Windfall | |
---|---|
Developer(s) | David Mullich |
Publisher(s) | Edu-Ware |
Platform(s) | Apple II |
Release | |
Genre(s) | Business simulation |
Mode(s) | Single-player |
Windfall: The Oil Crisis Game is a real-time business simulation game developed by David Mullich and published by Edu-Ware in 1980 for the Apple II. Based upon queuing theory and released after the 1979 energy crisis, the game puts the player in the role of chief executive of Engulf Oil, setting gas prices and worker salaries, monitoring gas station lines, scheduling oil tanker arrivals, and negotiating oil prices with OPEC countries in a race against the clock to maximize profits. As with most Edu-Ware games, Windfall has an educational aspect, demonstrating the delicate balance in complex systems.
The player has six primary choices in this simulation of oil company operations:
Strategy is based upon several simple economic principles. If players pay their employees poorly, the service time will be longer; however, if players pay them too much, prices will need to be raised to maintain a profit, but competitors may steal business away with lower prices. If gasoline prices go too high, the government may step in and set price limits. Occasionally, stockholders will overrule players' decisions.
A clock runs continuously throughout the play of the game. When time expires, the player's performance is evaluated.
Windfall, like most games from Edu-Ware's zip-lock bag era, sold only a few hundred units.[ citation needed ] However, it was well reviewed, receiving an "A" rating from Peelings II magazine, which concluded, "Behind the simple displays is (probably) a reasonably sophisticated realtime simulation program synthesized with a realtime display updated. Considering the programming effort involved and the educational value of the program, it is a bargain. And it is great fun to play."[ citation needed ]
Bruce Webster reviewed Windfall in The Space Gamer No. 31. [1] Webster commented that "If there is a problem with this game, it is that the topic may not be all that interesting to you, or that the treatment may be too simple for your tastes. Beyond that, I can think of no serious objections to the game." [1]
A filling station is a facility that sells fuel and engine lubricants for motor vehicles. The most common fuels sold in the 2010s were gasoline and diesel fuel.
In October 1973, the members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC), led by King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, proclaimed an oil embargo targeted at nations that had supported Israel during the Yom Kippur War. The initial nations targeted were Canada, Japan, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States, though the embargo also later extended to Portugal, Rhodesia and South Africa. By the end of the embargo in March 1974, the price of oil had risen nearly 300%, from US$3 per barrel ($19/m3) to nearly $12 per barrel ($75/m3) globally; US prices were significantly higher. The embargo caused an oil crisis, or "shock", with many short- and long-term effects on global politics and the global economy. It was later called the "first oil shock", followed by the 1979 oil crisis, termed the "second oil shock".
A drop in oil production in the wake of the Iranian Revolution led to an energy crisis in 1979. Although the global oil supply only decreased by approximately four percent, the oil markets' reaction raised the price of crude oil drastically over the next 12 months, more than doubling it to $39.50 per barrel ($248/m3). The sudden increase in price was connected with fuel shortages and long lines at gas stations similar to the 1973 oil crisis.
Edu-Ware Services, Inc. was an educational and entertainment software publisher established in 1979 by Sherwin Steffin and Steven Pederson. It was known for its adventure games, role-playing video games, and flight simulators for the Apple II series of computers.
The Oil Shockwave event was a policy wargaming scenario created by the joint effort of several energy policy think tanks, the National Commission on Energy Policy and Securing America's Future Energy. It outlined a series of hypothetical international events taking place in December 2005, all related to world supply and demand of petroleum. Participants in the scenario role-played Presidential Cabinet officials, who were asked to discuss and respond to the events. The hypothetical events included civil unrest in OPEC country Nigeria, and coordinated terrorist attacks on ports in Saudi Arabia and Alaska. In the original simulation, the participants had all previously held jobs closely related to their roles in the exercise.
David Mullich is an American game producer and designer. He created the 1980 adventure game The Prisoner, produced the 1995 adaptation I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, and developed Heroes of Might and Magic III and Heroes of Might and Magic IV.
The price of oil, or the oil price, generally refers to the spot price of a barrel of benchmark crude oil—a reference price for buyers and sellers of crude oil such as West Texas Intermediate (WTI), Brent Crude, Dubai Crude, OPEC Reference Basket, Tapis crude, Bonny Light, Urals oil, Isthmus, and Western Canadian Select (WCS). Oil prices are determined by global supply and demand, rather than any country's domestic production level.
For further details see the "Energy crisis" series by Facts on File.
The Prisoner is a 1980 Apple II computer game produced by Edu-Ware. The game was loosely based on the 1960s television series The Prisoner and incorporates that show's themes about the loss of individuality in a technological, controlling society. The player's role is that of an intelligence agent who has resigned from his job for reasons known only to himself, and who has been abducted to an isolated island community that seems designed to be his own personal prison. The island's authorities will use any means—including coercion, disorientation, deception, and frustration—to learn why their prisoner has resigned, and every character, location, and apparent escape route seem to be part of a grand scheme to trick the player into revealing a code number representing the prisoner's reason for resigning. The game occasionally breaks the fourth wall by acknowledging that a game is being played.
The Compu-Math series are mathematics tutorials developed and published by Edu-Ware Services in the 1980s. Each program in the Compu-Math series begins with a diagnostic Pre-Test, which presents learners with mathematics problems to determine their current skill level in the subject and then recommends the appropriate learning module. Each learning module begins by specifying the instructional objectives for that module and proceeds to teach those specific goals using shaping and cueing methods, and finishes by testing to verify that learners have indeed learned the skills being taught by the module.
Space is a text-based role-playing video game for the Apple II designed by Steven Pederson and Sherwin Steffin of Edu-Ware Services. It was one of the first science fiction RPGs to appear on personal computers. An expansion pack, Space II by David Mullich, was released in the same year.
Terrorist is a real-time, two player strategy game developed by Steven Pederson of Edu-Ware Services in 1980 for the Apple II. One player plays the government authority, while the other plays a terrorist organization in three scenarios: the capture of a building and taking of hostages, air piracy, and nuclear blackmail. Players make their moves at the same time through the use of game paddles. Winner and loser is judged by an elaborate scoring system based upon the government player's societal values and the terrorist player's goals.
Most of the programs in Edu-Ware Services' initial product line, released in 1979 under the slogan "Unique software for the unique mind", were not typical of the intellectually challenging computer games and structured, pedagogically sound educational software for which the company would later become known. Quickly designed and programmed in Applesoft BASIC primarily by co-founder Sherwin Steffin, most of these text-based programs were dropped from Edu-Ware's catalog when the company began developing products featuring high-resolution graphics in 1981.
Network is a real-time, two player business simulation game developed by David Mullich for the Apple II and published by Edu-Ware in 1980.
The Laser Clay Shooting System (レーザークレー射撃システム) is a light gun shooting simulation game created by Nintendo in 1973. The game consisted of an overhead projector which displayed moving targets behind a background; players would fire at the targets with a rifle, in which a mechanism of reflections would determine whether or not the "laser shot" from the rifle hit the target.
The 1980s oil glut was a significant surplus of crude oil caused by falling demand following the 1970s energy crisis. The world price of oil had peaked in 1980 at over US$35 per barrel ; it fell in 1986 from $27 to below $10. The glut began in the early 1980s as a result of slowed economic activity in industrial countries due to the crises of the 1970s, especially in 1973 and 1979, and the energy conservation spurred by high fuel prices. The inflation-adjusted real 2004 dollar value of oil fell from an average of $78.2 in 1981 to an average of $26.8 per barrel in 1986.
Petroleum has been a major industry in the United States since shortly after the oil discovery in the Oil Creek area of Titusville, Pennsylvania, in 1859. The industry includes exploration, production, processing (refining), transportation, and marketing of natural gas and petroleum products. In 2018, the U.S. became the world's largest crude oil producer, producing 15% of global crude oil, surpassing Russia and Saudi Arabia. The leading oil-producing area in the United States in 2019 was Texas, followed by the offshore federal zone of the Gulf of Mexico, North Dakota and New Mexico. In 2020, the top five U.S. oil-producing states were Texas (43%), North Dakota (10.4%), New Mexico (9.2%), Oklahoma (4.1%), and Colorado (4.0%).
Rendezvous: A Space Shuttle Simulation, is a space simulator published 1982 by Edu-Ware, and developed by Titan Computer Products and NASA scientist Wesley Huntress.
The Crude Oil Windfall Profit Tax Act of 1980 was enacted as part of a compromise between the Carter Administration and the Congress over the decontrol of crude oil prices. The Act was intended to recoup the revenue earned by oil producers as a result of the sharp increase in oil prices brought about by the OPEC oil embargo. According to the Congressional Research Service, the Act's title was a misnomer. "Despite its name, the crude oil windfall profit tax... was not a tax on profits. It was an excise tax... imposed on the difference between the market price of oil, which was technically referred to as the removal price, and a statutory 1979 base price that was adjusted quarterly for inflation and state severance taxes."