Yet Annother Finace Thread: Attendance & Merchandise

[VBigB]

So in my latest sim in Effganic Genesis I have gone 29 years with organic companies turned on and I've noticed some bad trends. Here is the most extreme example (there are others that are nearly as bad).

 

I have a company FPWA that has been in business for 24 years. They are small and they have racked up 700 million. This is pre-pay-per view and they do not have a TV deal. Now it's possible that at some point they became medium and fell back to small. I don't know because I can only go back 12 months. They are holding approximately 10 events a month (sometimes more, sometimes less) and it looks like exclusively in BC Canada.

 

http://www.mediafire.com/convkey/e893/c6eo8s5uo4gi18izg.jpg

 

I looked at February 1949. Their attendance for the month was 306,451 (approximately 25,000 per event over 12 events). They made $7.5 million in merchandise which works out to about $24 per person assuming every person was unique and purchased merchandise. Also notice they are only pulling in 11K through mail order and only 3k via workers.

 

http://www.mediafire.com/convkey/b82d/nagnm39tq2ggj58zg.jpg

 

Anyway this really unbalances the finances and pretty much makes them trivial. It need some kind of scaling.

 

Merchandise Live Event Scaling

 

While it may be reasonable to assume that everyone will buy some sort of merchandise when there are only 100 people in attendance and it only costs a dollar (ie they are probably hardcore fans, relatives of the workers, etc and not many casuals) as attendance goes up the percentage of people buying needs to go down. My idea:

 

- There needs to be a thresh-hold where this nerf does not apply in order to make it worthwhile for small companies to invest in merchandise infrastructure. Just for illustration purposes lets say 1000.

- Implement different scaling factors based on attendance levels. There would probably need to be some experimentation to set the appropriate level. Just as an example:

1k - 5k: 75% in attendance buy

5k - 25k: 50%

25K & up: 25%

- Perhaps as well a further nerf based on company size for extreme attendance levels. So for example a big company for an event of over 25K attendance would get the entire 25% sales of merchandise. Smaller companies would get less. This may not be needed if attendance scaling is implemented (or refined).

- Perhaps a diminishing returns nerf on sales for events held in the same region in the same month. Lets say I attended 6 of the 12 events...I'm probably only buying something once. Again may not be needed if attendance scaling is implemented (or refined).

- Merchandise infrastructure investment: at a certain point investment should have a greater effect on mail/internet order and diminishing returns for live events. This may already be the case as I haven't invested to the higher levels in any of my saves.

 

Attendance Scaling

 

1. There needs to be attendance scaling based on company size for the higher attendance levels (thresholds should be different for different company sizes). I know this would cause jumps in attendance when the company grows which happened in past TEW's but IMO that is better than what we have now. If there already is scaling and I missed it, it needs to be increased.

 

2. Same region diminishing returns: Holding events in the the same region in the same month should have diminishing returns at higher attendance levels especially the smaller the company is.

 

 

Anyway I'm running out of steam. I may flesh out attendance scaling some more after I've thought about it.

[Dross]

I agree completely. The business side of the game is way too easy.

[Kalmus]

<p>I think you are right and wrong.</p><p> </p><p>

Let me explain. What you suggest there compleatly screwes up real life mods even more then they already are. Companies are going bust left right and centre.</p><p> </p><p>

In my own save I had 7 companies go belly up inside a year. And thats with current money stuff. They were ROH,CMLL,IWA,some all women promotion,SHIMMER(saved by me),FIP(bought put by me and renamed to ESW)</p><p> </p><p>

Now imagine if its even harder to get money in how many promotions would get shut down. Add on that merch is pain to upgrade in 1 year I been bearly able to reach medium level</p><p> </p><p>

Now what you are right about is attendance levels. These are compleatly screwed up.</p><p> </p><p>

I have been drawing higher numbers in live attendance then both TNA and WWE combined even before I reached Medium level.</p><p> </p><p>

Something which is compleatly bufffling to me. WWE has high 70s to 80s over entire USA 10 better roster and can bearly draw 1800 people TNA max 2800</p><p> </p><p>

Me ? I am currently trying to upgrade my arena to fit 10 000 people per TV Show.</p><p> </p><p>

ON TOP OF THAT !!!</p><p> </p><p>

There is a HUUUGEEE issue od big companies losing Prime Time slot. And companies being caned off TV too quickly.</p><p> </p><p>

WWE lost prime time for RAW after 3 months. And they were having really good shows.</p><p> </p><p>

I was sacked from a small TV Network after I had 3 bad shows in 3 months. Aka out of 12 TV shows 9 were good 3 were bad (separate months not one after another) and I am now Stuck with just my own broadcaster due to silly 1 year no ability to get new TV deal..</p>

[VBigB]

<p>So I was trying to think of how to do attendance scaling without having jumps when a company increases in size. I think it could be accomplished by having the attendance set up as follows:</p><p>

1. The attendance that is based of the region the show is held in has diminishing returns at higher popularity levels.</p><p>

2. More attendance is added on top of the base single region attendance based off of the popularity in adjacent regions (lower additions in attendance based off of distance from where the show is held).</p><p> </p><p>

This could be set up so that companies that have most of their popularity in one region would not reach the ridiculous levels of attendance whereas say a company that had 80 in BC and 60 in the rest of Canada could reach the higher levels.</p>

[Dross]

It's hard to debate stuff like this with mods, as there is no way to know what the mods settings/defaults/etc are. I can confidently say that it's way too easy for almost all possible cornellverse scenarios, though

[VBigB]

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="Kalmus" data-cite="Kalmus" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="50375" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>I think you are right and wrong.<p> </p><p> Let me explain. What you suggest there compleatly screwes up real life mods even more then they already are. Companies are going bust left right and centre.</p><p> </p><p> In my own save I had 7 companies go belly up inside a year. And thats with current money stuff. They were ROH,CMLL,IWA,some all women promotion,SHIMMER(saved by me),FIP(bought put by me and renamed to ESW)</p><p> </p></div></blockquote><p> </p><p> That's why the scaling needs to be set up properly. I was trying to figure out a system that wouldn't overly punish the smaller companies or I agree they would all go bust.</p>

[SirMichaelJordan]

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="Kalmus" data-cite="Kalmus" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="50375" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>I think you are right and wrong.<p> </p><p> Let me explain. What you suggest there compleatly screwes up real life mods even more then they already are. Companies are going bust left right and centre.</p><p> </p><p> In my own save I had 7 companies go belly up inside a year. And thats with current money stuff. They were ROH,CMLL,IWA,some all women promotion,SHIMMER(saved by me),FIP(bought put by me and renamed to ESW)</p><p> </p><p> Now imagine if its even harder to get money in how many promotions would get shut down. Add on that merch is pain to upgrade in 1 year I been bearly able to reach medium level</p><p> </p><p> Now what you are right about is attendance levels. These are compleatly screwed up.</p><p> </p><p> I have been drawing higher numbers in live attendance then both TNA and WWE combined even before I reached Medium level.</p><p> </p><p> Something which is compleatly bufffling to me. WWE has high 70s to 80s over entire USA 10 better roster and can bearly draw 1800 people TNA max 2800</p><p> </p><p> Me ? I am currently trying to upgrade my arena to fit 10 000 people per TV Show.</p><p> </p><p> ON TOP OF THAT !!!</p><p> </p><p> There is a HUUUGEEE issue od big companies losing Prime Time slot. And companies being caned off TV too quickly.</p><p> </p><p> WWE lost prime time for RAW after 3 months. And they were having really good shows.</p><p> </p><p> I was sacked from a small TV Network after I had 3 bad shows in 3 months. Aka out of 12 TV shows 9 were good 3 were bad (separate months not one after another) and I am now Stuck with just my own broadcaster due to silly 1 year no ability to get new TV deal..</p></div></blockquote><p> </p><p> Sound like majority mod issues tbh.</p>

[VBigB]

I think part of the problem is that a lot of the profit a company generates is based off of popularity which is giving these single region companies an advantage once they get over the hump (ie they either get over the hump or they go bankrupt).

 

Then some of the expenses are scaled by company size.

 

Marketing: based on the tool tip this is based purely on company size.

Miscellaneous: based on company size and amount of profit.

 

This is leading to a very high profit margin. So in the current system we are expected to believe that a small company is only spending $2500 on marketing and is getting 25K attendance levels and is selling an insane amount of merchadise.

[Teh_Showtime]

There’s also production which is only technically necessary for broadcast deals, which can be irrelevant when you’re a single region promotion.

 

You’ll have 25,000 people coming to your shows but you have a volunteer level staff to work these events? You should probably have to have a minimum level production in order to house 5>10>30 thousand fans on an event.

[SirMichaelJordan]

IMO there should be way more misc expenses being taken out to balance everything.

 

Also owning a wrestling company 9/10 is a side business. I doubt every profit is a available to be spent. I’m sure owners pocket some of the profits and set a budget for the wrestling company.

 

Owners of the company don’t even have an income on the game.

 

IMO there should be a non playable Owner, CEO then Head Booker. Somewhat similar to WMMA who uses CEO and Booker.

[njmcfreak]

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="VBigB" data-cite="VBigB" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="50375" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>That's why the scaling needs to be set up properly. I was trying to figure out a system that wouldn't overly punish the smaller companies or I agree they would all go bust.</div></blockquote><p> </p><p> To be fair a lot of companies should bust, especially smaller ones. Most of them barely get off the ground before they have to close up shop it's a cutthroat business.</p>

[Donners]

<p><p>The example in the OP is the constant schedule issue, which is discussed here - <a href="<a href="http://www.greydogsoftware.com/forum/showthread.php?t=548307" rel="external nofollow">http://www.greydogsoftware.com/forum/showthread.php?t=548307"</a> rel="external nofollow"><a href="http://www.greydogsoftware.com/forum/showthread.php?t=548307" rel="external nofollow">http://www.greydogsoftware.com/forum/showthread.php?t=548307</a></p><p> </p><p></a></p><p>

I also had a company generate in Effganic with the constant schedule. They're not making anywhere near as much money as the one in this thread, but they still draw 30k fans every week. Imagine how much they'd make with a broadcast deal!</p><p> </p><p></p><p>

It's game-breaking.</p></p>

[foolinc]

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="njmcfreak" data-cite="njmcfreak" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="50375" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>To be fair a lot of companies should bust, especially smaller ones. Most of them barely get off the ground before they have to close up shop it's a cutthroat business.</div></blockquote><p> </p><p> While I wouldn't mind seeing finances adjusted to make a more challenging game experience, promotions like that would likely be too insignificant to be added to a database.</p><p> </p><p> I really think a lot of our issues stem from the constant schedule setting being too good at the moment. Would be more than ok with penalties for booking more than 3 normal events in a month within a region. That kind of restriction would make it more advantageous to use the other kind of event types while still allowing you to run three night events like King of Trios.</p>

[BiffJordan]

I would really support and encourage this idea to be taken. Throughout this series attendance has been over the top. My biggest issue is in my MOD games seeing a random PPV get 65k in attendance. It's just not realistic. Raw rarely even gets 5k in a major arena these days. I really wish attendance could be dampened greatly. Even though it's not the most realistic thing, for the game I would love it if you could have an option to only run a show in a stadium once a year. However you could accomplish that, would fix my issue. I know it's not a perfect trade but by limiting companies to one stadium show per year (probably their season finale) you'd at least create more realism on the majority of attendance through the year.