Does generic market simulation software exist? If so, where do I get it?

I'm interested in creating a web-based market simulation game similar
to Yahoo Research's Buzz Game (http://buzz.research.yahoo.com/bk/).
Since my game's universe will consist of specific companies, I plan to
chain each company's "stock" to certain publicly-reported numbers,
rather than to search results (as in the Buzz Game). However, any
functionality that would allow me to chain the value of a concept or
technology (like RFID, for example) to the number of times it appears
at Google News would be very useful.

If something like this does exist, other considerations would be: ease
of customization; resources required; and cost.

I know this is sort of complicated, so please don't hesitate to ask
for clarification. And, since I've asked about 15 questions on GA and
never had one answered, please feel free to suggest ways of revising
my question. I'd love to get an answer.

A couple of questions:
  How are you looking to play this game?
     -Website based
     -PC
  Are you looking to use "real" values from some type of web input or
do you want to have the game decided what the market does. Also if the
game decided what the market does do you want multi-player to have the
same market?

What I hear and I would like to confirm is what you want is:
A Web-based solution, which acts off RSS feed to a key-words, causing
rise and fall in the value of a "stock", the value of the stock can
also be changing by the buying & selling of the "stock" by the game
players?

Hi Onyx,

Thanks very much for responding.

In response to your first question, I do want the game (or "market
simulation," "decision market," "idea market," "prediction market,"
etc.) to be web-based. To paraphrase the Buzz Research game, the
purpose of my site will be to see if trends in [my field of interest]
can be predicted by "the collective wisdom of crowds in a market." If
not, I hope it's entertaining at the least.

I'm not sure I understand your second question. In most prediction
markets, the more people buy a stock, the higher its price. But the
"stocks" at Yahoo's game are valued both according to players'
decisions to buy or sell and by the popularity of related keywords in
searches at Yahoo's search engine (Yahoo's "Buzz Index"). So prices
are grounded in real results.

I do want the stocks' prices grounded in real results. The idea is to
estimate the probability of a given statement's (the stock's)
truthfulness at a certain point in time. But I think I need to read
more about prediction markets and how these statements should be
designed to answer your second question.

Please continue to ask for clarification if you need it, and thanks
again for your interest.