Competitive dynamics under oligopoly pricing
A handful of firms sell into the same market. Each one decides how much to produce without knowing what the others will choose — and the market price responds to everyone's combined decision at once. Students don't just learn that competition erodes margins; they watch it happen to their own numbers, round after round, and have to decide how to respond.
The simulation supports several configurations of the same underlying tension, without switching tools:
- Substitute vs. complement pricing. Whether a firm's price falls or rises as rivals produce more can be configured — commodity-style substitute competition, where more rival output pushes every price down, versus markets where rivals' output can actually lift a firm's own price.
- Visible vs. invisible output. Whether round results are revealed to students in real time or held back until the teacher chooses to reveal them can be configured — controlling the market's transparency, and isolating how much competitive behavior depends on watching what rivals just did.
- Facing the same vs. different rivals across markets. Multiple markets can run at once, with teams facing the same rivals in every market or different rivals in each one — letting the class examine how facing familiar versus unfamiliar competitors shapes strategic behavior.
The Lithium Rush
Each team runs a lithium mine, selling directly to EV battery manufacturers who set the demand side of the market. Every round, teams decide how many tons to mine; price falls as total supply across all mines rises — mirroring the real oversupply cycles that have hit the actual lithium market in recent years.
Teams see their own results build up round by round: tons mined, price received, profit, and running totals — with a live leaderboard once results are revealed.
