Home Computing Weekly


Oligopoly
By Cases Computer Simulations
Spectrum 48K

 
Published in Home Computing Weekly #59

A management game for one to six players. You decide how much to manufacture, what to spend on advertising, research, new equipment dividends and your sale price.

Prompts give last year's details under each heading and entries are secret although opponents can guess by the number of asterisks displayed. Play length selects two to 25 years and strikes, taxes and Japanese imports abound. Bar and pie charts of all players' assets and sales are displayed and yearly results, in the form of company accounts, are displayed - (where everyone sees them) or sent to printer - 10 inches of paper per company per year could bankrupt you!

Instructions say the object is to make your shares highest valued and to pay dividends, but the winner is the one with the most assets, and dividends decrease these! Strangely, obsolete stock makes the balance sheet give an increased (and false) total of assets - mismanagement could therefore win!!

This, and the failure to erase parts of previous prompts (causing confusion) spoils the game and questions the standards of the 1983 Cambridge Award won by this program! Bugs corrected, this game might just while away a rainy afternoon. Warning: Do *not* use this to do forecasts for a real business.

D.C.

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