Computer games not just the preserve of teenagers

Computer games are all the rage, not just in teenagers' bedrooms but in business schools as well.

Vanderbilt University's Owen Graduate School of Management has developed a series of Web-based computer games based on actual merger cases. Three professors from Vanderbilt have developed MathServ, software that simulates the effects of mergers between competing companies. Other software designed by the three professors includes analysing a merger between defence contractors and computing damages in a patent infringement case.

The software is used in both the MBA and executive MBA programmes.