Business Games Have Failed

In terms of their use, simulation games appear

to be one of the more successful recent developments

in educational methodology. The

commercial market for simulations is estimated

"in excess of $100,000,000 per year" (16), The

range in fields and context of gaming use is extensive,

from games using a parent-child relationship

as a model, to elaborate models of the

firm employing microeconomic theory, and

even to games to teach administrators of

planned parenthood centers. Viewed in light of

the widespread use and scope of simulation

games, claims to their overall success might

seem tautological.

Yet there is surprisingly little evidence that

games are in any sense efficient or effective

methodological devices. This is especially true as

the complexity of the model used in the games

increases (13). The present article documents this

irony and postulates why it may exist. Previous

John J. Neuhauser (Ph D. -- Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)

is Associate Professor of Computer Science and Director of

the Computer S( iences Program at Boston College, Chestnut

Hill, Massac husetts.

Received 4/2/75; Revised 12/30/75; Accepted 2/17/76;

Revised 3/10/76.

reports have indicated the lack of learning theories

which would adequately support comparative

learning measures (3), but there may be

more fundamental causes of this paucity of supportive

evidence.

Distinction Between What Games Are

And What They Teach

Fletcher's (5) excellent critique correctly distinguishes

between the learning environment

present in a simulation game and those things

which one should learn from playing games.

Much previous research has been predicated on

the belief that games do something; therefore,

optimization of the mechanisms of play by sequential

experimentation should increase learning.

But some underlying assumptions of games

need to be examined prior to broader evaluation

-- for example, the assumptions that they

are self-judging, relevant and environment

"rich", that they free participants from any real

consequences of their acts, that they encourage

experimentation, etc. Fletcher presents feasible

counter examples to many of these assumptions.

The rest of the literature presents little of this

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Academy of Management Review - October 7976 125

fundamental analysis, yet a careful examination

of the assumed conditions should proceed a priori.

Of course, such predicate analysis is often

absent in the early development of a field. Perhaps

only the perspective of experience can allow

for this to occur; yet games can still be

judged by examining what they are supposed to

do.

Early game designers made much of the

analogy between simulation games and the physical

science laboratory. Games would simply

provide practice in those disciplines where real

world experimentation was impractical. The

fields in which games emerge should be characterized

by a need to integrate diverse concepts

for understanding the whole, and by a need for

cooperative socialization on the part of neophyte

decision makers (7). Certainly the fields which

have extensively used gaming -- business, sociology

and political science -- could be thought

of in this vein. Zuckerman and Horn (17) provide

brief reviews of 51 business games.

What should happen to participants when

they play games? First, they should acquire

knowledge of the model used in the game. Depending

upon the fidelity of the model to the

real world, they should begin to understand the

complexities of the referent system, and predict

how the game will respond to decisions they

nfiake. Their knowledge then encompasses facts,

principle'" and relations between facts and principles.

Second, participants' attitudes about real

world situations may be altered, because understanding

of the model system should increase

their empathy toward roles in the real world, especially