The car game

Learning can be fun, playing a game can be great fun, so why not combine the two? Of course that requires a special type of game, which must have an educational element in it but which must also be fun. You cannot learn a lot if you fall asleep.

The aim of this game is to let the students experience what it is like to make decisions which affect your sustainability performance in combination with other effects, e.g. on sales and competitiveness, in a world that is dynamic and not always predictable.

Before designing the game it must be decided what message the game is to convey; must it be that sustainability pays in the end? Much as I would like to support that message, it means that the outcome of the game is manipulated so as to bring across the message. I choose not to do that and let the result be unpredictable, on the one hand because I believe this better reflects real life, and on the other hand because playing a game is more fun when the winner is to emerge from the game.

So who is the winner? This being a game for Industrial Ecology students, the winner is the one who has sold at least 25 cars and has only environmental label A cars in stock.  

This game focuses on the producers, who are each other’s competitors. All of them want to win. When we discussed the prototype of the game in class it was agreed that it is not very exciting being a consumer in this game, for how could a consumer win? In this version of the game, therefore, the players are all car producers. Consumer wishes, government decisions, economic ups and downs are all represented by cards. As there is quite some decisions to make and some accounting to do I believe it is wise to have 3 or 4 producers per game, each represented by two persons, one of whom is responsible for the accounting. It is not absolutely necessary to have a moderator, but it may be wise to have one.

To keep things simple the producers do not have to deal with different models and there is no labour unrest. There are no restraints on their production capacity, just the investment they need to make to produce the car.

At the beginning of the game all producers have a budget to make 10 cars and the technology to produce C-label cars. They can choose to use all the money to produce cars or invest some in R&D for cleaner technology. After they have invested enough in R&D (say the profit you make selling 10 cars) they have obtained the technology to produce B-label cars and with a further R&D investment they can produce A-label cars. When cars are sold and money is earned they can use it immediately to produce new cars or invest in R&D.

The price of building a cleaner car is higher, but the margin per car is also higher. (I will not go into the financial details, but if a C-label car costs 10 thousand Euros to produce it will normally sell for 11 thousand, a B-label car costs 11 thousand Euros to produce but will sell for 11.5 thousand and an A-label car will cost 12 thousand to produce but will sell for 14 thousand)

A producer that has the technology to produce B-label cars has the choice what cars to produce, B- or C-labels and of course a producer that has the technology to produce A-label cars can choose between A- B- and C-label cars.

What I hope is that the players will realize that by joining forces and sharing R&D cost they may (mutually) improve their chances of winning. Alternatively they could sell technology to others.

Producers draw cards in turn. These cards represent sales (how many cars can he sell and what label?) and external factors. If a player draws a sales card for a type of car that is not in stock in his company or for more cars than he has in stock, the next in line may sell the remaining number etc. until the number of cars that is on the card is sold. If there are not enough cars in stock the sales opportunity is lost.

Now obviously there will have to be cards indicating what type of car is to be sold and if the game is to be finished within one hour or so the cars must be sold at a certain rate, After the whole pack has been turned it can be reshuffled and used again if necessary.

I will not go into the details of the normal sales cards but concentrate on the ‘special events’ cards, which will be mixed with the sales cards. These may contain texts such as;

• ·        Economy is booming, each player sells one additional car this round
• ·        Economy is very bad, consumers go for the cheapest car. Each player sells 2 C-class cars
• ·        Consumer awareness is going up, they will buy the highest label you have available. Sales of 5 cars of the highest label you have
• ·        Tata Steel is entering the European market with a small, cheap C-label car. You can sell 5 C-label cars, but only if you reduce the price to 10.5 thousand Euros.
• ·        You are asked to supply an A-label car for the new James Bond film. Of course you will have to supply the car for free, but you will be able to sell 3 additional cars of the same type each year for the next three rounds (starting in your next turn)
• ·        There is a government tender for 10 B-label cars. They want to cut costs but still become ‘greener’
• ·        There is a change in the tax system for lease cars. This means that only B- and A-label cars are interesting for many customers. The market for C-label cars collapses. You can sell 5 C-label cars at cost price (10 thousand).  
• ·        A Chinese car is introduced in the European market. It is not only A-label, but also cheaper than your B-label car. What do you do? If you already have A-label technology you can launch an extra PR campaign, which costs 5 thousand Euros but means you can still sell 5 A-label cars, if you only have B-label you can sell 5 cars if you reduce the price by 1000 Euros.

I believe that at least the type of cars the producers have in stock should be visible in some physical form, if only a cardboard one. This visualizes the struggle for greener production. For the money it would be convenient to have Monopoly money, but a cash account will do.

What have I learnt from this? Well, at least that it is not easy to design a game and keep it simple. It is a challenge to design the game in such a manner that it can be finished within one hour and, to be honest, I am not sure that I have managed to do so, but I hope that at least I have thrown in some feasible ideas.