Naturally, the first thing I was drawn to start planning on was the facilities. This is probably because the facilities will offer the basis for navigation within the game, with each facility having it's own page amongst other elements.
It makes sense to me that the facilities get split into 3 sections: Internal, external and the ones that could be considered as either.
Internal
For internal facilities, we have things that can only be supplied from within the company.
- Head Quarters
Will provide basic things to the company. I like to think of it as the "all-rounder" upgrade. I was thinking about the following "perks" to upgrading the HQ:
- Small increase in training speeds.
- Ability to open more development studios.
- Ability to take out larger loans.
- Skill points to assign to employees.
- Heightened reputation. Leads to easier employment of better employees.
- Small increase in research ability.
- Bigger HQ = ability to upgrade other facilities to higher levels.
- Development Studios
This is the location of where your game and application creating staff are working. Therefore, upgrades and such should apply to the employees and possibly the games and applications. Here are some ideas for perks:
- Skill points that can be assigned to employees.
- An increase in the amount of different teams of coders you have. (So you can work on more than 1 project at a time).
- The ability to open more development studios around the world. Allows you to make more of an impact in a different markets as well as have an increase in software output.
- Small increase in the amount of employees you can have in each team.
- Improvement in the equipment available which could lead to a better overall output to the teams working on projects.
- Training Facilities
As oppose to having the training facilities
as a independent facility, it may well just be part of the employee options. Alternatively I could have it be both. Either way, it will be there to offer improvements to employees over time. You would have to think whether it will be more cost effective to get another employee or train another one. Improvements to a training facility would include:
- Training speed increases.
- Training costs decreases.
- More methods of training could become available.
- The ability to train more employees at a time.
External
External facilities are going to be places which are not controlled by the player, but will need to be visited for whatever service it provides.
- Bank
This is where the player can get a loan. I cant really think of another use for it. Maybe you could try and get better deals from different banks on interest rates and such. Obviously, this facility isn't upgradeable.
- Stock Exchange
In the stock exchange, players will be able buy and sell shares in companies, this would be an extra way to sell money. The possibility could also arise where you "buy-out" other developers, but the implementation of such a feature could be difficult. Would it be better for you to now have control of multiple companies? Or would it be better for them to morph into your primary company? Morphing them would add:
- Their employees to your roster.
- Their bank balance to yours.
- Their released games to yours. (giving you all future profits from their games, as well as the franchise naming so that you inherit its fan base.
- Their facilities to yours. (Lets say that they have a facility that you don't, you now get it for free with no build time, or if they have a facility with a higher upgrade level than yours, you now inherit the upgrade).
- Recruitment
The recruitment facility is essentially where you search for employees to fill certain jobs within your company. It will offer a wide range of search criteria,so that you can tailor your search to your needs. This would also be non-upgradeable.
Either
"Either" facilities are locations that may start out life as an external facility, where you pay a premium for a service, but could later become internal, making them more cost-effective and controllable.
- Publishing
At the start of the game it would be rather overpowered to be able to publish yours and others' games, so in the beginning you will need to pay other publishers to release your games. This will come at large costs and with no "customization" of the release. However, when you first get a publishing facility, you will be able to publish your own games and ultimately, other company's games. Upgrades to the facility could result in:
- Increase in the amount of workers you can have.
- Increase in the quality of release. (colour instruction manuals, better box art etc).
- Increase in the amount of languages the game can be localized to.
- Increase in the output of games.
- Lower costs.
I know that publishers and developers are often separate, but as you are starting at the beginning of video games as an industry, you have the opportunity to develop into a publisher. Just like real companies did.
- Factory
The factory is going to be the location where you create new hardware, this includes consoles and peripherals. Once you have first developed the hardware, it will then go into production via a factory. If you don't have a factory, it will cost a flat fee, plus extra for how advanced your console is etc. If you do own a factory, you will have to employ workers, but that flat fee will be abolished. Improvements to the factory could include:
- More workers.
- Lower costs.
- More production lines (increased output).
- Improved production speeds.
- More factories around the world. (overall lower shipping costs).
- Research
Research is going to be the best way to forward your business. by researching new elements of hardware and software you can keep up and possibly overtake the competition. Hardware would include the research of components and peripherals, software would include the research of programming techniques on different hardware amongst other things. I also may include the art and sound studios within research, as they could count as a research based facility. On the other end of the stick, i could just split up hardware and software into "software engineering" and "hardware engineering". Upgrading could result in the following:
- Larger amount of researchers.
- More productive researchers.
- More research options to become available.
- Lower costs.
- Marketing
When you have created a great new game or made an awesomely powerful console, what good is it going to be if no-one knows about it. That's where the marketing department comes in. Before you own your own department you will need to pay a large premium for marketing tasks, afterwards, you will be able to customize them to your needs. This includes TV ads, previews, interviews etc.
By improving the marketing department you could:
- Employ more marketing advisers.
- Get access to better means of marketing.
- Have lower costs.
- Testing
This is yet another dodgy facility. It isn't exactly needed, but the idea is that anything you make has the option of going through a testing phase. The testing facility is your internal part of that (or you get a testing company to do it for you if you don't have the facilities). From that, you could also have public BETA's and demos. Improvements could lead to:
- More internal testers.
- The ability to reach more external testers.
- More testing means being unlocked.
- Storage
When you are shipping your creations, you need a means of storing them. You can pay for external storage, which will cost you a constant fee, dependent on storage size.
Or you could get your own storage facilities around the world, where you pay one off for the storage. Upgrades would include:
- More storage facilities.
- Larger storage.
- Art Studios
This is definitely one of the more "unnecessary" facilities. The idea is that art studios will be used for the research of new art styles, because in my eyes, art styles in games are important. It is possible that this feature could be included within the research facility or as a standalone. Upgrades to the art studio could include:
- The ability to employ more artists.
- An increase in the speed of art style development.
- More art styles become available to develop.
- Overall increase in art quality and skills.
- Sound Labs
This is another one of the more unnecessary facilities. It could have a minor feature that is implemented within the game making process itself. However, I like the idea of getting contracts with big composers. Upgrades to a sound lab would include:
- Bigger sound production teams.
- The ability to "lure" in better composers.
- Cheaper costs.
- Better equipment = better quality sound production.
- Better production speeds.
That's all for the facilities at the moment, once I have detailed the other parts of the game in a similar manner to this, I will then start going through each of these in even more detail. Hopefully even getting their mechanics nailed down.
If there is anything really obvious that I've missed, please give me a buzz!
