Experience Geo: A Massively Multiplayer Game Page 331 - Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning, volume 39, 2012 DESCRIPTION GEO is a massively multiplayer game structured at the level of a global economy, one level of comprehensiveness above the total-enterprise games that are commonly used in business education programs. The game can accommodate 32,767 simultaneous players, although the usual session involves about 120 players. The game is flexible and its rules are simple, so students from different countries, clas- ses, and educational levels can join the same session. Gen- erally, a session takes place over a semester, with players entering and leaving the session at different times depend- ing on their course schedules. For the conference session in which I will demonstrate the game, attendees with Internet- accessible Windows computers should bring their comput- ers to experience playing the game within a field that in- cludes about 180 other players beyond those present at the conference session. At the conference session, I will take attendees through the following steps: 1. Accessing the game. The demonstration version of the game can be accessed through the Web site at http:// pages.towson.edu/precha/. 2. Registration. Participants register individually, each selecting a preferred group size at registration. Even so, participants are sequentially assigned to either a single-person group or an all-inclusive, after which they can switch to a group of their own choosing. 3. Bid for consumer products. Unlike many other busi- ness games, the participant’s primary object is not to maximize company profit but to extend personal life, which comes about when participants virtually con- sume the products produced by the companies of the game. These bids constitute the demand curves for the products that the companies produce. 4. Found a company. The game begins with an empty economy, but each participant begins the game with just enough money to found one company and meet its minimum capital requirement. A company can produce only the product of its industry. The game supports five industries: service, material, energy, clothing, and food. 5. Staff a company. Every company has a manager posi- tion and a seller (sales agent) position. Companies in non-service industries also have a buyer (purchasing agent) position. Employment is consummated when a participant accepts the job offer of a company or a company accepts the work offer of a participant. Com- pensation is in the form of salaries and stock options. 6. Pick group. Participants not satisfied with their initial group assignment can switch to a different group sub- ject to the following conditions: a. Except for the all-inclusive group, the maximum size of each group is the lowest preferred group size of its members. b. A participant cannot join a group if entry will cause the group credit that members receive to fall. Group credit (g) is computed and awarded each period by multiplying the mean personal performance of active group members (m) by a discount factor that rises with the number of active group members (n), as follows: g = m (1 - .5n). The instructor may link grades and other rewards to the participant’s personal performance alone, ignoring group credit; or to the participant’s group credit along, ignoring personal performance; or to the participant’s total performance, which is the sum of the participant’s personal performance and group credit. 7. Advance period. Normally, the game advances auto- matically based on elapsed time and participant activi- ty, but for the conference session, I will advance the game manually. 8. Viewing and analyzing results. The game presents cumulative and periodic data in tabular and graphical forms, and allows the data to be exported for spread- sheet analysis. 9. Portfolio investment. Each participant and each com- pany can acquire a stock portfolio of five companies by trading shares through the program’s electronic clearinghouse. 10. Mergers and acquisitions. A statutory-takeover feature of the game facilitates mergers and acquisitions, which are incentivized by a shared-experience model and which can be financed by equity and debt. 11. Currency speculation. Companies can target currencies for speculative returns by taking long and short posi- tions. 12. Covered-interest arbitrage. Companies can arbitrage interest rates by entering into currency swaps. 13. Scheduling a new life. Within specified limits, partici- pants can specify the period when their current life cycle will end and a new one will begin. Life transi- tions are essential for a vibrant stock market, and con- EXPERIENCE GEO: A MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER GAME Precha Thavikulwat Towson University pthavikulwat@towson.edu http://pages.towson.edu/precha/ http://pages.towson.edu/precha/ mailto:pthavikulwat@towson.edu Page 332 - Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning, volume 39, 2012 trol of transition timing incentivizes life-cycle plan- ning. 14. Migration. Participants can migrate to the nation whose economic policy they find most appealing, choosing from among nations with strategic-trade, free -trade, export-promotion, and managed-trade policies. 15. Continuous voting on national policies. Participants can propose domestic policies, and citizens of the man- aged-trade nation can propose trade policies. These policies are automatically clustered and selected in a democratic continuous-voting process. Details on notable features of GEO are discussed in the simulation and gaming literature. A thumbnail sketch of GEO’s basic features appears in Thavikulwat (2010); the rationale for the group-assignment procedure of the game is explained in Thavikulwat and Chang (2010, 2012); charac- teristics of its product market are described in Thavikulwat (1997), in Thavikulwat, Chang, and Yu (2009), and in Tha- vikulwat and Chang (2011); the shared-experience model that incentivizes mergers and acquisitions is described in Thavikulwat, Chang, and Sanford (2008); an exposition on the application of life spans and life cycles in a business game is given in Thavikulwat (in press); and GEO’s pro- cess of continuous voting is explained in Thavikulwat (2009). The features of GEO are open for examination and the academic use of GEO is free. REFERENCES Thavikulwat, P. (1997). Real markets in computerized top- management gaming simulations designed for assess- ment. Simulation & Gaming, 28, 276-285. Thavikulwat, P. 2009. Social choice in a computer-assisted simulation. Simulation & Gaming, 40, 488-512. Thavikulwat, P. (2010). GEO: An entrepreneurship-oriented computer-assisted international strategy simulation. De- velopments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning, 37, 327-328. [Available from http:// www.absel.org] Thavikulwat, P. (in press). Life span as the measure of perfor- mance and learning in a business gaming simulation. Simulation & Gaming. [Available from http:// sag.sagepub.com/] Thavikulwat, P., & Chang, J. 2010. Pick your group size: A better procedure to resolve the free-rider problem in a business simulation. Developments in Business Simula- tion and Experiential Learning, 37, 14-22. [Available from http://www.absel.org] Thavikulwat, P., & Chang, J. (2011). Effect on market perfor- mance of displaying supply and demand curves in a busi- ness simulation. Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning, 38, 148-159. [Available from http://www.absel.org] Thavikulwat, P., & Chang, J. (2012). Two Free-Rider- Accepting Methods of Organizing Groups for a Business Game. Developments in Business Simulation and Experi- ential Learning, 39, this issue. Thavikulwat, P., Chang, J., & Sanford, D. (2008). Shared experience as incentive for horizontal integration in busi- ness simulations. Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning, 35, 212-219. [Available from http://www.absel.org] Thavikulwat, P., Chang, J., & Yu, B. (2009). Mitigating the winner’s curse in the auction market of a computer- assisted business gaming simulation. Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning, 36, 205- 212. [Available from http://www.absel.org] http://www.absel.org http://www.absel.org http://sag.sagepub.com/ http://sag.sagepub.com/ http://www.absel.org http://www.absel.org http://www.absel.org http://www.absel.org Table of Contents Volume 39, 2012 Designing the Training Challenge Follow The Leader: Are we Teaching our Students to be Thinkers or Followers? Two Free-Rider-Accepting Methods of Organizing Groups for a Business Game Additional Benefit Through Competency Models Assessing Brand Portfolio Normative Consistency & Trends With The Normative Position of Brands & Trends Package Modeling the Impact of Marketing Mix on the Diffusion of Innovation in the Generalized Bass Model of Firm Demand Play it Forward! The Design and Development of a Forward Contract Simulation Positioning the Company: Increasing Profits in Social Networks Merger of Companies in Business Game Exercise Towards a Knowledge-Based Approach for Autonomouse Trading Agent An Exploratory Study of the Impact of a Simulation Exercise on the Managerial and Personality Traits and the Decision Making Styles of Marketing Students Should the Concept of Potential Customers be the Foundation of Demand Theory in Business Simulations? Teaching Sustainability Experientially Drawing Upon Experience and Research to Improve Future Communications Improving Assessments of Student Learning Outcomes (SLO) Over Time The Effect of Affective Domain Characteristics on Behavioral or Psychomotor Outcomes Gossip? No, Not Me! An Experiential Exercise Student Advisement Using Gantt Charts: An Experiential Exercise in Management Theory Practicing Teachers as Digital Game Creators: A Study of the Design Considerations Designing and Solving Crossword Puzzles: Examining Efficacy in a Classroom Exercise Difficult Times Call for Innovative Measures: Microfinance as Experiential Learning in Higher Education Catalysts, Client Services, and Community Change: Interdisciplinary Collaboration in a Nascent Microfinance Initiative Build A Business . . . In An Hour or Less: Getting Closer to Reality into the Classroom Smart Goals: How the Application of SMART Goals can contribute to achievement of Student Learning Outcomes The Use of Data in "Live" Cases to Encourage Systems Thinking and Integrative Analysis: An Exercise Linking Human Resource Programs and Financial Outcomes in Real Organizations Experiential Education as a Process of Changing Mental Frames by Inducing Insight Learning Process and Content Integration in an Experiential Learning Guided Internship Program Good-bye Discussion Thread: Creating a Community of Inquiry in an Online Master's Program Fiction as a Constructivist Tool for Learning Process Consultation in an Online Environment: Shaping the Context, Introducing the Dialogue Can Simulations Provide a Better Experience? A Capstone Application Modeling a Modest Proposal for Increasing the Efficiency of Academic Reserarch Dissemination Experience GEO: A Massively Multiplayer Game SysTeamsGames Three Games for Management Simulation SimVenture - A Start-Up Business Simulation Stellarbucks Simulation Developing Games Using Strategy Maps and Balanced Scorecards Strategy Dynamics Models - Powerful But Simple In-Class Games Simulating Scenarios for Financial Statement Analysis A Valuation Model of the Simulated Firm Writing the Land: An Interdisciplinary Experiential Approach On the Estimation of the Probability of Meeting Financial Commitments: A Behavioraial Finance Perspective Using Business Simulations