**4. Assessment and evaluation**

in the game is what it seems to be. Some things, e.g. obstacles, will turn out to be setups as they are designed to test the player's project management abilities (www.sharkworldgame.com). During the game, a player is expected to achieve and display essential soft skills, by making conversations with people who are involved in the project. When a player has a dialog with the game characters, the "mood icon" of the characters appears on the upper right corner of GUI (graphical user interface presented on Figure 4). When the game character is satisfied with the player's answer, the "mood icon" shows a "happy face"; and on the contrary, when the game character does not like the answer or the undertaken step, the "mood icon" changes into an "angry face". During the game, a player must maintain the three very important type of

250 E-Learning - Instructional Design, Organizational Strategy and Management

atmosphere:

**•** Team satisfaction

**•** Boss satisfaction

**•** Client satisfaction

**Figure 8.** Shark World (a screenshot of Graphic User's Interface).

The levels of these attributes are shown on the status bar, with a little pointer that shows where on the scale of satisfactory presented skills the player is. For example, if the pointer is colored

The brief presentation of the selected games makes possible the assessment of the game properties to be presented in the form of table in the section that follows.

#### **4.1. Value of the assessment parameters**

Below we present the value of assessment parameters presented in Section 4 for each of the selected games.



**Table 1.** (Assessment parameters and results) Immersive business simulation games: an innovative pedagogical approach to e-learning

#### **5. Discussion**

The assessment of selected business simulation games has provided some summarised results. The parameters that assess the properties for achievement of the educational goals are considered as most important. In that context, it is important for the game scenario to meet the educators' and the learners' expectations. Games that answer to this requirement usually have highly developed segments or levels of reality. In addition, the game has to lead the player through several situations that require decision-making. The game should help the learner with proper guidance and explanation in case the decision was not selected as it was expected. This type of game enables faster transfer of experiences, getting skills more easily and good outcomes when the achievement of learning objectives is analysed. By inspection of Table 1, it can be concluded that Shark World game appears to represent the real-case situation most effectively. The game provides excellent underlying storyline (which turn is also entertaining), the fictional characters are played by the real actors and the video material is a very nice attempt that makes the players to feel like being part of a real business project in a real-life environment. The game eRepublik provides scenarios in a fictional war situation where users are gaining their economical power; however, this is most likely hard to happen in the real world.

**eRepublik Virtonimics Shark World IBM innov8 Virtual Leader Big Oil Wall Street**

Noncompetitive

> Points received

The virtual Note support

Business Process management skills

Total enterprise

252 E-Learning - Instructional Design, Organizational Strategy and Management

Noncompetitive

Customer influence

Supported with mails from virtual administrator

Project management skills, hard skills, soft skills

Low Medium Medium Low Medium Low Low Low Medium

Noncompetitive

> Statistic charts

Deterministic Deterministic Deterministic Deterministic Deterministic Deterministic Stochastic Deterministic Stochastic

Text Instructions and audio/video tutorial

Leadership skills

Yes Yes Yes No No No No No No

Not required Required Required Required Not required Not required Required Not required

**Table 1.** (Assessment parameters and results) Immersive business simulation games: an innovative pedagogical

The assessment of selected business simulation games has provided some summarised results. The parameters that assess the properties for achievement of the educational goals are considered as most important. In that context, it is important for the game scenario to meet the

Enterprise Enterprise Functional Functional Functional Total enterprise

Points received

Virtual assistant provided

Business strategy skills

Competitive Competitive Competitive Competitive

Statistic charts

Text tutorial

Coordination, logistic skills

Virtual money

Text tutorial

Financial skills, stockbroker skills

**generic Degree of complexity**

**Functional or enterprise**

**Competitive or noncompetitive**

> **Feedback system**

**Deterministic or stochastic**

> **Briefing systems**

**Learning objectives**

**Background knowledge**

**Interactivity type**

approach to e-learning

**5. Discussion**

Enterprise Total enterprise

Competitive Competitive

Virtual Money income

Poorly supports with mail from virtual administrator

Strategy skills, politicsmanagement skills

Experience points

Tutorial video of personal mentor

Strategy skills, politicsmanagement skills

**The Beer Game**

**Business Tycoon Online**

Points received

Text tutorial

Strategy business – decisionmaking skills

Not required The way of presenting the game content, the game scenarios and the users' satisfaction are also important aspects how the game is structured. Another good example among the selected games is certainly the IBM's INNOV8. This game is based on high rich graphics, cut scenes, scenarios and attractive walkthrough. It gives a good opportunity to explore how to learn the basic about the management of business process and how to collaborate with participants of the business processes, how to identify process bottlenecks and how to explore what-if scenarios when a decision is expected to be taken by the player. The game provides clear and easy-to-learn player's interface which enables an easy control of the game. On the contrary, Virtual Leader, give an impression of poor level regarding the properties required in the player training and learning. The gameplay focuses on a selection of the right set of dialogs with virtual characters. Functionally, there is nothing much to do within the presented scenario. With no sufficiently presented scenario, players are more likely to be confronted with a hectic learning curve and subsequent extreme dullness. However, it should be noticed that the game gives an excellent case for imitation of human behavior and for practicing tenets of three-toone leadership with simulations of business meeting sessions which can be mirrored into the real-life situations.

The technical properties studied in the games, e.g. GUI (graphical user interface), the screen briefings, the tutorial supports also differ from game to game. IBM's INNOV8 and Shark World are good examples as they contain clear and easy-to-learn player's interface, while Big Oil game (Build an Oil Empire) requires from the player to spend a lot of time for learning the usage of of the game GUI.

On the other hand, the MMOG business games (Virtonomics, eRepublik, Business On-Line Tycoon, eRepublik) have shown to be bad examples regarding the user's guidance. Players need to learn the whole functionality of the games "menu-bar" and game GUIs tool bars, without any comprehensive tutorial support in the background. These games are timeconsuming and are a temptation for the players' motivation and satisfaction. We may consider them as helpful in some cases as they demonstrate some aspects of business strategy, decisionmaking processes, business management and organisation activities.
