Price War: a competitive pricing simulation you play in one sitting
Your rival has just cut its price and your phone is already buzzing. Decide how to answer it month by month, then see the best sequence you could have played against that exact rival.
- Five monthly moves against a rival with a hidden temperament
- Six options each month, from holding firm to a public signal
- Scored on the year's profit, not just on the months you play
- A debrief that shows the best sequence against your rival
Not sure yet? Try the free 3-round Price War first: no sign-up, about five minutes.
Is there a short simulation that teaches how to respond when a competitor cuts its price?
Yes: Price War, a single-player Bodhih Arena micro-sim, puts you in charge of a café chain whose rival has just cut its price. Over five monthly moves you hold, match, cut, raise, improve the offer or signal publicly, against a rival whose hidden temperament you must read. A scored debrief shows the best sequence.
What is Price War?
Price War is an online business simulation in which you run Aurelia Coffee, one of two café chains in a town, after the rival Bramblecup cuts its flat white below $4.00. Each month for five months you choose one move and the rival answers. The rival is a mirror, a hawk or a dove, and you must work out which from its actions. Your score rests on profit for the whole year, how well you read the rival, and the price level you leave the market at.
Price War at a glance
| Format | Micro-sim, single player |
|---|---|
| Length | About 12 minutes per play |
| Players | One person; every play is a new seeded scenario |
| Devices | Any modern browser on a laptop, tablet or phone |
| Scoring | Scored on the server out of 100, with sub-scores and a debrief |
| Credential | Open Badges 3.0 micro-sim credential at a score of 80 or more, with a public verification page |
| Competencies | Commercial Acumen (SPN.4.5), Analytical Reasoning (SPN.4.2), Systems Thinking (SPN.4.4) |
| LMS | LTI 1.3 launch from Canvas, Moodle, Blackboard or D2L, with grade passback; usable as a Bodhih pathway stage |
| Price for one person | $12 |
| Price per seat | $12 per seat, volume pricing by seat count |
When a rival cuts its price, everyone has an opinion and nobody has the maths
The pressure to match is instant
The sales team wants you to match by Monday. Finance wants margin protected. Nobody can say what the cut will cost you over a year, so the loudest voice tends to win.
You cannot see what the rival is thinking
Is the cut a one-month promotion, an attempt to buy the market, or a reflex to copy you? Press quotes and flyers say one thing; the next price move often says another.
Lessons arrive a year too late
In real markets a price war takes quarters to play out, and by the time the results are in, the people who made the call have moved on. Few managers ever see the consequences of their own pricing decisions.
Here is the situation you walk into
You run Aurelia Coffee in Port Harlow. You and Bramblecup serve the same commuters, and a flat white has sold for $4.00 at both for as long as anyone remembers. It costs you $1.55 to make. This morning Bramblecup dropped its price, to somewhere between $3.40 and $3.60.
Your board sees two price boards side by side, your share of the town's cups and your profit so far. The market will not grow much: commuters were buying coffee anyway, so whatever one café wins, the other loses. Each café can only serve about 65% of the town before the queue sends people next door.
You have five months. Each month you make one move and Bramblecup answers the next. A local news line comes with every month; some of it hints at the rival's temperament and some of it is noise. Before your last move you name what kind of rival you think Bramblecup is, and that read is scored too.
6 decisions, one debrief
- STEP 1
Read the brief and the first headline
You see both prices, your unit cost of $1.55 and the rival's opening cut. A normal month at $4.00 makes about $294k of profit before rent and head office, so you know what is at stake.
- STEP 2
Choose your move for month one
Hold your price, match theirs, cut 30 cents below them, raise by 30 cents, hold price and spend $30k on a better cup and faster service, or hold price and say publicly that you will not start a price war.
- STEP 3
Watch the reply and update your read
After each move you see your price, their price, your share, the cups sold and your profit for the month, plus what Bramblecup will charge next. A chart tracks both prices and a table records every month.
- STEP 4
Play months two to five
Improving the offer builds over time but with smaller gains each round, and Bramblecup copies part of any quality edge each month. A public signal is only believed when your price backs it up.
- STEP 5
Make your last call on the rival
With your final move you name Bramblecup as a mirror, a hawk, a dove or "not sure yet". Then the prices you leave in place run for the remaining seven months of the year.
- STEP 6
Get your score and debrief
The engine tries every possible sequence of moves against your rival to find the best year, then scores you on profit, your read and the health of the market you leave behind.
Who Price War is for
- Commercial and pricing managers. You own price decisions and need a fast, safe place to test the instinct to match before it costs real margin.
- Sales and marketing leaders. Your team asks for a response every time a competitor runs a deal. This gives everyone the same language for when to follow and when to hold.
- MBA, BBA and economics students. It turns game theory and oligopoly pricing from a diagram into a decision you have to live with, with your own numbers in the debrief.
- Founders and small business owners. If a bigger rival undercuts you, you need to know the cost of each answer. One short session here is cheaper than learning it on your own price list.
Who should skip it
It is not a pricing analytics tool for your own products, and it will not teach you to build a price elasticity model from data.
What changes after you have fought one price war and seen the best one
Price War trains the strategic thinking behind a price decision: what the other side will do next, what a move costs over a year, and which moves invite no reply at all.
You will cost a price cut before you react
The next time someone says "we have to match", you will ask what it does to every loyal customer who now pays less, not only to the new ones you might win.
You will read competitors from actions, not statements
You will have practised updating your view of a rival month by month from what it does, and you will notice when its words and its prices disagree.
You will reach for moves that do not invite a reply
A clear public signal backed by your price, or a better offer at the same price, will sit beside "match" and "cut" in your options.
You will think in years, not months
Because your score counts the months after the war, you will judge a pricing move by where it leaves the market, which is the core of commercial judgement.
You will decide better without full information
You never know the rival's temperament until the end. Making a sound call under that uncertainty, and committing to a read, is a skill you can practise again with a new rival.
Learning goals
- See why a price cut that wins share for a month can cost profit for a year
- Read a competitor from what it does, not what it says
- Use signals and non-price moves to avoid a race to the bottom
Skills practised: Strategic thinking, Decision making under uncertainty, Commercial judgement, Competitor analysis, Game theory in practice, Pricing strategy.
Competencies scored
Sub-scores map to the open Bodhih Competency Spine, so results sit beside your other learning records.
What the debrief shows
- Your year in numbers: profit during the five months, profit in the seven months after at the prices you left, and the year with no war at all.
- The reveal: whether Bramblecup was a mirror, a hawk or a dove, and how your read compared.
- The best sequence of moves against that rival and the best possible year, found by testing every sequence.
- Why your moves worked or did not, what strong players do, and the key concept of the price war as a prisoner's dilemma.
Price war logic (the prisoner's dilemma)
Each firm is tempted to cut because a cut pays if the other holds. When both cut, both earn less than if both had held. The way out is to make cooperation visible (signal) and make attacks pointless (respond in kind, or compete on something other than price).
Use Price War with a team
Seats are $12 each. Buy up to 25 seats online and assign them from your company admin; above that, or for a facilitated programme or an institution licence, request a quote and we activate your seats after payment.
Sales kick-off or strategy offsite
Everyone plays the same 12 minutes before a session, then the room compares sequences: who matched, who signalled, who read a hawk as a dove. The debate is better for being grounded in real numbers.
Pre-work for a pricing or negotiation workshop
Assign it a week ahead. Participants arrive having felt the pull to match, and the facilitator can start from the debrief instead of from theory.
A stage in a learning pathway
Add Price War as a stage in a Bodhih pathway for commercial or first-line managers. Completing it completes the stage, and sub-scores map to Commercial Acumen, Analytical Reasoning and Systems Thinking.
Assessment centre or LMS assignment
Use the server-scored result as one data point on commercial judgement in a development centre, or launch it from Canvas, Moodle, Blackboard or D2L through LTI 1.3 with the grade passed back.
Volume pricing
| Seats | Per seat | How to buy |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | $12 | Online |
| 2 to 10 | $10.80 | Online |
| 11 to 50 | $9.60 | Online up to 25, then quote |
| 51+ | $8.40 | Quote |
Price War compared with a case study or slide-based course
| Compared on | A case study or slide-based course | Price War |
|---|---|---|
| What you do | Read how another company handled a price war and discuss it. | Make five pricing decisions yourself against a rival that reacts to each one. |
| Consequences | You learn the ending from the text, not from your choices. | You see your share, profit and the rival's next price after every move. |
| Hidden information | Everything is on the page once you read it. | The rival's temperament is hidden until the debrief, so you must infer it. |
| Feedback | A facilitator's view or a model answer. | A score out of 100 and the best sequence against your specific rival. |
| Practice again | The case is the same the second time. | Each play draws a new rival and opening price, so you can test what you learned. |
| Where a case wins | Richer real-world context, history and industry detail. | Deliberately simple: one product, one rival, one lesson done well. |
What to pair with Price War
Sun Tzu's Art of War for Leaders
Price War rewards winning without a costly fight; this kit turns that idea into a weekly strategy practice with workbooks, scripts and a 13-week calendar.
See the kit →Pro KitThink Clearly When Machines Think Fast
The decision memo template and bias cheat sheets help you write down your read of a competitor and test it, the habit the rival-read score measures.
See the kit →Online courseAI for Marketing course
Its graded competitor teardowns, with every claim tagged as sourced or inferred, are the real-world version of reading Bramblecup from evidence.
See the course →AssessAll assessmentCritical Thinking & Problem Solving assessment
Measure how rigorously you or your team think through ambiguous problems, then use Price War to practise the commercial side.
Take the assessment →Bodhih TrainingCorporate training by Bodhih Training
For a facilitated pricing or strategy workshop built around the simulation, delivered in person or live online.
Talk to Bodhih Training →Related simulations
How much does Price War cost for one person?
Price War costs $12 for one person, bought online and played straight away in your Bodhih account. Each simulation is sold separately; there is no subscription.
How is the free Taste of Arena different from the full Price War?
The free taster at bodhih.org/taste-arena uses the same café market and rival logic but runs for three months instead of five, takes about five minutes, needs no sign-up and ends with a score and a short three-line debrief. The full version gives you five months, the complete debrief with the best sequence and best possible year, sub-scores on the Competency Spine, and the credential at 80 or more.
What does Price War cost for a team or company?
Companies buy seats at $12 a seat, with lower volume tiers as the seat count rises. You can buy up to 25 seats online. For larger groups, facilitated sessions or a university licence, request a quote: we invoice you and activate the seats once payment arrives.
How long does it take?
About 12 minutes for most people, including the brief and the debrief. You can take longer to study the charts and the month-by-month table.
What do I get when I buy it?
One micro-sim in your Bodhih account: the full five-month game, a score out of 100 with three sub-scores, the complete debrief, a place on your company leaderboard if you play through a company account, and a credential if you score 80 or more.
Can I play it again?
Yes. Each play is a new seeded scenario, so the rival's temperament and its opening cut can change. Replaying is the best way to test whether you have really learned to read the rival.
Do I get a certificate?
Score 80 or more and you earn the Arena Micro-sim Mastery credential for Price War, an Open Badges 3.0 credential with a public verification page and an Add to LinkedIn button.
Can we launch it from our LMS?
Yes. Price War launches from Canvas, Moodle, Blackboard and D2L through LTI 1.3, and the score is passed back to your gradebook. It can also be a stage in a Bodhih learning pathway.
What device do I need?
A modern web browser on a laptop, desktop or tablet. It works on a phone too, though the charts and the monthly table are easier to read on a larger screen. Nothing to install.
Who is it for, and how is it different from a pricing case study?
It suits pricing, commercial and sales managers, founders and business students. A case study tells you what another firm did; Price War makes you decide, shows the rival's reply, and scores your year against the best play possible.
What about refunds and my data?
Refunds follow the policy at bodhih.org/refunds. Your decisions and scores are stored in your Bodhih account so you, and your company admins if you play through a company, can see results; how we handle personal data is set out at bodhih.org/privacy.
The next price cut is coming. Rehearse your answer first.
Try the free 3-round Price War first if you want a feel for the café market. When you are ready, play the full five months, see the best sequence against your rival and earn the credential at 80 or more. Buy a seat for yourself, or seats for your whole commercial team.
Want a feel for Arena first? Play the free 3-round Price War.
- Play it as often as you like for 12 months: every play is a new scenario
- A debrief after each play: what happened, why, and what strong players do
- A verifiable credential when you score 80 or more
- Scored on the server, mapped to the Bodhih Competency Spine
Not sure yet? Try the free 3-round Price War first, no sign-up.
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