evolve according to feedbacks that will be received for our community.  Therefore we decided to share with you the goals and the key features that the first beta version will include.

The key goal of the CEO Game in its beta version is to improve the business management skills of its participants. The CEO game will do it by combining factors normally seen in business simulations and management simulation in to one serious game.

Among those factors you will be able to find:

• Managing human resources:  as CEO of your own company you will have to learn the rules of employing employees, motivating them and even firing them when needed.
• Managing development projects: You will have to take key calls and decide the future of your upcoming products (The wrong call might end up costing your job).
• Fighting for your market share: The ground is limited and competition is rising. You will have to decide how to beat  other companies to raise your own revenue
• Creating business networks: Like in real life having the right connections can be the difference between a Forbes 500 companies to a bankrupt business.
• Managing production lines. Knowing how much to produce and where, are the questions you will have to answer.
• Dealing with government regulation. Learning when you should enter a specific market and when you shouldn’t and also learn how to deal with the law.

The CEO game will include educational material to assist you in the learning’s of the business world. We aim to give you the tools that are required to succeed in the game without feeding you the material. We believe that’s the best way to learn for a serious game. As we continue with the development of the project we will update you with more details on each feature so make sure your updated.