War" Sometimes abbreviated as 'BIW' war games, 'Business is War' games are a direct adaptation from the military war games, and envision competitors as the "enemy" and the goal as "victory" in a market "battle". These games are based on mathematical modeling of contestable markets, including chaos theory, random variable generation (Monte Carlo simulations), and econometric modeling of demand and supply conditions. Participants’ generated moves are fed into computer program which generates optimal solutions in the mathematical space. Not surprisingly these games come with a high price tag, and are advocated by large consulting firms which tend to work with the US military establishment. "Business is a Game" 'BIG' war games regard business transactions as a game between participants with potentially conflicting goals. BIG advocates apply game theory, a branch of mathematics to business situations with the goal of finding an equilibrium, or "stable" solution (so called Nash equilibrium) whereby no one can further improve on the outcome. The solution can be computed over a large space of all possible (hypothetical) moves of the players. A leading proponent of this type of war games is Niall Fraser, a game theorist and the founder of a consultancy called Open Options. A variant on BIG is computer simulations’ games using simultaneous equations to solve for demand and supply equilibrium (not a game theory solution). Participants input numerical values for decisions on a wide range of business investments (in production, sales force, advertising, etc.), and receive a computer output of the equilibrium results. Another variant on BIG involves large numbers of simulations to explore the interaction of multiple competitors' strategies, without assuming an equilibrium or a mathematical solution exists. This approach, focusing on active competitors, recognizes that the number of possible actions and reactions is prohibitively large, while also recognizing that simulation can better explore and test decisions than the unaided human mind. Mark Chussil of Advanced Competitive Strategies uses this technology in simulators such as a pricing tournament. "Business is Business" Also referred to as 'BIB' regard business as neither a war nor a game. The goals and tactics of war are incompatible with business goals; competitors do not aim to defeat each other but to satisfy customers’ preferences better than others. Government precludes total victories and cooperation is as prevalent as competition. Similarly, BIB criticizes "Business is Game" thinking on the ground that hypothetical or generic moves are irrelevant or trivial,