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Businesses Education Government Software Games Entertainment Technology

New Zealand Government Spends $150K To Create Video Game To Teach People How To Run a Business (nzherald.co.nz) 94

Posted by BeauHD from the fun-for-the-whole-family dept.
The New Zealand government spent at least $150,000 to create a video game that shows people how to run their own business. It reportedly took 14 months and eight designers to create. NZ Herald reports: The Tycoon Game series, which consists of Restaurant Tycoon and Tech Tycoon, challenges players to use what the World Economic Forum has deemed as 10 essential skills vital for the future of employment. The educational game will teach players business skills including emotional intelligence and cognitive flexibility, as well as critical thinking and creativity -- skills the Forum has this year bumped up the prescribed list. Players can level-up and earn badges for certain achievements, determined by how they manage scenarios in the game, including paying supplier invoices and wages. Do you think a video game is an effective way to teach business? If so, do you have any other games you'd recommend? A couple that come to mind include Capitalism Plus and Hot Dog Stand: Top Dog.
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New Zealand Government Spends $150K To Create Video Game To Teach People How To Run a Business More

New Zealand Government Spends $150K To Create Video Game To Teach People How To Run a Business

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  • On an emulator.

    Now get off my lawn.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by msauve ( 701917 )
      Go Hunt the Wumpus. I hear it can be found along The Oregon Trail, hiding in a Colossal Cave. :-)

    • Re:Lemonade stand (Score:5, Funny)

      by quietwalker ( 969769 ) <pdughi@gmail.com> on Wednesday July 25, 2018 @10:22PM (#57010610)

      One of my first successful programming tasks was editing the code of lemonade stand so it could recognize my name and my sister's name. It would give me more super-hot days, and while it didn't change the rate of days for her, every once in a while it would flash up a message saying "Meghan is a stupid head!" and then blink 3 times, then go away. That way when she got my parents, they wouldn't see that it was insulting her.

      It was great fun.

      • This is easily one of /.'s all-time best fucking posts. (Don't see too many gems like this one anymore...)

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Farton ( 5474848 )
        Of course now there are a lot of different cool games, but my computer is not new or powerful. In addition, all these games are paid. I found a solution and play free funny unblocked games [weebly.com]. They do not require a powerful PC and I can spend my free time without spending a penny.

    • Now get off my lawn.

      Only after I buy some lemonade!

    • Holy shit: that was the very first computer program I ever used; my dad's ham friend would load it up off cassette for me and I'd play for hours while the adults got fucked up and played Mahjong.. 1977?

  • So, I would recommend Tai-Pan!, because you can borrow negative money from Elder Brother Wu and end up owning most of Hong-Kong, which is the way real business really works, right?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Zedrick ( 764028 )
      That doesn't work on the C64 (AFAIK), instead you have to borrow money, go to the backalley casino and win, pay back the money you borrowed from Wu and then buy ships with the 300000 or so money you have left.

      Of course, none of these methods would work in the real world. To start a sucessful business, you have to borrow money, sign up to an online casino, win millions, pay back the money and then ....? do some stuff and profit or be happy with the profit you made gambling. Also shanghai somebody in the st
  • Bank Gauntlet 2: Bait and Switch

    Mavis Beacon Teaches Inspector Bribes

    Construction and Weather Roulette

  • For running a business.

    I want a game to teach me how to get the government grant to do something that's been done a thousand times before.

    • This. They should have released a game along the lines of "come up with a stupid idea, pitch it to the government, throw yourself on the pile of money and wave your arms and legs about making money angels, then deliver a substandard product before retiring."

  • Gamification (Score:3)

    by Peter P Peters ( 5350981 ) on Wednesday July 25, 2018 @09:53PM (#57010506)
    It's the new buzzword. Although a Govt project costing $150k is pretty good value. Around here it would cost that much just to get the idea formalised into a proposal. The project itself wouldn't budget at least $20Mil plus spend another $20Mil in project blow out costs.
    • It's already an old buzzword, and it's not even the right one. Gamification means adding gaming elements such as badges and achievements to an otherwise unchanged mundane activity like working, learning or doing chores. The buzzword you're looking for is Serious Gaming: turning the learning or promotion activity itself into a game.

      • Gamification means adding gaming elements such as badges and achievements to an otherwise unchanged mundane activity like working, learning or doing chores.

        It is an old buzzword, nearing two decades now. But it definitely is _not_ just adding badges and achievements to a syllabus.

        In fact, what you mentioned is the dreaded "PBL Fallacy". This is a common mistake by content developers to simply add Points, Badges, and Leaderboards to any learning module and then assume it automatically "gamifies" the content. I've seen this done wrongly so many times that it actually makes the modules worse instead of more engaging.

        Short of turning the entire curriculu

    • Although a Govt project costing $150k is pretty good value.

      Agreed; considering it's cheap and not too potentially destructive, it's a good way to keep the fucking bureaucrats occupied and busy so they don't think up anything even dumber.

  • Capitalism Plus is unbalanced (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Phil Urich ( 841393 ) on Wednesday July 25, 2018 @09:57PM (#57010520) Journal

    Capitalism Plus is a fun game, but I remember finding a kindof silly exploit back when I played it in the 90s. I was able to build a ridiculously high stock price by targeting the high-end of the market while keeping the shares 100% owned by me, then when I finally sold shares (basically simulating an IPO) at the overvalued price I'd manage to get it to I used the money that I raked in from that to buy up all of my competitors. At that point my business was vast and unwieldy and inefficient, but that didn't really matter since all of my competitors were gone, and any time a new one came around I just gobbled them up too if they started to get too big. It was fun, but it felt like the simulation just wasn't deep enough and I'd found a dumb exploit in it.

    I mean, then I grew up and found out that that's an entirely valid real-world business plan. Hell, my flatmate these days works for a company that did exactly that.

  • This is the game they need!http://lbcstudios.ca/portfolio/hempire/ [lbcstudios.ca]

  • Great value! (Score:4, Informative)

    by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Wednesday July 25, 2018 @10:01PM (#57010542)

    It took 14 months and eight designers to create.

    $150K for eight people for 14 months? I don't care if it had 1993 graphics, that's still a great value!

    • It took 14 months and eight designers to create.

      $150K for eight people for 14 months? I don't care if it had 1993 graphics, that's still a great value!

      I know, that's incredibly cheap!

    • That is just the amount the NZ government contributed to the project. The other partners also contributed money and resources. The total cost wasn't released.

    • Living here on a pimple on the arsehole of the world people get a little precious about Government spending, you will also note the the article states that the real cost was not disclosed, so what we can take from this is that the average intellect will see $150k and be happy that the Goverment isn't overspending while those few more discerning individuals may be a little concerned that the real cost was not disclosed.
  • How to make a business game:
    0. Have a great idea after going to a university.
    1. Find a lawyer, accountant and professional expert to look over the idea.
    2. Have a lot of money and a great history of paying back banks.
    3. Find a bank that gives loans to wealthy professionals with new ideas. Show them the amount needed, the collateral, a history of good past lending. What the professional advice was.
    4. Get loan approved thats can be repaid.
    5. Start the business.
    6. Make money. Pay tax. Pay

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Greyfox ( 87712 )
      Well, you could go the brand management route via youtube. Easier to pick up endorsements and backers when you have 4 or 5 million subscribers. I've been seeing some good ones by some wingsuiters and people running cooking channels. There's a whole Asian cooking empire out there with several people with neighborhood of 5-6 million subscribers. They're frequently pitching cookbooks and kitchen equipment in their videos, along with the usual prominent product placement.

      A lot of people dream of doing that fo

  • Mike's Bikes (Score:5, Interesting)

    by yeshuawatso ( 1774190 ) on Wednesday July 25, 2018 @10:10PM (#57010580) Journal

    In my first year of business school in Foundations of Business, we had a game called Mike's Bikes that we used to simulate an actual business. Game included all the actual parts of the business including starting new products, investments, and financials. While it wasn't exactly Tycoon level easy, it was easy enough for Freshmen to use the basics.

    https://www.smartsims.com/busi... [smartsims.com]

  • not sure why they need to spend that much money, doesn't make much sense.

  • Nine man years for $150K? (Score:3)

    by Wrath0fb0b ( 302444 ) on Wednesday July 25, 2018 @11:11PM (#57010764)

    This whole thing is just a low-key slashvertisement to get employers in the Bay Area and Seattle to consider a branch office in NZ.

    $150K is a bit over a starting salary these days.

  • Then I'm going to mention Taipan!, Drug Wars, Jones In The Fast Lane, SimCity, Railroad Tycoon, Transport Tycoon, Oil Imperium, Ports of Call, Theme Park, Zeppelin, ...

  • Step 2: Profit.

    Besides isn't capitalism and self reliance and commerce all vestiges of our evil bourgeois past?

    Shouldn't the government make a game that tells people how to complain properly?

    First, get your allowance from your parents. Then go to the craft store to buy poster board and magic markers. Then write some really cutting phrase on the the poster board like "save the owl whales from corporate baby killers". Then get some friends to dance in a circle whilst you wave those around. And when you get ti

  • Link? (Score:2)

    by sad_ ( 7868 )

    No link to the games in the article, links in the summary are for other games. So where can i download it?

    Great idea btw, if the army can make a recruting game, anything goes.

  • Does this game also teach business people how not to tank morale and destroy future potential by continuously screwing over employees for personal gain or petty selfish ideals? Does it teach that corporate cannibalism is bad? These kinds of topics, I think, are vastly more important to running a business than teaching yet another generation of MBAs how to maximize profit by derailing everything around them in the name of quarterly gains.

  • Tyc00n?!?!

    I'm surprised AmiMoJo isn't all over that for being racist.

  • Just play Don't Starve.

    Teaches resourcefulness, inventory management, foward-planning, and that instant death is just around the corner.

    It's just like real life!

  • $150K for 8 engineers and 14 months? It sure was not a full-time job.
  • A true classic [myabandonware.com] that taught me everything I needed to know.

  • Back in my day, we learned how to run a business in Algebra class, by playing Drug Wars on our TI-85 calculators. Supply, demand, buy low, sell high, managing inventory... it's got everything you need to know.

  • I loved that game back when I was a kid, I developed all sorts of models for running a business and making it work.

    End game I learned that it was far more profitable to manipulate my companies stock price than doing anything useful. Like buy a research building so you're burning cash, your stock will plummet below the value of your assets as the market thinks you'll go bankrupt, buy back tons of shares at the low price. Then liquidate your buildings, the market cap will return to the value of your asset
  • The game doesn't exist.

    Even the developer's own website doesn't have a download link, or even screenshots.
  • very good content. see here similar like this https://www.techbroot.com/2018... [techbroot.com]

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