Artificial Market Experiments with the U-Mart System
Economics went through great development in the 20th century. This development, which was based mainly on mathematical methods, is not an appropriate method of analyzing markets that change every hour and every day. In a stock market, prices constantly change depending on speculation. U-Mart, a manmade market, has been proposed in order to study such instantly moving markets. Although the U-Mart system is internationally acclaimed for being at the forefront of market research, its use is by no means limited to a small number of researchers on the fringe. The whole system, including its source code, is open and is distributed without charge, testifying to a philosophy of creating and providing a common testbed for research into financial markets.
Agent-Based Modeling Meets Gaming Simulation
Provides a good example of the diverse scope and standard of research achieved in simulation and gaming today. The theme of the special session at ISAGA2003 was Agent-Based Modeling Meets Gaming Simulation. Nowadays, agent-based simulation is becoming very popular for modeling and solving complex social phenomena. It is also used to arrive at practical solutions to social problems. At the same time, however, the validity of simulation does not exist in the magni?cence of the model. R. Axelrod stresses the simplicity of the agent-based simulation model through the “Keep it simple, stupid” (KISS) principle: As an ideal, simple modeling is essential.

