Before the sttart of each academic year, players can decide what the pool of salary money will be, what the endowment spending rate will be, and how much to increase tuition. Typically, a player might tinker with the settings a few times to see how they might work out before setting the game in motion. The developers note, however, that it is designed to illustrate campus-management issues, and not as a tool for actually running a college. But while any computer model of a complex organization is inherently limited, Mr. Massy says he took pains to make the assumptions in Virtual U as realistic as possible. And if you do it from an English department or classics, you're not going to have as much luck as will electrical engineering.
Few actions lack consequences.
That, in turn, depresses the player's score. Adding faculty members is another move with consequences. Mr. Massy says some professors who teach about higher education have already told him they're interested in the game.