movie studios and TV networks

Suggestions for new DLC projects.
AndreStar2016
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Re: movie studios and TV networks

Post by AndreStar2016 »

I would better run my own bank then a TV Studio, but I think that you should do both DLC.
AndreStar2016
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Re: movie studios and TV networks

Post by AndreStar2016 »

David wrote:I have forwarded your ideas to the dev team and they are concerned that gameplay-wise, it may be too easy for a player to monopolize the TV industry if the player uses a strategy like the following:

-build as many TV studios as you can afford and produce a larger number of TV shows than your competitors.
-supply these TV shows to your TV network.
-your TV network's content quality is going to the highest among the competition thanks to the supply of quality TV shows.
-as a result, its audience rating is going to the highest as well.
-a high audience rating leads to high advertising incomes, which allows you to invest even more in producing quality TV shows.
-competitors will thus have an even harder time catching up.

So whoever makes the first move and backs it up with a huge budget is going to dominate the TV industry and there isn't any viable ways for competitors dethrone it.

While it may also be true in the real world, from a gameplay point of view, it is not very good as it means that there is a very specific path to victory and if the player follows that path, it will almost guarantee winning. This type of gameplay at the end will be criticized by gamers as being repetitive and not varied/challenging enough.

Any suggestions of potential solutions to the above?
But you may create a goverment or public service, which will control a market share of companies on TV Shows market: if company takes too large share like more then 50 %, it will bi fined by a goverment.
ba127
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Re: movie studios and TV networks

Post by ba127 »

David wrote:I have forwarded your ideas to the dev team and they are concerned that gameplay-wise, it may be too easy for a player to monopolize the TV industry if the player uses a strategy like the following:

-build as many TV studios as you can afford and produce a larger number of TV shows than your competitors.
-supply these TV shows to your TV network.
-your TV network's content quality is going to the highest among the competition thanks to the supply of quality TV shows.
-as a result, its audience rating is going to the highest as well.
-a high audience rating leads to high advertising incomes, which allows you to invest even more in producing quality TV shows.
-competitors will thus have an even harder time catching up.

So whoever makes the first move and backs it up with a huge budget is going to dominate the TV industry and there isn't any viable ways for competitors dethrone it.

While it may also be true in the real world, from a gameplay point of view, it is not very good as it means that there is a very specific path to victory and if the player follows that path, it will almost guarantee winning. This type of gameplay at the end will be criticized by gamers as being repetitive and not varied/challenging enough.

Any suggestions of potential solutions to the above?
The problem certainly makes sense. I would think you'd have the exact same problem with internet companies in this DLC, from that preview post a while back. How did the dev team solve it there? I make a social media company, make revenue, and then make the media company bigger and/or create another one, and on and on.

It's also not extremely different from what we can already do in the base game, in farming in particular. You max training and no one can catch up in a very short time.

If it needs to be solved, a couple ideas:
1. Similar to the above idea, if you have over 50% market share, you can't purchase additional TV studios ("Blocked by government" popup message or something)
2. Demographics could play a big role. High audience rating for a high quality content on your network is likely only going to be for one demographic ("high quality content" is very different for a 50 year old woman over a 20 year old man). A new TV producer could concentrate on an underserved demographic. The worldwide focus of CapLab also helps this, movies are much more popular in their country of origin.
3. Variability to the content quality in a way we don't have on the manufacturing side. Even the best TV actors/directors/producers do bad work once in a while. This could be the quality of the media but could also be that no one "likes" a super high quality/expensive show. If there is a particularly high profile bust, it makes an entrance for a new producer and makes it more likely the next show made won't be as good either.
4. Have an idea of consumer trends/interest/loyalty that moves over time. Think of Disney.. they dominated animated movies for decades but their tried and true formula worked less and less well over the years until Pixar came along with their fresh take (and now Pixar runs Disney's animated movie division).
5. Not sure exactly how this works, but there may be something about how there is so much air time/demand for movies and TV shows that you would need to start a crazy amount of media producer companies to fill it all. Even the very largest production companies (Disney, Warner Brothers) only do 10 movies a year, maybe 10-20 TV shows? It looks like in 2014 there were 376 scripted shows made in the US alone (so not including all other types of shows like game shows, documentaries, reality, etc) and who knows how many thousands of movies. Each network has 336 half hour blocks to fill each week. So if a player really wants to make 30 separate media producer companies to completely dominate media, so be it.
eleaza wrote: Yes, even in-game custom name/icons like custom products that players can edit easily. However the core genre will has its own core audiences reach which might change over time. How well and how many genres can be mixed into a "program" can be determined by "media R&D". Like we see more and more tv shows nowadays mixed many more genres. And new genres might arise or faded over time (like western is going weaker to nearly non-existence today, and sci-fi keeps going stronger over time, etc.)
Completely agree. "Software tycoon" games recently (like Game Dev Tycoon or Software Inc) handle this extremely well in a way that can be applied to TV/movies in CapLab. No icons/art necessary (very hard to make that look good). You just pick the format and the genre and/or sub-genre, and pick a title or accept a randomly generated one. Optionally could have actors/directors/script writers you hire (or let your firm exec handle that). It's probably a very good idea for CapLab to abstract that out to a higher level like is suggested above ("contract for sci-fi TV show for TV channel ABC" which might get renewed or not), to keep it at the exec level and not duplicating playstyle of games like Software Inc.
David wrote: Personally, I think it has a much stronger appeal than the Financial DLC. i.e. more gamers are going to be excited by a DLC centering around movie studios and TV networks, then a Financial DLC that lets the player operate a bank whose gameplay viability is in question.
Yes, I can see that. The City Economic Sim DLC really wasn't my thing (though it seems very well done), but I am extremely excited by this Digital Age DLC. A movie studio/TV network DLC certainly seems interesting, but I'm not completely convinced (despite the essay above..). If Digital Age DLC brings better support for non-physical "products" in-game, it seems likely to be able to be modded to support media companies in some sufficient way.
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David
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Re: movie studios and TV networks

Post by David »

These look like good ideas. I have forwarded to them to the dev team for their consideration.

When the Digital Age DLC has entered the Alpha phase, you could assess how much similarity exists between the software/Internet industry and the movie studios/TV networks, and perhaps come up with more suggestions from the point of view of implementation.

By the way, would you be interested in testing the pre-alpha version of the Digital Age DLC, when it is ready?
Spac3y
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Re: movie studios and TV networks

Post by Spac3y »

ba has some very good points their.

Perhaps as you progress through the years, you get into the early camera years for example quality might not be that great. As you progress from to Digital Cameras, smart phones etc, quality could improve (Like the disney to pixar effect, R&D would mean you couldnt make digital quality movies/series without R&Ding the requisite cameras / computer tech) for example.

Also TV/Movies could be developed to watch on smart phones, sales could be based on quanitys of smart phones/watches/ipads sold (perhaps even the netflix/amazon subscription model) of x amount per user per month.
Traveo
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Re: movie studios and TV networks

Post by Traveo »

Greetings,

I have had the opportunity to read through the thread, I would want to add a few things. I fully agree that a DLC focused on TV/Movies would be a great addition. I think that you should roll out Banking as an add on to the Econ DLC, and focus on Banking and Bank branches and leave it at that, I don't think that you need to have a separate Financial DLC.

Regarding this proposed Media DLC, I would suggest the following focus industries:

TV
Movies
Newspaper
Books/Magazine

You could create the following firms (I'll give a brief discussion on these below):

Media Company (General purpose firm - model after headquarters or R&D)
Production Studio (which could double for either TV or Film - model after factory or R&D)
Publisher (which could double for both News and Books - Model after factory)
Distributer (modelled after Warehouse - this allows players to decide to sell the product to any buyer but also needed to sell TV to TV Stations)
Movie Theater (modelled after standard retail - thus giving normal limit of 4 products at a time)
Bookstore (modelled after the standard retail - thus giving normal limit of 4 products at a time)
Online eBook Retail website (you have the framework for this in the Digital DLC)
Streaming movie/tv website (you have the framework for this in the Digital DLC)

Key Products and Semi-Products in this industry:

TV/Movie -
Content (Writer + Genre = Script) + Talent (Actors + Director + Producer + Cameraman) + Music + Post Production = Movie/TV Production + Dedicated Marketing Budget = Final Movie or TV Show

Suggested Development Time: Movie=12-18 months; TV=9 months

Cost Breakdown:
Writer=range, with reuse premium added or Salary
Genre=flat rate + premium from 0% up to 200% of base flat rate (based on overall economy health)
Script=35% of Writer+Genre Cost
Actor=range, with reuse premium added 1-3% or Salary
Director=range, with reuse premium added 1-3% or Salary
Producer=range, with reuse premium added 1-3% or Salary
Cameraman=range, with reuse premium added 1-3% or Salary
Music=flat rate
Post Production= random rate from 15-35% of total Talent Cost
Marketing Budget=50% of total production cost (player can change on a sliding scale up to 200% of Total production budget)

Sales will be highest for Movies in first 6 months (approx 80%) and the rest each month over following 12 months. The actual revenue rate should be based on a combination of Audience size (a figure based on Total Apartments owned in the city and the total population of the city) and target (Kids, Teens, Adults), economic health of the specific city, X-Factor of about 10% (i.e. random chance). Further, while movies/tv shows potentially have an indefinite shelf-life, they do not effectively stop making money after 2 years. Which leads the studios to continuously produce new films.

Through the Media Distributor, player can license the movies/tv shows to all theaters in game, and you can place a penalty on any theater with less than 4 active products on sale, this replicates the audience economics aspect, that movie/tv audiences like to have options when they go to the theaters or watch from home.

Discussion: The idea here with the movies is that they should be expensive to produce and that the industry is risky. The profitability expectations look something like
- 100 movies/tv shows are made
-- 45 movies/tv lose 5-70%
-- 40 movies/tv make 5-50%
-- 10 movies/tv make 50-150%
-- 4 movie/tv makes 175-200%
-- 1 movie/tv makes 200-300%

Newspaper -
Writer + Story = Article + Editor + Designer + Advertiser + Printing = Newspaper

Total production time, 1 week; and fully functioning paper should make about 15-18% profit annually.

Cost Breakdown:
Writer=Salary
Story=flat rate
Article=1% of Cost of Writer+Story
Editor=Salary
Designer=Salary
Advertiser=pays up to 5-100% of total Article Cost (based on overall audience reach or content quality)
Printing = Flat rate up to 1-5% of total production costs

Discussion: For Newspapers the key is Subscribers, which will depend on the City population and the overall content quality being produced, and will take about 12-24 months to build up an audience to cover the costs of the paper. You could also add a Paper Delivery Marketing box to the Media Distributor/Media Company Headquarters that would gradually sign up subscribers. And player owned Apartments could have an additional box that could be checked that will market the paper to the tenants, thus increasing readership. The Newspaper could only be sold in the city it is produced in.

Magazines would follow the newspaper production timeline but take 1-3 month(s) to produce based on player choice lenth may correlate to quality increase. The magazine could be sold in any city. Efficient Magazine would generate up to 35% profit annually, and take 3-5 years to fully develop subscribers.


Books -
Writer + Genre = Manuscript + Editor + Designer + Printing = Book + Promotional Budget = Final Book

Total production time is 3, 6, or 9 months (which influences quality, but also increases flat rate costs)

Cost Breakdown:
Writer=flat rate from $10,000, reuse premium added from 1-3%
Genre= flat rate is 5% of Writer Cost
Manuscript=Writer+Genre+1%
Editor=flat rate from $1,500-$8,500
Designer=flat rate from $2,500-$6,500
Printing = 20% of Manuscript+Editor+Designer
Promotional Budget = 15% of total production costs, allow player to slide from 5%-200% of total budget costs

Discussion: Books are funny, they get to be sold like a product in Bookstores, but like a Movie, they have a dedicated marketing budget, and while they have a defined shelf life of about 2 years, sales are strongest in first 6 moths, then steaadily decline each month after.

While the profitability for books would is like movies, in that it is a gamble, the cost factor is lower, there is still some risk though.
- 100 books are made
-- 30 books lose 15-70%
-- 30 books lose 15-50%
-- 20 books make 50-150%
-- 15 books make 150-200%
-- 5 book makes 200-300%


These are just some thoughts, I have worked in these industries for some time, and these are how they do operate, and I hope that this can be used to help inform the decision making for these.
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David
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Re: movie studios and TV networks

Post by David »

A lot of interesting ideas from Traveo.
Discussion: The idea here with the movies is that they should be expensive to produce and that the industry is risky. The profitability expectations look something like
- 100 movies/tv shows are made
-- 45 movies/tv lose 5-70%
-- 40 movies/tv make 5-50%
-- 10 movies/tv make 50-150%
-- 4 movie/tv makes 175-200%
-- 1 movie/tv makes 200-300%
Not sure if most of the players will like having so much randomness on this.
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David
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Re: movie studios and TV networks

Post by David »

Rusty Gamer wrote:I've always wanted a good television management game. I think it is possible to get something like that from this game.

All the products would be TV shows.
Product classes would be genres.
Demand would be the ratings.
Stores would be the television stations.
Farms/factories could be the studios.

Research would be used to create better quality shows. Also, improved TV technology could be researched. You could start with only B&W technology, then color, later widescreen HD, cable, satellite etc.

There would have to be some tweaking of stores/stations to have time slots instead maybe. Perhaps each of the nine boxes represents a particular time slot. The ratings/demand against rival stations could be slot against slot rather than general competition.

Products could be allowed to have customised names so that we name our own shows plus, when shows get cancelled, we can create another show with the same product.

There is already enough modding ability in place to at least achieve some of these things without a DLC.
Nice ideas.

But for consumer products, the gameplay revolves around sourcing raw materials and semi products, doing vertical integration as necessary (e.g. farms and mines), dealing with logistics (sufficient supply of raw materials?). These key gameplay elements will be missing in TV shows and the resulting gameplay may be a bit dry.

To verify if the above assessment is true or not, perhaps you next time you play a CapLab game, you try to see what aspects of the game keep you entertained the most and whether the aforementioned gameplay mechanics are critical in providing an engrossing gameplay experience. If that is the case, the TV shows may not be fun enough, unless we can come up with new gameplay mechanics to supplement it, replacing the absence of the aforementioned gameplay mechanics.

There are posts in this thread with different suggestions in this regard, but it seems that the mechanics suggested are not effective enough yet.
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Re: movie studios and TV networks

Post by Rusty Gamer »

More detail:

The farm could be the equivalent of training courses for actors, scriptwriters, filmmakers etc.

For the factories (film production), input would include such things as the script writers and actors. You could use the ones from your "farm" or hire already established ones or some combination therein.
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Re: movie studios and TV networks

Post by David »

There are a few movie studios and TV networks games out there already. Could anyone do a feature comparison of these games and see if there is really a need for us to make such a movie studios and TV networks DLC.

In other words, if the features of movie studios and TV networks DLC cannot surpass those of the existing games, what's the point of developing one?

http://www.mobygames.com/game/movies
http://www.mobygames.com/game/hollywood-mogul
http://www.mobygames.com/game/mad-tv
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