Jaa

At last, a Sim game for techies - "IT Manager"

  • Artikkeli

Last year I took a course on the Microsoft Operations Framework. One of the best parts of the course was the McKinley airport simulation, which is an evolving simulation of IT support at a busy airport. You have to operate as a team with different roles, and there's a simple measure of success - the number of planes you land. It's a hell of a lot of fun, and really teaches the power of teamwork. Unfortunately it's just a board game, so after the course I brainstormed a bit with one of the developers on how it could be turned into a full-blown computer simulation, so that people could take the course over the net.

Anyway, Intel's beaten them to the punch - for single-player games at least - with their new game "IT Manager". Build an IT shop from scratch, juggle budgets and machine meltdowns and employee skills, and try to come out of it with your sanity intact. It's Flash, so you can play it anywhere, and they've done a pretty good job of recreating the Sim-style look-and-feel. And it's still a hell of a lot of fun. What's your best score?

(From Lamont Harrington, David Findley, and Jason Tucker, in roughly that chronological order :-))

[Updated with link to airport simulation]

Comments

  • Anonymous
    March 25, 2004
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    March 25, 2004
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    March 25, 2004
    Mozilla also came up in Italian. Eep!
  • Anonymous
    March 25, 2004
    Well, does placing in 70th qualify me for a job at Microsoft? ;-)

    I enjoy this. Nice and simple. Reminds me of Lemonade Stand Tycoon. Also reminds me, surprisingly, of my last job. Except here I have money to spend!
  • Anonymous
    March 26, 2004
    Ever wanted to be an IT Manager... Without the politics? Jonathan Hardwick points to a cute little game from Intel which allows you to do just that right down to buying servers, switches and desktops as well as hiring IT staff and keeping them happy. I'm currently placed in the top 50. I won't tell you my secrets though ;-)...
  • Anonymous
    April 12, 2004
    Has anyone got anymore employees than 24? It seems 24 is the max number of workers.
    also, even after buying all the top centrino laptops for everyone, all the top servers, wireless, and switches, i still can't get 100% productivity.

    any tips / hints ???

    im only about #250 in the company rankings...