Educational Advergame from VISI

Perhaps the best way for people to learn is through "play," right? Web professionals are no different.

Gaming online is big business but the problem is that most games focus on entertainment (sports, action, puzzle) and less on education. While it might seem like a snoozer to your fun-focused marketing consultant, the value to producing a game that educates your clients on what it is that you actually do could go a really, really long way towards better informed clients - clients who since they understand your challenges might just be more open to spending money on your products and services.

Case in point: managed hosting and connectivity provider VISI launched a new online game called "InterStellar" Pizza Express - the objective of the game is to make as much money as possible by running an online pizza delivery company based in outer space. As the "IT Commander" of "Interstellar Pizza Express," the game player must choose between hosting an in-house ecommerce Web site or working with VISI.  In each round, the participant can spend his or her available budget on server upgrades and safeguards as well as price settings for pizza and toppings.  The better the game player's business performs, the more money made and the more pizzas sold.

Want to add a server? You'll need a load balancer to manage traffic across the servers. Pretty interesting - let's just hope I don't spend my entire morning trying to be the InterStellar pizza champ.