This guide will provide you with important advice and guidance to save you time, stress, and headache. Derek has won the game multiple times and has consulted with students to help them win their games as well. This guide goes over Derek's top suggestions. It is meant to lower the learning curve to get students prepared quickly. Here is a review from one of Derek's YouTube viewers: "If you know anything about the BSG, you know how overwhelming it can be. Especially since along with a 40-page player guide, each decision variable page has its own help document that can rage from 5-15 pages. Derek's videos are a monumental help. The videos explaining the important nuances within each decision variable allowed me to grasp the concepts a lot better. If you want to do better, I recommend watching his videos, but only after reading the player guide. Having foundational knowledge of what was going on allowed me to better understand his advice. Knowing what to look for and use has helped me be rank one in my class for the two-year practice period and in the first year of the actual game. If all goes well year 12 I should have over 10.89 EPS, 54% ROE, and Image rating of 98."-Nader I

The Business Strategy Game is the #1 selling computer simulation in the strategic management market.Simulation games are the single best exercise available for helping students understand how the functional pieces of a business fit together and giving them an integrated, capstone experience. First and foremost, the exercise of running a simulated company over a number of decision periods helps develop students' business judgment. Simulation games provide a live case situation where events unfold and circumstances change as the game progresses; students become personally involved in the subject matter. The Business Strategy Game is very typical in this respect. Students learn about risk-taking by plotting their competitive strategies each decision period. They respond to changing market conditions, react to the moves of competitors, and choose among alternative courses of action. They get valuable practice in reading the signs of industry change, spotting market opportunities, evaluating threats to their company's competitive position, weighing the trade-offs between profits now and profits later, and assessing the long-term consequences of short-term decisions. They chart a long-term direction, set strategic and financial objectives, and try out different strategies in pursuit of competitive advantage. They become active strategic thinkers, planners, analysts, and decision-makers. And by having to live with the decisions they make, they experience what it means to be accountable for decisions and responsible for achieving satisfactory results. All this serves to drill students in responsible decision-making and improve their business acumen and managerial judgment.In addition, students learn an enormous amount from working with the numbers, exploring options, and trying to unite production, marketing, finance, and human resource decisions into a coherent strategy. They begin to see ways to apply knowledge from prior courses and figure out what really makes a business tick. The effect is to help students integrate a lot of material, look at decisions from the standpoint of the company as a whole, and see the importance of thinking strategically about a company's competitive position and future prospects. Since a simulation game is, by its very nature, a hands-on exercise, the lessons learned are forcefully planted in students' minds-the impact is far more lasting than what is remembered from lectures. Third, students' entrepreneurial instincts blossom as they get caught up in the competitive spirit of the game. The resulting entertainment value helps maintain an unusually high level of student motivation and emotional involvement in the course throughout the term.New features of version 6.0 include programming changes to improve functionality, an enhanced stock option in the executive compensation model, and a conversion to Eurodollars. Version 6.0 is not compatible with any earlier version of the Game.

“I am hard pressed to think of another book that can match the combination of practical insights and reading enjoyment.”—Steven Levitt Game theory means rigorous strategic thinking. It’s the art of anticipating your opponent’s next moves, knowing full well that your rival is trying to do the same thing to you. Though parts of game theory involve simple common sense, much is counterintuitive, and it can only be mastered by developing a new way of seeing the world. Using a diverse array of rich case studies—from pop culture, TV, movies, sports, politics, and history—the authors show how nearly every business and personal interaction has a game-theory component to it. Mastering game theory will make you more successful in business and life, and this lively book is the key to that mastery.

Play the game to win "More and more CEOs are discovering that managing one's businessenvironment is as important as managing operations, finance, andsales. Winning the Influence Game explains how a strategicgovernment relations program can make a major impact on thatenvironment at the federal, state, and local levels."-Douglas G.Pinkham, President, Public Affairs Council "A useful, detailed handbook that should find itself on thedesktop-or at the bedside-of every business leader. These are theskills that every business leader needs to succeed in theincreasingly complex and rapidly changing globalized economy inwhich they operate-and to gain competitive advantage for theircompany's future."-Ira Jackson, Director, Center for Business andGovernment, John F. Kennedy School of Government "Winning the Influence Game provides an excellent overview for thecorporate leader of how government can impact the bottom line-bothpositively and negatively. The clear, concise, and practical mannerin which the book is organized and information provided makes it anextremely useful resource to those charged with the responsibilityof creating an effective government relations program."-MargeryKraus, President and CEO, APCO Worldwide

Explains how companies must pinpoint business strategies to a few critically important choices, identifying common blunders while outlining simple exercises and questions that can guide day-to-day and long-term decisions.

This textbook presents worked-out exercises on game theory with detailed step-by-step explanations. While most textbooks on game theory focus on theoretical results, this book focuses on providing practical examples in which students can learn to systematically apply theoretical solution concepts to different fields of economics and business. The text initially presents games that are required in most courses at the undergraduate level and gradually advances to more challenging games appropriate for masters level courses. The first six chapters cover complete-information games, separately analyzing simultaneous-move and sequential-move games, with applications in industrial economics, law, and regulation. Subsequent chapters dedicate special attention to incomplete information games, such as signaling games, cheap talk games, and equilibrium refinements, emphasizing common steps and including graphical illustrations to focus students’ attention on the most relevant payoff comparisons at each point of the analysis. In addition, exercises are ranked according to their difficulty, with a letter (A-C) next to the exercise number. This allows students to pace their studies and instructors to structure their classes accordingly. By providing detailed worked-out examples, this text gives students at various levels the tools they need to apply the tenets of game theory in many fields of business and economics. This text is appropriate for introductory-to-intermediate courses in game theory at the upper undergraduate and master’s level.