Wall $treet Raider

Wall $treet Raider is a long-running, stock market trading game.

The current version, version 6.70 (2013), is played by one to five players with the computer optionally taking one of the player roles. At the start of the game the player(s) decide how long the game will run by setting the difficulty level and the number of game-years to be played. Each year has four trading quarters each of which represents one turn per player. Players start with a small inherited fortune and when it is their turn to play they can do virtually anything a trader can do, and more. Stock in any company can be traded, loans can be arranged, companies can be researched, the holdings of other players can be investigated as can their relative net worth. The player can arrange buy-outs, mergers, issue junk bonds, make public offerings, liquidate companies, sue competitors and much, much more. The game even allows the player to become CEO of companies which they can then asset strip, liquidate or nurture.

The game has expanded considerably since the early days, it's still about trading stocks and managing and manipulating companies in order to make money but it's larger, easier to use has even more options. It now has more companies (1590), more industries(70) and can be played by up to five players. Whereas the original game used only dollars as its currency the current game with its world wide fan-base can be played in any of twenty-five different currencies. Another major change in the game since the early days has been the introduction of ethical decisions where breaking the law can have big pay-offs as well as major penalties if they get caught.

The game was initially developed as a board game in 1967 while the author, Michael D. Jenkins, was at Harvard. Over several years of playing and refinement the board game grew and became very complex taking many hours, even days to complete.

A computer version was released commercially in 1986 and despite good reviews it did not sell well. Upon reacquiring the rights to the software Michael Jenkins released the game as shareware in 1988 and it has been in development ever since, initially running under DOS and under Windows since 2001.

DOS Version 4.0 was released in 1993. It had 250 companies and 36 industries and was played by two to four players with the computer taking the part of one player if required. It was played for a maximum of twenty-five game-years by one to four players.