An Interactive Multimedia Business Game

The playing of computer-based business games has changed little with recent technological improvements. Teams make decisions which are written down on paper and handed to a tutor who then has to enter these into the computer. To make it a richer and more real-life experience we have brought a business simulation into a multimedia environment. In order to create a sense of the passing of time the simulation is continuous, and players can enter input values throughout the game. Important parameters, such as product sales, are displayed as continuously updated graphs. Background information such as news items is provided in multimedia form. Players also have direct access to online tools, such as spreadsheets, from the game environment. We describe the prototype built to illustrate our approach.