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Brian J. King

C&TE 665

31 March 2008

Using a MMORPG to Teach about New Media & Web 2.0 Business Models & Competition in

Saturated Markets & Integrative Thinking

INTRODUCTION

As our society and our technology evolves so have our business models and with this to

survive in the highly competitive marketplace today’s business people must become highly

aware, adaptable, and agile to stay afloat. Existing marketplaces are generally saturated with

competition that is already meeting the market need presented by the consumers in the

marketplace. An example of an over-saturated marketplace would be the soda business; Coca

Cola and Pepsi are very obviously not the only two companies in this market although

companies such as Faygo are not going to overtake the competition in this specific marketplace.

As business and marketing undergraduate students learn in most general education

institutions is more about how the past worked, how traditional markets work, and very rarely

anything about how the markets of today are and how to best compete in these highly saturated

and competitive marketplaces. The students need to be learning subject matter that teaches them

integrative thinking skills and know how to compete in a marketplace of the present. The

marketplace of today is saturated with red oceans1 and needs to teach students about how to

create blue oceans2 of these marketplaces according to W. Chan Kim the author of a Harvard

Business School Press publication Blue Ocean Strategy. A chart taken from INSTEAD (a

1
An example of a red ocean is Coke vs. Pepsi, a marketplace that is already saturated with
competition and is highly unlikely to enter into this marketplace without drastic innovation
instilled. (http://www.blueoceanstrategy.com/qa/AnswerArchive.php)
2
http://www.blueoceanstrategy.com/qa/AnswerArchive.php
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division of Wharton’s business school) shows the difference between red and blue ocean

competition strategies.

Table 1 http://knowledge.insead.edu/contents/bosprimer.cfm

Businesses today are increasingly able to compete with the creation of the Internet and

the diffusion of technological advancement. With that has come the arrival of new media & web

2.03 companies and principles. These companies are very different then traditional marketplaces

that generally have a product they produce themselves, or a store like Target that distributes

products from many companies. These traditional companies require large start-up costs, large

liabilities, and are already inside of a very saturated marketplace where competition generally

can be easily diminished by the massive power of the established brands such as Target and other

corporations.

3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0
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Although today’s new media and web 2.0 companies have an interesting quirk to

differentiate them from the traditional marketplace economics. These companies generally allow

for mass customization and personalization and information sharing, as well as the dissemination

and delivery of non-mainstream content, products, services, and more. Additionally they

generally thrive on user generated or submitted content. With a business model such as this you

require very little startup costs and low risk as a business owner and can almost distribute your

work load to the people (community) of your website. Many of these companies have developed

ways to utilize integrative thinking, technology, and evaluated red ocean markets to develop very

specialized niche markets and created market demand where it may not have previously existed;

in turn creating a blue ocean.

DEFINITION OF PROBLEMS

The problems faced is that in today’s university environment as a business student you

simply are taught about the traditional marketplaces and how these work, although are not given

any (or generally very little) insight into the present time marketplace and how it is evolving

leaving many graduates entirely obvious of these companies existing and how they have created

a competitive edge against many traditional businesses and business models. There needs to be

an engaging and educational simulation game that engages students to learn, foster community,

and ideate with these new media companies; in turn providing assurance that the students are

prepared for the current state of the marketplace.

SOLUTION FOR PROBLEM

To address the problems above I believe a MMORPG4 game would best fit how to

educate these business and marketing principles in an interesting and engaging environment.

Research conducted by various people such as Prensky (2001,2005), Van Eck (2006) and Gee
4
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMORPG - Massive Multiplayer online role playing game
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(2003-2004) have found that games can be beneficial supplements for the learning process. The

environment would allow for participants to join an online environment similar to the popular

game The Sims and even similar to SecondLife and will be given a certain amount of currency

and will utilize their own ideas to develop a new media or web 2.0 company that follows the

principals of the current marketplace environment. They will select from a realm of various

basic ideas they would like to start with and begin their business, other players in the

environment will have the opportunity to invest in, use the product/service offered, or to vote

that the business will sink5, or lastly they can message the user that owns the company and

suggest a partnership of some sort. As the users evolve through the game and partner businesses

will either succeed through people utilizing their businesses, investing in them, or partnering

with other businesses to create mashups6 and to share information through API7’s and RSS8, etc.

Players will have to develop a successful business by utilizing the tools above and develop their

own business entity as well as invest in others to create a viable market. Utilizing unique

monetization techniques such as earning revenue from advertisements, premium services, etc.

THE LEARNERS & SURVEY

A MMORPG environment that is based on the same community involvement and

survives strictly on other players utilizing it to become educated I believe is a lesson in itself.

This will be beneficial to the learners as they participate in the MMORPG and will fit the

learners’ needs. The learners I would be targeting for this would be ranging in age from high

school to graduate college mainly. Although any age group (especially those involved in the

market themselves) would provide a wealth of knowledge to assist in educating those that are

5
In this instance I utilize this term to symbolize the business not financially succeeding.
6
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashup_(web_application_hybrid)
7
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/API
8
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS
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less knowledgeable and would be given more credibility points in terms of if they voted a

business would sink this would have more impact then anyone with no credibility points or very

little. The game would present usable feedback by providing outside resources and links to

videos, articles, and other media content as well as commentary from those that invest in your

business or vote that it will sink. This type of feedback method goes hand in hand with the

community-based involvement of the companies the MMORPG environment participants will

create.

The players in my target audience are digital natives familiar with technology (aged 18-

24 approximately) (Prensky 2001) thus utilizing the MMORPG environment should be fairly

straightforward although a wiki of help resources would be provided. The game will adapt and

account for individual differences as you can gain credibility points that have larger impacts on

your investments and voting on a particular business in the MMORPG environment. The access

to computers should be no issue as most high schools and universities have public computer lab

access readily available. Additionally anyone that wants to participate in the MMORPG can do

so from any Internet connected computer.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion the above MMORPG I believe would allow for participants to learn about

companies that are truly creating new dynamics in the economic marketplaces of today. The

MMORPG will teach about how to create new market needs and utilizing blue ocean

methodologies as opposed to competing in an already saturated marketplace with traditional

business models and traditional business economics. These are skills and knowledge domains

that are essential to compete in today’s competitive and innovative marketplace and should be

learned. Utilizing principals of those businesses themselves in an enjoyable gaming environment

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to teach about these principles will solve this need.

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References

Application programming interface. (2008, March 30). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
Retrieved 17:25, March 31, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
title=Application_programming_interface&oldid=202160916

Blue Ocean Strategy. Retrieved March 31, 2008, from Blue Ocean Strategy - Questions Web
site: http://www.blueoceanstrategy.com/qa/AnswerArchive.php

Gee, J. P. (2004). “Learning by Design: Games as Learning Machines.” Gamasutra. Retrieved

March 23, 2008 from
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/2056/learning_by_design_games_as_.php.

Massively multiplayer online role-playing game. (2008, March 31). In Wikipedia, The Free
Encyclopedia. Retrieved 17:44, March 31, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
title=Massively_multiplayer_online_role-playing_game&oldid=202302656

Mashup (web application hybrid). (2008, March 30). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
Retrieved 17:34, March 31, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mashup_
%28web_application_hybrid%29&oldid=202122890

Kim, W, & Mauborgne, R (2005). Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market
Space & Make the Competition Irrelevant.Harvard Business School Press.

RSS. (2008, March 31). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 17:33, March 31, 2008,
from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=RSS&oldid=202267495

Web 2.0. (2008, March 31). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 17:47, March 31,
2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Web_2.0&oldid=202334918

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Game-Based Learning. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Prensky, M. (2005, September/October). "Engage Me or Enrage Me". EDUCAUSEReview , pp.

60-64.

Van Eck, R. (2006, March/April). Digital Game-Based Learning: It's Not Just the Digital Natives
Who Are Restless. EDUCAUSE Review.

Van Eck, R., & Gikas, J. (2004). READY Survey. Retrieved March 25, 2008, from The
University of Memphis: www.idt.und.edu/web_assets/Misc/Games%20Packet%201.pdf

http://knowledge.insead.edu/contents/bosprimer.cfm. Retrieved March 31, 2008, from

http://knowledge.insead.edu/contents/bosprimer.cfm