Economic Ideas !?!

[Siknezz]

I read the interview you gave with "PointsMatter" and it sounded like you were having some issues with the economy side of the game.
Now I'm far from giving any kind of "Exactly what to do" advice but I did have a few ideas that I hope you could appreciate.
Now these ideas are BASED on the assumption that you will have different "groups" of buyers. (Elderly, Mid-Life crisis, Soccer Moms, Etc...)
It sounded like the biggest issue is trying to get a computer to "judge" the visual design of a car, and that's what my ideas were about so hopefully
you will find them helpful... and if not atleast it was one more idea to roll around your heads.

First of which I kind of pulled from an old ,but FAR ahead of its time, game.
Anyway the idea would to be to keep the desired design per group kind of random... (sorry horrible at explaining things)
Examples: In one game - say year 1973 (just random) the "Soccer Moms" may like "sharp angular" designs over "smoothed angular",
"squared", "Rounded" or Ext...
I believe that making it atleast somewhat random the gameplay could very from game to game increasing the replay factor
of the tycoon half of the game.


The second idea would to have ways to see what kind of vehicles and designs are in demand.
Some of the ways this could be done is to;
1:Conducting surveys - which could tell you what groups are interested in what but as a down side it could take
some time, making the information not very useful for very long.
2:Producing Prototypes - To see how the public would react to a vehicle design. Down side could be that you would (or should)
hold production of the vehicle until you have the information you seek...

I had more but forgot some of them... I will add as I remember.

Also I believe that if one of the "groups" taste in vehicle design should slowly change as time goes on MOST of the time, although I
do believe that sometimes a radical change out of the blue could throw some twists to the game. I also believe some of these ideas
could also be used in the economical "specs" part of the game. (mileage, durability, power, price, ext...)

If I come up with any more ideas I will add them here. Hopefully some of these things help. CLICK here !!


Thanks for making a great game!!
Already designed hundreds of engines Can't wait for the rest!

[Juno8]

This could have potential in it I mean it would bring in some realism into it seeing where the biggest trend for the design of the cars could be or you could set the trend or not follow it...this idea might have a great lot of potential...

The Interview if anyone wants to read it

http://www.pointsmatter.com/forum/page/ ... erview-r24

[Killrob]

I read the interview you gave with "PointsMatter" and it sounded like you were having some issues with the economy side of the game.
Now I'm far from giving any kind of "Exactly what to do" advice but I did have a few ideas that I hope you could appreciate.
Now these ideas are BASED on the assumption that you will have different "groups" of buyers. (Elderly, Mid-Life crisis, Soccer Moms, Etc...)
It sounded like the biggest issue is trying to get a computer to "judge" the visual design of a car, and that's what my ideas were about so hopefully
you will find them helpful... and if not atleast it was one more idea to roll around your heads.

First of which I kind of pulled from an old ,but FAR ahead of its time, game.
Anyway the idea would to be to keep the desired design per group kind of random... (sorry horrible at explaining things)
Examples: In one game - say year 1973 (just random) the "Soccer Moms" may like "sharp angular" designs over "smoothed angular", "squared", "Rounded" or Ext...
I believe that making it atleast somewhat random the gameplay could very from game to game increasing the replay factor of the tycoon half of the game.

Heyya! I see we should have talked a bit more on that point in the interview as what you describe a solution to is not the real problem. The real problem is just a single issue: do we want to make an irrational thing like personal taste (performance would be rational) matter in the game? There are a few points I'd like to make on this:

1) By having such a system that discriminates taste, you limit the options of what is viable.
Q: Would you like the game MORE by it forcing you to build cars that you yourself think are ugly?

2) By randomizing different groups' tastes, you may end up with combinations that are counter-intuitive.
Q: Would you enjoy a game that is counter-intuitive? (intuition being formed by every-day real-world life)

3) A taste discrimination system is horribly difficult to implement and balance.
Q: Would this time be well-spent? Aren't there lots of other things we could work on that would improve the rational side of the game?

What we plan on doing is to (in a randomized game) just randomize the size of the different groups in each country, which rationally choose cars in a non-black-or-white fashion. By this I mean: if your car is identical in performance to a competitor, (looks different), but costs $10 more, the rational black-or-white choice would be to have 100% buy the competitor and you get 0 sales. In reality it would be much different, and in the game too: more like 50:50, to then modify that ratio by things like brand awareness, brand reputation, marketing efforts, etc.

So far we don't really have any problems with the tycoon part of the game, mainly because we haven't started implementing it yet. ;D

Conducting surveys and car show prototypes is something we've planned already, it's a good way to give the player feedback.
Thanks for bringing up the discussion and offering your thoughts on the matter!
Cheers!
/Robert

[Siknezz]

Ok first off I don't want to sound like some arguing asshole, but I do have some points I would like to make.

1) By having such a system that discriminates taste, you limit the options of what is viable.
Q: Would you like the game MORE by it forcing you to build cars that you yourself think are ugly?

A: Honestly I would... I Highly doubt all car companies produce cars that they think look good.
Examples: Prius, Aztec, Metro, and several other cars... None of which necessarily looked good but sold well (some not all!)
and still served their purpose.
Also I do believe that randomizing what the "public" has in taste as far as aesthetics and "performance" would increase the replay ability
of the game immensely. If all you do is change the amount types of buyers varies from game to game I'm still going to design the exact same
car for them as before (If it sold well) and just change how many of them I would produce. I don't believe that "loading" saved data or creating
the same data as before provides much of a challenge or replay ability.

2) By randomizing different groups' tastes, you may end up with combinations that are counter-intuitive.
Q: Would you enjoy a game that is counter-intuitive? (intuition being formed by every-day real-world life)

A: Yes, if it's a real life scenario like what car companies ACTUALLY do all the time. Like stream-lining a truck, which is usually meant to be useful for
any kind of hauling/pulling AND is comfortable with a smooth ride (especially a CONVERTABLE) BUT LOOKS LIKE A CAR? If I'm not mistaken that could be taken as counter-intuitive.



Care for some more examples?:





Explanations - First I would like to say that none of these are bad vehicles... That being said lets begin
UTE - again truck or car? Why not both right?
Wrangler - Utility Off-road vehicle for the family? Awesome! (Although doesn't Jeep produce a few off-road 4 door vehicles before they did this?)
GTR - I personally love every thing about the GTR.. AND now my kids can enjoy the ride. Right on!
Cayenne - Porsche off-road sports car/suv. They will never catch me!

If I'm not mistaken these are just some of many examples of vehicles that were probably counter-intuitive until the time of their production.
I do not believe that "multi-purpose" can ever considered counter-intuitive. Even you must admit that at any moment of any time no single person
can predict EXACTLY what an individual may be looking for in a vehicle. Isn't this the reason for companies "research"?

3) A taste discrimination system is horribly difficult to implement and balance.
Q: Would this time be well-spent? Aren't there lots of other things we could work on that would improve the rational side of the game?

A: I understand that any time and effort put into the game has to be carefully managed. You can't "afford" to waste any time in anything that doesn't have
any true function or purpose (as stated many times in these forums). Especially if it only suits a single or small majority of the people interested in your game.
However not putting in the effort were you would think would make a large difference in gameplay can NOT be SKIMPED on if it has the desired effect of the
players and developers. I personally can not understand why you would want to make such a GREAT game then to just fall short in one field. If that one field
can be deemed an important one... If you really want to know whether or not it would make an important different to your players then ask. While I'm sure
you'll get way more of an answer than you would want, at least you would HAVE an answer.

Now back to the original idea:
The idea I had was to help a "computer" to judge the aesthetics of a vehicle.
I was originally trying to make the point that a computer could at least tell the difference between a "soft angular" design verses "rounded" or "Sharp angular".
It may be difficult to make it happen but I'm sure you can make it (for example) judge the angle between two points of a car. You may need many of these to
make it work, I'm not sure though as I am not a very good programmer.

I may have raved a little in this post and that was really not my intent.
If you have any more funky spots, I am usually good at coming up with "funky" ideas to deal with nearly any event.

Any way Thanks for reading!
Any replies welcome! (I will try not to argue.)

[Daffyflyer]

The idea I had was to help a "computer" to judge the aesthetics of a vehicle.

Yeah, that's quite a challenge really, almost as hard as getting a computer to judge human beauty.
You can do stuff like getting it to compare the placement of key components to the golden ratio, or compare it's shape to the shape of cars you've told it are good looking, but in the end you'll end up with it finding lots of things that meet its idea of what a good looking car is, but to human eyes look utterly horrible.

So yeah, about as easy as teaching a robot to love

[machalel]

The idea I had was to help a "computer" to judge the aesthetics of a vehicle.

Yeah, that's quite a challenge really, almost as hard as getting a computer to judge human beauty.
You can do stuff like getting it to compare the placement of key components to the golden ratio, or compare it's shape to the shape of cars you've told it are good looking, but in the end you'll end up with it finding lots of things that meet its idea of what a good looking car is, but to human eyes look utterly horrible.

So yeah, about as easy as teaching a robot to love

It also tends to force the players down one particular route in order to get the "best" solution. This is not very realistic either. Think about the difference between an E-Type Jag, a Ferrari 428, and a BMW 635. Each one of these is a good looking car, but they are quite different in design.

[Siknezz]

It sounds like you agree that you can tell the computer what designs are good looking...
Then it really should not be that hard to add just a couple more of variables.

Basically you tell it that every thing is good looking Then make a specific consumer group to pick one style at RANDOM in the start of the game.

An example of something that comes to mind. Perhaps a certain group like a rounded, smooth looking front end. You could take your vertices in 3D space and other vertices connected to it checking that they all fall into a certain angle for that "style". Or if a certain group who prefers and uses trucks also likes convertibles... And one of the ways this would change the gameplay is that now, I can't just save a body or car and use it repeatedly, but now, I would be forced to redesign cars for each and every game that suits what these different groups are looking for. Maybe even being possible to satisfy multiple groups with one production vehicle even.

Ever buy a game that was a pretty awesome game, but after playing it once, you have almost everything that can be reused game after game. Your essentially forcing player's to only do the work once ever and never needing to do it again. Or they go and download a car that satisfies multiple groups taste. While randomizing it a bit like you were talking about would help, you would still run into the issue that different groups prefer certain things each game and throughout the game. What I'm getting at is even though different groups prefer style[1] each game. You only need to create style[1] one time ever. Then load it from a save every time the game requires it. And to not do anything here just means that designing cars has no purpose at all and you can make them all a box on wheels and it have no impact what-so-ever on gameplay.

Please know I am not saying this is an absolute must, but it would greatly improve the replay factor of the game. Being able to use the same vehicle over and over each game, or at least the design over and over each game would defeat the purpose of building the car design portion as it's not actually needed anymore since it does not matter. Sorry if little sense is made here as it's early and just work up and trying to organize my thoughts on this topic. But I hope I got my point across okay and gave you something to think about on how important this actually is and can easily make or break a game. One of the things I always look for in a game, as do most people who play many games, is replay ability. Nobody wants to spend money on a game that they will only play once or twice then set it aside for a new game.

[Daffyflyer]

It sounds like you agree that you can tell the computer what designs are good looking. Then it really should not be that hard to add just a couple more of variables.

I'm not even convinced that this is possible to be honest, I really think you're underestimating the difficulty of getting it do do anything approach judging your designs in a consistent way. Even getting it to work out what cars are similar would be a total nightmare.

I'd say we will make it that if you build a car cosmetically unchanged for too long it's popularity will start to decline. It'll probably also take into account how old the base body design is (as in 1960s base body design will be popular in the 60s but will start to look dated after a while.)

[Killrob]

Ok first off I don't want to sound like some arguing asshole, but I do have some points I would like to make.

There's no harm in arguing if done based on good arguments and logic. Thank you for the amount of work and thought you've put into your posts, even if they have achieved quite the opposite of what you intended - I'm more convinced now that aesthetics shouldn't matter in the game - this kind of stuff does help development.

1) By having such a system that discriminates taste, you limit the options of what is viable.
Q: Would you like the game MORE by it forcing you to build cars that you yourself think are ugly?

A: Honestly I would... I Highly doubt all car companies produce cars that they think look good. Examples: Prius, Aztec, Metro, and several other cars... None of which necessarily looked good but sold well (some not all!) and still served their purpose. Also I do believe that randomizing what the "public" has in taste as far as aesthetics and "performance" would increase the replay ability of the game immensely. If all you do is change the amount types of buyers varies from game to game I'm still going to design the exact same car for them as before (If it sold well) and just change how many of them I would produce. I don't believe that "loading" saved data or creating the same data as before provides much of a challenge or replay ability.

The "None of which looked good but sold well" should give you a hint: it doesn't really matter as much as one might think it does. That is because "the public taste" is so broad that things even out quite a bit. I think you might be a bit more of a person like this who wouldn't mind the extra layer of complexity in this area because you are so passionate about it, but forcing a poor game mechanic into the game for that? A clear no-go in my opinion.

Now that's a pretty strong statement saying that what you propose is a poor game mechanic. Let me give you two reasons (there are probably more):

1) Forcing people into doing things they don't necessarily enjoy, for no extra benefit over the alternative apart from replayability. As is, without the taste mechanic, I would estimate replayability is around 2-3 fully enjoyable grand campaigns, each 20-40h worth of gameplay. You can try different types of manufactures, different strategies and starting locations, different markets, different tech focus, etc. For a moment, let's say the proposed taste-mechanic does work - how much more replayability would that add on top when you have 3 play-throughs already? Pretty much none, you have seen and adapted your strategies to this mechanic in these 3 playthroughs already, but at what cost? Well, for you obviously none as you would enjoy it, but for many many other players that has added shackles to their desired gameplay.

How many play-throughs will the average person playing the game make before putting the game down? Realistic estimate: 0.5 times. Most people don't have time to invest 100h+ into games, so offering the best possible experience for the first play-through is much more desirable than offering a bit more variety after 100h+. I for one wouldn't want to be forced into design cars that to me look horrible, just because the game tells me I have to do that to be successful in the 20h I have to invest into this game. That is really poor game design... I don't remember quite accurately, but I think it was some Final Fantasy title that was known for being good once you get to 20h into the game, and this would be a similar thing. "Well, you just have to restart the game a few times till the random generator has decided you can design cars you like." won't work. "Well, then make it optional!" has been discussed before and doesn't work, as we live in a world of finite development resources and would have to sacrifice things that enhance the core experience.

2) Fracturing buyer demographics into even smaller groups is bad for keeping an overview and becomes a micro-management intense mechanic.

Utility, fractured by taste.

Diagram.png (33.88 KiB) Viewed 6688 times

You literally add layers of complexity (in Photoshop and in the game) by adding a taste mechanic. Your normal Venn-diagram areas are further split into smaller sectors of taste, which makes for a higher count of smaller target groups. We plan on having ~30-50 target groups with significant overlap in the game, splitting them into 3 or more sub-groups will make things even more fractured and messy. It would be work instead of fun.

2) By randomizing different groups' tastes, you may end up with combinations that are counter-intuitive.
Q: Would you enjoy a game that is counter-intuitive? (intuition being formed by every-day real-world life)

A: Yes, if it's a real life scenario like what car companies ACTUALLY do all the time. Like stream-lining a truck, which is usually meant to be useful for any kind of hauling/pulling AND is comfortable with a smooth ride (especially a CONVERTABLE) BUT LOOKS LIKE A CAR? If I'm not mistaken that could be taken as counter-intuitive.

Explanations - First I would like to say that none of these are bad vehicles... That being said lets begin
UTE - again truck or car? Why not both right?
Wrangler - Utility Off-road vehicle for the family? Awesome! (Although doesn't Jeep produce a few off-road 4 door vehicles before they did this?)
GTR - I personally love every thing about the GTR.. AND now my kids can enjoy the ride. Right on!
Cayenne - Porsche off-road sports car/suv. They will never catch me!

You are completely missing the point here. None of your examples have anything to do with pure aesthetics. They are all combinations of different utilities that in that specific combination fill niche roles in the market, something which is already perfectly covered by the buyer mechanics we have in mind for the tycoon part, without considering aesthetics. All your examples will find enough buyers anyway, because demographics do overlap and naturally form niches. This will be emergent behaviour, and doesn't need much programming to work.

I won't go into you answer and comment to question 3 as this has been covered already. I'd like to address one thing though:

If you really want to know whether or not it would make an important different to your players then ask. While I'm sure
you'll get way more of an answer than you would want, at least you would HAVE an answer.

Letting people design what they enjoy is by definition the right answer for any game that wants to be played and enjoyed.

Thank you again for your input. It is appreciated!
Cheers!
/Robert

[Drummerdude48]

This is the most recent post I could find in regards to demographics and how the markets will work. I like the idea of doing it the way of 30 - 50 target groups, adds good complexity and I presume there will be a way to see the larger target markets (so you can work to target the bigger markets when starting out).

My main reason for bumping this is I'm just wondering if there will be targeted age demographics like in Gear City also? Im a bit worried that there might be as it was impossible to keep track of which models were aimed at which age groups in Gear City. As such I'm a little worried that if age, and less so sex demographics were targeted, everything might get a bit confusing on top of the other 30 - 50 target groups. However if you guys come up with a way to make it manageable then it might add some complexity to the game. I found with Gear City it was more hassle than it was worth though as there was no way to find out what age demographic wants what make of car anyway. On top of this it was impossible to see what age demographic the cars you were currently producing were aimed at after you had designed them.

Will the market area you are targeting be selected by a dropdown during the car designer or will it be a case of designing a car in the mind of aiming it at a certain target market? I believe the latter would put more of a chance of getting it wrong in the players hands and make the game more along the lines of the old hardcore tycoon games that were difficult

[Killrob]

The age demographics are already considered in those 30-50 target groups, so no extra confusion / unnecessary complexity added there. We want to make a very clear system that is easy to grasp and is intuitive. How exactly it will look like remains to be seen, but we have pretty good prototypes of the calculations working already. Years since Andy and Cas worked on them, but hey, that's for after the Car Designer.

[Drummerdude48]

Awesome, thanks Killrob.

Any idea on if the target market will be selected during design or weather it'll be a case of design a car and hope it suits the market you hope to target?

[Der Bayer]

I think you won't select one or more target markets. The different customers take a look at the market and compare the car stats with their specific needs. So you can sell your car to quite a few customer groups if it's a good allrounder. Or you say that you want to focus on for example sportiness, then probably only the "sporty" groups might buy your car because it is not good enough in other aspects. That means you search for your niche in the market without selecting it directly but designing the car in a way which you think fits your target market.

[Drummerdude48]

That means you search for your niche in the market without selecting it directly but designing the car in a way which you think fits your target market.

Perfect! Thats the answer I was hoping for Puts more pressure on the player to do it right which I like

[xphraze]

What if you wrote a system that recognized the similarities in your design .. so Sudden changes dramatically redesigned ruined your reputation or repaired your reputation, depending on how people liked the car from before ... if you always had cars with low technology and poor quality then everyone would expect poor quality of later models too. but if you changed the design dramatically car would get a second chance