InformatistBusinessSimulationGame

It seems that we can try anything online these days.  Real money is spent online to purchase books (Amazon), sell stuff (eBay) or create a whole second life (Second Life), complete with Ferrari, a house on the beach and gold chains (well, not everyone chooses the gold chains).

Online life has now gotten more interesting with the addition of a virtual business community aimed at teens and college students. The Informatist (www.informatist.net) is a great site for teens and university students to learn about business in an ever-changing, social environment that teaches important business concepts while doing fun things that don’t feel like learning—they feel more like a game.

The Informatist allows students, once they register, to make an economic life for themselves.  They start in a poor section of town with few skills and few resources—not much money, no education, and no occupation.  Students are then given choices—just as in real life—about what they want to do.  Do they want to become a doctor, a lawyer, a store owner?  Informatist allows the student to choose a profession, but they have to work to improve their skills and practice their profession well.  Sounds realistic?  It is—you have to play it to appreciate how much like real life it really is.

So where does the business part of business simulation come in?  Students are able to earn money with their businesses or professions, and then must make decisions about how to invest for growth.  Students face questions like “should I hire more people for my pharmacy, or should I spend money to improve the skills of the employees I have?”  They are given the chance to expand their facilities, move to a better neighborhood, or expand to new businesses as their empire (hopefully) grows.

All this simulation would be much less interesting if it were done in a vacuum.  In the Informatist business simulation, students compete against one another for resources.  It’s this competition that makes Informatist much more realistic than offline business simulations—humans are less predictable and more original than computer models.

The Informatist’s virtual business simulation gives students the right amount of resources to make something of themselves, their businesses and their careers.  As in real life, students can gamble on speculative stocks on the stock market, buy properties and hope for appreciation, mistreat their employees by not spending on their further education (and suffer the consequences).  In short, the students are free to make mistakes and learn from them.

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