MarketMoves
A marketing strategy simulation
“Make the move. Watch the market move.”
You are the new chief executive of Dunmore, a sporting goods retailer that is 52 years old, with 390 stores and six billion dollars in sales. Nyva, a digital brand growing 35 percent a year, has entered your market.
You are the new chief executive of Dunmore, a sporting goods retailer that is 52 years old, with 390 stores and six billion dollars in sales. Nyva, a digital brand growing 35 percent a year, has entered your market. You have eight quarters, a board that can remove you, and customers who have learned to wait for a sale.
The experienceEach quarter you set decisions in seven areas: merchandising and vendors, pricing and promotions, stores and digital, loyalty, marketing, technology, and market research. More than half of Dunmore's customers wait for a sale. About a third of any promotional lift is new business, and the rest is borrowed from the next quarter. Stopping promotions overnight brings a shock of its own.
KYRON, your largest vendor, supplies 24 percent of what you sell and is preparing to sell direct. Five creators can carry your brand, from Mara Voss with her wide reach to The Trailhead Collective with its small and loyal following, and any of them can land in a controversy. Four technology investments built on AI are on offer: personalization, markdown optimization, a retail media network, and content automation. Each pays back only when the business has the customer data and the habits to use it.
Nyva studies your moves every two quarters and chooses a counter. If its cost of winning customers climbs too high, it may come and ask to sell through your stores. You never declare a strategy. At the board review the game tells you which of seven strategies your decisions built, how consistent you were, and how your result compares with the best-run plan in your market.
- A strategy is a set of decisions that fit together across merchandising, pricing, stores, loyalty, marketing, and technology.
- Promotions borrow sales from the future and teach customers to wait.
- Customer data that you own is the condition for a return on AI in marketing.
- With creators, reach and authenticity pull in different directions, and both carry risk.
- A rival that studies you will punish imitation, and a plan that never changes loses in a market that does.
- Marketing strategy is taught as one coherent set of choices. A decision on price, stores, loyalty, or technology is sound only if it fits the others.
- Promotions win the quarter and weaken the brand and the customer base. Students weigh this quarter's sales against long-term strength, eight quarters in a row.
- The rival studies the student and counters. Students build competitive foresight, and they learn to adapt a plan without abandoning its logic.
- Four AI investments are on offer. Students learn to judge each one as a business leader does: by the data, the habits, and the organization that must be in place before it pays back.
- Company and role
- Chief executive of Dunmore, facing Nyva, a digital challenger. KYRON is the dominant vendor, and a value big-box chain and an online marketplace compete for the same customers
- Discipline
- Marketing strategy
- Also fits courses in
- Retail strategy, brand management, competitive strategy, general management
- Format
- Solo. Every market code is a different market. A save code lets an instructor replay any student's game
- Time
- Eight quarters, with holiday quarters in rounds four and eight. One sitting of 45 to 60 minutes
- Advisers and AI
- AI is a subject of the game. You fund four AI systems and must give each one a job, and the score rewards technology that is actually used
- How you are scored
- Enterprise value 40%, franchise health 25%, strategic consistency 20%, and technology payback 15%. Your grade is your score as a share of the best result found for your market, under seven titles from Franchise Builder to Value Destroyed. The board can remove a chief executive before quarter eight
- Teaching materials
- In-game briefing and a board review with your record, the strategy your decisions built, the hand your rival was playing, and your full decision log
- Audience
- MBA marketing and retail strategy courses, and executive education
MarketMoves beside Markstrat
Markstrat, from StratX, is the simulation most programs already know here. Where ours differs: One student, 45 to 60 minutes, and a rival that studies the student’s moves and counters them.
| Markstrat | MarketMoves | |
|---|---|---|
| Who plays | Teams of three to six | One student, the chief executive |
| Time | 12 to 20 hours of decisions | One sitting of 45 to 60 minutes |
Formats and times come from each publisher's own product page, September 2026.
MarketMoves comes ready to run in class
In-game briefing
Board review with your record and full decision log
The strategy your decisions built, out of seven
The hand your rival was playing
Market codes, each a different market
Save code that replays any student’s game
Automatic scoring on four measures
Seven titles, from Franchise Builder to Value Destroyed
Bring MarketMoves to your classroom
You can check out online in a few minutes. For a campus or a big group, just ask us for a quote.