Could a new computer game teach youngsters how to be big in business?
NINETY minutes before England take on Trinidad & Tobago in the World Cup, a group of A level students sit in a York classroom. They lounge in their chairs in the sticky heat paying polite heed to the man at the front. He is Peter Harrington, and he some software for them to try. When they open their laptops and start to play, things change. Students are soon glued to the screens, thoughts of Wayne Rooney apparently banished. The intensity of concentration would impress a Mother Superior. The Playstation generation love their computer games. But this is no Grand Theft Auto. They are playing SimVenture, a piece of software which replicates what it is like to start up a business from scratch. Everything that is thrown at the new entrepreneur is reproduced in the virtual office: competitors, cashflow, supply lines, unit costs. As players build the business, the challenges keep on coming. What about your intellectual property rights? Should you take on staff? How can you maintain quality co
