Greed is good.
Slip into the suit of Gordon Gekko and play this addictive business simulation game. Operating in the US economy you are an investor with $100-1000 millions in starting capital. Capital growth is your goal. The tools used to reach it can range from the honest to the dirty.
Spreadsheet warning
The game is complicated. I first played it several years ago before my business degree and did not understand much to be honest.
The appeal
If you have more than just casual interest for either the stock market or entrepreneurship the game is very addictive and interesting. You can do everything from research and investing in individual stocks, create holding companies to reduce tax and risk, and start-up your own companies in industries you find promising. Let me show you some screenshots from my start-up of a company in the beverage industry.
The name of the company is Get Drunk and Be Somebody, inspired by Toby Keith’s hit song. It aims for a rapid growth. This is very capital intensive so expect to make losses the first years until you grow bigger and can start to reap the rewards of reduced fixed costs.
Research reports are available for all companies.
My thirst for growth made me acquire an underperforming competitor priced at 70% of net assets.
After you have acquired a competitor your options are increased. Merger, LBO, Liquidate?
I merged the two companies, but performace was poor. Be aware, quick fixes comes at a hefty price.
Conclusion
The game is shareware, and the shareware version is very playable. The game is not the easiest to get into, if you find the game promising, the full version includes a strategy guide that links general financial theory with the options available in the game. The wisdom provided by this actually helped me on some of the finance and entrepreneurship courses I completed during my degree.
Download the very playable shareware version of the game (direct link)
More information about the game at Ronin Software’s pages
More business/economy games
Previous entries in this series include
Rise from mailroom clerk to CEO in Executive Suite
Sort out what Bush refers to as ”shit” in the Middle East by being the Israeli Prime Minister
Ah! Love the Gekko reference! By the way, he blogs over at http://www.roadtoforbes.com … lol
Mutual Funds and Market Research…
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…
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My newest high score is £100bn. All you have to do is start a game, then when it says ‘player starts first’ click on that and very quickly press b and then t, this brings up the government bonds section. click on buy whichever one and click to buy maximum.
Then come out of the buy sell box and wait for a few seconds. It should give you a worth of $1,300 or $1,400. When you get this press b and then t again and sell all your bonds.
Then repay loan, then buy CYCO. then borrow money and contribute the maximum to CYCO. then get CYCO to borrow maximum money. go to financial and then issue bonds. This will enhance the value of CYCO and your networth will go up and you can make a profit. If you wait and moment you can do something smart. Set up a new company, a bank, and only put $1000 into it for start up.
Then you change CYCO’s bank to your new bank. go into your banks menu and sell mortgage and consumer loans. then sell all AAA,AA,A,BBB,BB loans. Keep (and also buy) those with the following credit scores: B,CCC,CC,C,D as these are very profitable.
As you have probably only used CYCO to set up the bank don’t sell CYCO completely as you lose your bank aswell. As your net worth is higher you can borrow more money so you may be able to buy 51% of your bank from CYCO and then sell CYCO.
When you have enough cash to hand you can repay. Then borrow more again and take over INFO. Borrow maximum cash and contribute all of it to INFO again. Same deal as before and after you have issued bonds then change INFO’s bank to your bank. Then you have to buy loans as before.
Easy really!!!!
If you need any advice, email me steve@stiofanbrown.net
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