Moscow, November 5, 2008 - RBC has announced the launch of Business Mania, a new massively multiplayer online business simulation game (https://bizmania.ru).

Business Mania will become a full-fledged economic simulation game allowing users to engage in production and retail trade, advertising and promotion, operations in the financial markets and state administration. In their operations, gamers will be able to establish partnerships, and will face tough competition.

Business Mania is designed for a great number of concurrent players competing with each other in a global economic space. The game is targeted primarily at middle managers employed in the area of economics and finance, as well as students of higher educational institutions of economics. The game, however, will appeal to a broader audience as well, since with an accurate representation of economic models, Business Mania can be thought of as a tool to acquire real business management and financial administration skills. The game is a free-to-play project (i.e. anyone can play Business Mania free of charge), and its major revenue stream will be payments for extra game options. In the long run, it is also supposed to receive additional revenue from advertising. According to RBC estimates, approximately 100,000 users will play Business Mania.

"A great number of game projects are up and running in Russia, all having different aims, from improving speed and reaction to teaching history; however, there are virtually no games that could teach players how to make money. Such games become even more useful in the time of the global financial crisis," said RBC Media General Director Artyom Inutin. "Even in the West there has been created no more than a dozen business simulation games. In Russia, the market has just recently emerged, but already we can offer a game of this kind that surpasses its foreign counterparts in many respects. The Business Mania project incorporates the best of what is to be found in browser-based economic simulation games, including a wide choice of features, perfectly structured gameplay and usability, as well as high quality graphic design, which rivals many offline games. Moreover, we plan to further develop game functionality and create international versions to distribute Business Mania outside Russia," he added.