The Brightline simulation encompasses five companies from any given industry competing against each other for a fixed pool of consumers. All parameters in the simulation are created to operate on a random basis. The time span for the market competition can be determined by the user, but ten to fifteen years is suggested for purposes of simulating the long term investing typically used by institutional investors. The fixed pool of consumers represents the total market for the industry. The fraction of the total customer pool using a given company as its supplier therefore represents that company's market share in the industry.
Companies therefore compete to gain and retain the largest customer base possible.
Consumers are attracted to companies with the lowest price product, also known as the best value supplier. Companies can only make their product more attractive by increasing their externalization and, therefore, lowering the price of their product. In the Brightline simulation, customers will remain with their current supplier until they notice a lower price supplier. Fining therefore makes the illegally operating company less competitive for a set amount of time. Once activated, the Focus company shareholders prevent their company from externalizing over the legal limit for the remainder of the simulation.