The CEO Game

• 19Oct

  Why You Should Be Playing The CEO Game?

  The CEO Game 1 Comment

  You might want to ask: why use a game?

  Can’t you just teach people basic management and economic rules? Well, the answer is: Of course not!

  Why not?

  Because human nature is such that makes us interested in something only when we see it as a challenge. Some of the most fascinating novels, the most brilliant movies, and the best guide books, are not appreciated as they should, simply because they do not interact with the reader or viewer. The CEO Game offers something new: an Interactive and serious, yet fun, challenging game that is being updated non-stop.

  Sounds nice, so why not play Monopoly?

  Well, first of all, you should play Monopoly; fun board games may contribute to your financial knowledge. But this can’t be compared to an online serious game such as the CEO Game.

  What is so different about them?

  Firstly, you can play the CEO Game, whenever you would like, alone, with friends, in the morning, at midnight, anytime…

  The second reason is that nowadays, using the new technologies we discover and develop, we can reach a new level of teaching that has never been seen before, simulating the market, forcing players to consider every move they make, making them face the consequences of their actions, and all of that in a neutral, peaceful world where the threat of losing their job is not over their heads.

  The third, and maybe the most important reason, is that in the CEO Game one can study not merely from the interaction with the computer but as well as from observing the actions of fellow participants.

  Do I recommend playing the CEO game?

  Yes, indeed. The 21^st century will sooner or later dictate its own new and modern method of teaching. One must not fear it, but accept it with the understandingthat these serious games have a new capability of making people, wherever internet access is available, enjoy a modern method of studying some of the lessons that a few decades ago one would probably dismiss as a lesson “you can only learn in the real life”. Well Not anymore.

  

  The CEO Game - Serious Business Game

  Alon Cohen.

  The CEO Game.

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  Tags: Board Games, CEO Game, Monopoly, Online Serious Games, Serious games, The CEO Game

• 18Oct

  Tycoon Online – Review

  Technology 1 Comment

  Tycoon Online is a browser-based business simulation game based on the concept of other well-known tycoon games such as SimCity, Rollercoaster Tycoon and Transport Tycoon Deluxe.  The game was  developed by Capitalist Games, and was first released in 2007. Today it includes six virtual games where each game is based on its own country: Sweden, Portugal, Turkey, Netherlands and the United States.

  
  

  At the beginning of the game the player constructs his own company at the location he chooses.  After creating the company the player can produce goods, build factories, import or export goods bought from other players or sell products on the local markets and shops. Tycoon Online also offers a virtual stock market that allows you to purchase stocks of other players’ companies and even take the over. Inside the game a player can manage production, calculate financial costs and manage human resources. The game itself has a pretty simple and easy to understand interface and allows a quick start for joining new games. Capitalist Games take great pride that their game would be fun for the whole family.

  
  

  Tycoon Online is unlike the CEO Game puts it main focus on being a game and less on being a simulation. Tycoon Online offer only basic educational values and focuses more on being an entertaining game. So enjoy it, but don’t forget to sign up for the CEO Game beta — more bang for you (free) buck!

  Ailon.

  The CEO Game.

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  Tags: business games, Business simulation, The CEO Game, Tycoon Online, Tycoon Zone

• 17Oct

  Interest Rates and The CEO Game

  Economy, The CEO Game 1 Comment

  Interest rate – What does that means? Well, interest rate is the extrapayment a borrower needs to pay the lender in addition to the loan, at the end of the loan period. In other words, it is the price paid for borrowed money.

  

  Reacting To The Rates

  How do the lender and the borrower decide what interest rate fits the?

  First of all there is a benchmark for the interest rate; this benchmark is the central bank’s interest rate. The central bank in each country determines its interest rate in order to manage macro parameters such as: investment rates, unemployment, and inflation. Why is the central bank’s interest rate a benchmark? Because the main bank can always print more money and so there is no way that the central bank won’t return its debt and therefore this interest is considered to be free of risk or “safe”. This is not entirely true, however; if inflation increases the lender have less purchasing power in the end of the loan process.

  But the central bank only gives loans to other banks, and then those banks give the public loans at a higher interest rate. How do those banks decide what interest rate to offer to which client? The commercial bank uses data it gathers on us as individual and estimates what the risk is that we won’t be able to repay the loan. The interest rate the bank offers us is based on a statistical model that most accurately predicts this chance.

  How does the central bank control the investment in the country? Well, it’s easy to guess … The main bank uses the interest rate to control how much money will circulate the market and how much individual will desire to invest money. If the central bank’s interest rate is high, most people will prefer to save the money in the commercial banks and profit from the high interest rate. The high rate will cause much money to sit in the bank, and if the money just sits in the bank you can’t use it to open new businesses and promote new initiatives. On the other hand, a low rate of interest may cause many people to use their money to open new businesses and create more workplaces. For example, if you can open a business that promises a return of 7.5% of the money you invested each year, and the interest rate is 10%, you would just put your money in the bank and get 2.5% more on your investment. But if the interest rate is 2.5%, then you can open your business and earn 7.5%, 5% more than the interest rate that you will get form the commercial bank.

  So, what does this have to do with the CEO Game? Well, the CEO Game is unique among business simulations for the degree of realism involved in game play — that is why it is a serious game, and not just a game. Interest rates will change as you play the CEO Game, reflecting changes in the real world. In order to be a successful business tycoon, you will have to understand how the changing interest rate changes your interests — and make changes accordingly.

  Omri.

  The CEO Game.

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  Tags: Bank system, business & investing, Central bank, Interest rate, Investment, Loans, The CEO Game

• 11Oct

  IndustryMasters – Mastering the Trade

  Technology, The CEO Game 2 Comments

  The first of two articles on the products of Tycoon Systems: IndustryPlayer and IndustryMasters. Both are online business games which join together light entertainment of multiplayer gaming with educational purposes.

  

  Industry Masters.

  IndustryMasters is an online, multiplayer, business strategy game, brought to you by Tycoon Masters, a Brazilian business education software firm and is intended to replicate real world economy. This business game first saw light in 2007, subsequent to Tycoon Masters’ additional simulation game IndustryPlayer which was launched in August 2006. In IndustryMasters, players assume the role of a company’s CEO and battle one another in real time for profit and in order to rule the market and have the highest share price. Generally, the concept behind the game is allowing the players to experience the results of their actions in this real-like situation of ongoing financial strive.

  The novice CEOs (and maybe next-generation executives) who consist of business and engineering students, corporates’ trainees and amateur users; engage at running their company and must deal with all the aspects of their corporations’ business including planning strategy, financial investments, product branding, pricing, quality assurance, research and development, HR and even ecology. The game contains approximately 250 industries which are divided into 16 categories. The goal is to constantly increase the share price by making smart investments. Each week a new tournament begins, where you start out as a low level manager and get promoted with time. With each promotion the challenge and rewards gradually increase as well. The tournament consists of 100 participants hourly rounds, which represent sixty business months. Therefore, each month is one minute of game time, which in the end of – scores and market data are automatically updated. The players can play individually or group up and in the end can get analysis on their performance.

  The game is available in few editions customized for different usages:

  • Single User Simulations – Self paced study while competing with specific business scenarios.
  • Real Time Simulations – The public RTS where you compete with players worldwide.
  • Simulation Workshops – Single seminary class, lasting 1 – 2 hours, for 10-50 players.
  • Simulation Seminars – A longer comprehensive 2 days simulation.
  • Competitions Events -The game also provides a solution for extensive business competitions and events.

  Since the game was first released in 2007, it continually grows and has expanded to Facebook, the widely renowned social network, where it has nearly 3500 active monthly users. Here in the CEO Game we tackle relatively similar issues to the ones IndustryMasters deals with, with micro and macroeconomics concepts such as product life cycle, economies of scope and scale, benchmarking and much more. Moreover, we strongly believe in creating and providing a real world business environment, influenced by day-by-day events and trends, thus creating a new, addictive, easy to learn, fun to master challenging simulation which will help predict and maneuver the global economic markets.

  Omer Shachnai

  The CEO Game.

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  Tags: Business Game, Business simulation, Executive, Facebook, Industry Masters, Industry Player, Investment Strategy, multiplayer, RTS, The CEO Game, Tycoon Systems

• 09Oct

  Project Natal – A Whole New Level of Simulation

  Technology What is Your Opinion?

  Earlier this summer, Microsoft unleashed its newest innovation, a hands-free motion-sensitive control system that would allow a player to control the action of games with full body movement. Project Natal does this without making the user strap on a single sensor! Instead, it uses a self-contained module that is simply added onto the Xbox 360. The video camera in it tracks body placement and movement, reads depth, tracks 48 of your body’s joints, and can track multiple players. Project Natal can even differentiate your patterned shirt from the pattern on the upholstery and your voice from background noise. This bold project completely eliminates the need for hand-held controllers and allows the player to more fully immerse themselves in the world of the game.

  

  Project Natal – Changing The Way We Play

  So what does this mean for serious gaming? Obviously, seamless interaction between player and game means that simulations can be that more engaging, life-like, and therefore educational. For serious games such the army training game that we discussed earlier or flight simulations, the applications are immediate and clearly beneficial. Project Natal can sense and track a person crawling on the floor like a war simulation, or can sense a pilot’s motions in a game simply by having the player hold out his hands as though he is holding onto a wheel. In this way, it can give people extra experience in physical tasks that are otherwise hard to simulate.
  But it seems that Project Natal will have serious application to other simulations that don’t focus on physical dexterity, including business simulations. In one demo of Project Natal, a woman interacts with a boy called Milo onscreen. Milo converses fluently with the demonstrator, picking up her mood by the tone of her voice and responding accordingly, and “taking” a picture she drew from her — and he recognizes it as an orange fish! There is a lot of potential for such intelligent, sensitive characters to interact with people in business simulations. Much of the job of a CEO is interaction with people, be they clients, workers, or peers. If Microsoft can actually pull of such detailed, responsive characters, the potential for serious gaming of all sorts is astounding.
  Microsoft has yet to announce when Project Natal will become available, but keep your ears open for this exciting new development in gaming. Until then, game your heart out with other serious games, including, of course, the CEO Game.

  Tamar.

  The CEO Game.

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  Tags: Business Simulations, CEO Game, Microsoft, Project Natal, Serious games, The CEO Game, Xbox 360

• 03Oct

  simExchange: Business Simulation That Predicts The Future of Video Games

  Business management, Economy, Technology, The CEO Game What is Your Opinion?

  Predicting what the future holds for our product might be one of the most interesting questions out there, but until someone will build a time-traveling machine all we have to estimate the future are our business simulations. An example of such business simulation that assists in predicting the success of video game products is simExchange. simExchange is an online business simulation game that helps predict the success of products in the video game world by acting as a virtual stock market. The game allows players to predict the quantity of sales and types of reviews that upcoming products might get. simExchange uses the “wisdom of the crowds” to assist in predicting the future of upcoming video games.

  Well, how does it work?

  Using the virtual stock market, the business simulation allows players to predict the success of the video game/console or what reviews a video game might get. The players create these predictions by using a global stock market in which they can buy or sell stocks of the upcoming video game. Using those stocks the game tries to forecast the how one video game might succeed or fail. The trade inside the game consists of three types of contracts: Stocks, NPD Futures (Assuming Sales) and Metacritic Futures (Assuming critic reviews).

  Who uses this game?

  The simExchange business simulation has been noted to be used by real-world investors who seek data that will assist in analyzing the future of the market. Also the data received from this business simulation was noted to be used by Wall Street analysts such as Michal Pachter.

  The idea behind the CEO game is based on the same concept: Allowing the wisdom of the crowds to predict the success or failures of management process or products. This is way using the CEO game as business simulation might assist in improving your business management skills.

  

  Console Sales Prediction

  Ailon.

  The CEO Game.

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  Tags: business & investing, Business simulation, Prediction, simExchange, Stock Market, The CEO Game, video games

• 30Sep

  Serious Games – Learning Platform

  Technology, The CEO Game 2 Comments

  If you’re following this blog, then you have probably noticed that fact that the CEO Game is a serious game that will be a good tool for improving business-related skills. If it’s your first time please read our introduction post.  You might ask yourself if a computer game, or as we call it, a serious game, can really be a platform for passing on educational values? Can it really help? Well we believe it can.

  Serious games can be a way to enrich our lives. They can educate us through lessons embedded in the game play, they can provide training that otherwise might be expansive or dangerous like surgery simulation or military training, they can aid in raising the awareness especially of global issues such as global warming, they can improve our creativity, and thanks to the new technology they can even make you move, such as through the Nintendo WII. Serious games can really help us change the world because of all of these strengths – and you can enjoy yourself in the process.

  Ailon.

  The CEO Game.

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  Tags: Education, eLearning, Serious Game, Serious games, simulation, The CEO Game

• 29Sep

  5 Tips For Managing People In Times Of Change

  Business management What is Your Opinion?

  People have a hard time accepting changes. They hate change and usually they ignore and repress it until it surprises them.

  Managing people in times of change is not easy. Here are some tips for making good organizational changes:

  

  Change Management

  1. The change is here to stay! As I stated, people don’t like changes, and because of that they are usually ignore it and deny its existence. Our employees treat organizational change as management caprice, which will vanish as soon as the big boss will come down. That is why the message must be clear, simple (no double meaning) and assertive. The earlier your people absorb the message the better the change will be accepted and managed. Let everyone (include yourself) understand that the change is here to stay.
  2. Resistance to change is not true resistance Change is something that is forced onto the organization as a strategic management decision. The employees feel they have no real choice, which destabilize them and arouse emotional reactions such as anger, helplessness etc. The more one fears the upcoming change, the more one feels helpless, which makes one less likely to see the benefit of it and cooperate. It is easy to interpret those behaviors as resistance against the change and against the management. They are not. Those behaviors are emotional reactions and you should deal with them with the proper tools: empathy, patience and tolerance, understanding and open-mindedness.
  3. Describe the future Saying goodbye to the past is very important in change processes. Suddenly, everyone remembers how good things were before the change. In retrospect everything was just perfect, and the management cannot understand it. Your employees are too busy to reconstruct the past. It is hard to give up on the present for a vague future. But a good, tangible, and realistic description of the future, emphasizing all the new opportunities and the motives for the change, will ease your people to accept the new situation and increase their commitment to the goals of change in the upcoming future.
  4. Manage the adaptation period Organizational change does not happen once, especially when dealing with massive and complex changes, which effects firmly established habits or long-running, cross-method processes. Change requires adaptation, and adaptation takes time. Legitimate the adaptation process and don’t demand your people to achieve the most right from the start. Gradient achievement more likely guarantees that everyone accepts, understands and is willing to act toward the new order. Good organizational change plans set measured targets spread over some time (usually 3-6 months).
  5. Don’t flounder- decide! Don’t be afraid to make hard decisions, even if the uncertainty that arises from them out is high. Since your people expect you to lead them to the journey of change, you rather have good decision now than Great decision later. If you’ll find out that your choice wasn’t as you’ve expected- don’t change it. Consistency is one of the principles in order to achieve stability in the process of change.

  In conclusion, changes are blessed in every learning and growing organization. CEO must always be aware of the fact that it is also not that easy to assimilate changes.

  Business simulations, such as The CEO Game, examine your ability to produce changes in your company. Of course, there is no simulation that 100% matches reality, but the more experienced you are the better you’ll manage the change.

  Nimrod.

  The CEO Game.

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  Tags: Business management, business-leadership, CEO, Leadership, Management, Managing-Changes, The CEO Game

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