Representing Qualitative Aspects of Vehicle Purchase Decision-Making in a Simulation Game on Alternative Fuel and Vehicle Transitions

Abstract

For a serious game on large-scale vehicle and fuel market transitioning to alternative vehicles a plausible representation of vehicle purchase was required. Vehicle buyers choose cars based on instrumental, hedonic, and symbolic criteria. Asking a game player to make a major purchase of that complexity with imaginary money strains game credibility. A utility function was used to handle this requirement. This approach was effective for simulating the diversity of the people and vehicles in that market. It may be effective for other game representations of difficult decision-making processes.