e-Game: A platform for developing auction-based market simulations

Trading in electronic markets has been the focus of intense research over the last few years within Computer Science and Economics. This paper discusses the need for tools to support the design and implementation of electronic market simulations or games. Such games emulate real life problems and can be used in order to conduct research on market infrastructure, negotiation protocols and strategic behaviour. To this end, we present the e-Game platform which was developed to support the design, implementation and execution of market simulations involving auctions. How the development of market games is aided is demonstrated with an example game.