New business sectors?

Suggestions for new DLC projects.
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Which one or more sectors you wanna see in the game?

Construction/Building business
106
16%
Transportation business
118
18%
New financial types (Banking, bonds-selling, insurance etc.)
116
18%
Show business
35
5%
Energy Development
135
20%
Tourism industry
54
8%
Utility sector
81
12%
Other (post it in the comments)
12
2%
Non of the above
3
0%
 
Total votes: 660

therealevan
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Re: New business sectors?

Post by therealevan »

Thread is slightly old but I'd like to rekindle our genuine interest in adding other business sectors to CapLab. I for one would like to see the finance / banking sector added, it will give a rebuff to the loaning mechanic (which should be reworked in my opinion). And as many of you know I'm a major natural resources player and would give my right/left arm for some new resources content, such as the upstream/downstream for the oil & petroleum markets.
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player_rxb
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SERVICE INDUSTRY (lega, accounting, IT, clerc)

Post by player_rxb »

One major part of the industry is still missing- and that is the general service industry. It could be modeled in fairly easily. 60% of the economy consist of service industry, and there is none of it in the game.

How could it be implemented?
- The services would be produced in an office building.
- The units would be "Office" and "Sales" or something similar
- In "Office" you can specify the type of service generated (Legal, Accounting, IT, Clerical) and in "Sales" it gets sold (obviously :) ) to the public
- Quality could be improved by R&D - even though here it would function more as a training unit for staff and we would imagine it as a place to develop new procedures
- Efficiency would be increased through HR training as usual.

Where would it be?
- The building would have to be an office tower
- instead of larger footprints it could have taller versions that then would represent larger sizes of the units
- There would finally be some reason to have some nice towers in the city center

Who would use the services?
- The city would buy it like other products- people use legal, accounting and other services all the time
- As a corporation you would have to contract it in every city you reside in. A "Dependency" from the main headquarter could have to be built. When your company grows, maybe you could have to increase the size of your head office (build another dependancy near an existing one) to keep up with your growing needs.

How would services interact with the game
- you would have to advertise the services to increase demand from the public or from competing corporations
- human ressource training would be paramount and R&D to increase quality
- If it is implemented that corporations need to contract it, then it could effect general efficiency of the corporation. If you have high quality services you get a bonus to throughput or savings in overhead expenses, if you don't contract enough of it in your HQ your efficiency of production increases.
- Low quality legal or accounting work could maybe also effect that you get a bad event like "Lawsuit - you owe 160 mio. $"

There are several other things that could go along with this, like services being affected by supply of labor. Service affecting the demand for office buildings or good events like "Tax Return- your good accounting practices have saved you 23 mio.$ in taxes"
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Re: New business sectors?

Post by counting »

Service industry has been suggested since Cap2. For many reasons it never get implemented into the core game. Although one genuine service "industry" always existed - the advertisement businesses. So perhaps we can increase the functionality of "commercial buildings", or replace it with your idea of a "general office building" instead of rent income real estate. Even just copy similar mechanism from media firm interface (but less like "industry" though)

I image the original idea of a fast food chain, or restaurants, or hotels, might be an interesting starting point for service industries. And here is a pie chart of all the industries in percentage of GDP in US 2012. Perhaps those with higher portion should be considered first.

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GiovanniMartin16
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Re: New business sectors?

Post by GiovanniMartin16 »

I wanna see government AIs imposing some controls in country-specific cities:

-Japan/South Korean government gives incentives to homegrown emerging companies (including mine) in the city for the development of a specific industry (e.g automobile). Incentives may come in the form of llow-interest policy loans, high tariffs (higher cost for foreign products) and even government investment. Company availment of the incentives are then annually evaluated for conditions/goals set for the industry.

-Thailand/Malaysian government sets up a special economic zone or freeport (delineated in the city map) where land costs are significantly lower and duty-free imports are allowed (lower freight costs).

-Chinese/Vietnamese government enters into a 50/50 ownership agreement/joint venture with my company by investing additional funds equivalent to my starting capital

-Egyptian government bans the sale of pork and related products; Indian government does the same for beef and related products

You might add a government tab where there are filters for different cities around the world (different governments, of course) where there are lists of policies that can affect company decisions, and buttons for the availment of incentives.

I and many more would be very grateful if these suggestions are implemented in newer versions. These will significantly alter the game environment, I think. Besides there is no capitalist country that does not experience government intervention. :D
counting
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Re: New business sectors?

Post by counting »

GiovanniMartin16 wrote:I wanna see government AIs imposing some controls in country-specific cities:

-Japan/South Korean government gives incentives to homegrown emerging companies (including mine) in the city for the development of a specific industry (e.g automobile). Incentives may come in the form of llow-interest policy loans, high tariffs (higher cost for foreign products) and even government investment. Company availment of the incentives are then annually evaluated for conditions/goals set for the industry.

-Thailand/Malaysian government sets up a special economic zone or freeport (delineated in the city map) where land costs are significantly lower and duty-free imports are allowed (lower freight costs).

-Chinese/Vietnamese government enters into a 50/50 ownership agreement/joint venture with my company by investing additional funds equivalent to my starting capital

-Egyptian government bans the sale of pork and related products; Indian government does the same for beef and related products

You might add a government tab where there are filters for different cities around the world (different governments, of course) where there are lists of policies that can affect company decisions, and buttons for the availment of incentives.

I and many more would be very grateful if these suggestions are implemented in newer versions. These will significantly alter the game environment, I think. Besides there is no capitalist country that does not experience government intervention. :D
This is a good idea, but we'll need to give corporation "nationality" first. Since all corporations currently in the game is default multinational (or none to be more precise). Some local products features are nice idea though. I'm considering to do a theme mod myself actually.
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David
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Re: New business sectors?

Post by David »

We are contemplating with the idea of developing a new MOD feature that allows users to add new buildings into the game and customize them as new service businesses.

The MOD feature in question will take a page from the media firms in the game (TV station, radio station and newspaper publishers). Here are the rough ideas that we have come up with thus far.

We would like to invite user ideas on this, before deciding whether it is worth the effort to implement this new MOD feature.

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Let users set up Media firm type gameplay mechanism for new firm types.

Example: defining a new firm type - accounting and consultancy service firm.

Media firm ---> Customizable variables (Example: accounting and consultancy firm like PriceWaterHouseCopper)
New Content Development Budget (it affects Content Quality) → Core Competency Development Budget
Content Quality (it affects rating points) ---> Core Competency Rating.

Rating Points (which means market share) → market share

Content Advertising Pricing (adjustable by user) ---> Service hourly rate

Income – advertising income that is based on rating points → income that is based on market share

User customizable Help message for each type of firm
Define popup text for “Core Competency Rating”, which explains what it means.
It should be stored in somewhere else other than the standard help file. And it will be set as custom help by C++ code.

Backend Simulation Variables
Market Size X Rate X market share = income.

Market size is calculated based on a formula that uses several variables such as population, GDP, GDP growth, GDP per capita as input.

e.g. for Accounting and Consultancy Firm

Expenses – there is a fixed running cost of the firm, plus variable costs such as New Content Development Budget

Staff Employed
This is not simulated in media firms, but we can add it to media firms and other new firm types.

Interactions with existing firms
Media firms – firms can place advertising on media firms.

Accounting and Consultancy firm – firms can use their services to boost the firm's training effectiveness.

Percentage increase in training effectiveness = The consultancy firm's core competency X spending amount X constant, which is MODable.

Advertising Unit
If new service firm types other than media firms have been defined, Advertising unit will be renamed as External unit (or something like that) for linking to external units.

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If you have any ideas about using this potential MOD to create new service industry in the game, please post your suggestion here, including which service industry you are thinking about, how it can make use of the above MOD mechanism to make an appearance in the game.

You may come up with details such as how variables the new service industry will have, in a format like the above example of the accounting and consultancy service firm.
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Re: New business sectors?

Post by counting »

This is great, we've been waiting for it for a long time :D (even before mod ability is announced)

I would like to add that we should incorporate the retail into customize building MOD as well. At least giving the ability to rename existing buildings' type name, and what skin of the building is mapped to. I would be even better for them to have varied size. We've wanted for 1x1 or 5x5 buildings to exist for a while, and preferably given the option to change throughput as well, this way we would see a more diverse, cleaner, and theme oriented city landscape.

However the building outlook will need some graphic design ability for modder though.
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David
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Re: New business sectors?

Post by David »

This thread is now under the Subsidiary expansion pack forum as we have been brainstorming about the possibilities of letting players set up or acquire subsidiaries in service industries.

And this thread is for discussions of what such service industries would be, and the MOD mechanism for allowing users to define new service industries.

Any suggestions are welcome.
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Re: New business sectors?

Post by counting »

By the way if it's a service, that means there should be new units in normal retail store or factories that "purchase" these new types of services, just like ads units, right?

Or would it be like a general services go through "citizens" and affect the overall overhead of all type of buildings that required these services? like a security firms would be universally needed. And part of the overhead paid in normal buildings should theoretically goes to the service providers. Perhaps we should have a general service required level where player owned service competing with local service providers. But again how do we represent these "local providers"? Should they be invisible to players as abstract background calculation?
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Mogul
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Re: New business sectors?

Post by Mogul »

One industry I would like to see is the telecom industry. Several existing in-game concepts can be utilized to create the industry.

Would propose having several different participating businesses, each with different models.

1) Telephone Company (or Wireline Phone Company)
What: Provider of local and long-distance phone services to residential and business customers. Would recommend having two "Phone Companies" in each city as the starting point to provide competition yet partially capture the regulated monopoly nature of the wireline business.

Two-tiered revenue model and revenue drivers:
- Pricing for residential customers
- Driven higher by growth in residential population
- Driven lower by competition from both other phone companies with network overlap and especially Wireless Companies' growth, as well as falling population and poor macroeconomic environment
- Driven lower by lower maintenance capital spending which, over time, reduces network quality

- Pricing for business customers
- Driven higher by growth of businesses / business activity
- Driven lower by competition from other phone companies with network overlap, as well as falling business environment / poor macroeconomic environment
- Driven lower by lower maintenance capital spending which, over time, reduces network quality
- Prices will be higher than residential rates

- Pricing measured on a monthly basis (ARPU)

Costs:
- Not many operating costs, but, similar to "content expense" for media companies, should have capital spending requirements on network maintenance. Should be a very profitable business. Network maintenance shouldn't be too high of a cost
- Existing Phone Companies should have their network partially built out. Similar to real estate purchases (eg. buying squares of land), phone companies should use the same architecture as they figure out where they want to build their network. More dense locations (ie. more buildings/people) can have higher build cost, but ultimately should have higher ROI
- Network footprint is key to being able to push prices up as customers on the network should be able to complete calls to each other without using another providers' network, thereby lowering consumer cost yet enabling wireline operator to increase prices given greater network coverage.

Key operating metric:
- Penetration rates -- Based on the area where your network has been built, measures the customer uptake of service. Good measure especially when networks overlap and price competition becomes more fierce.

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2) Wireless Telephone Company
What: Provider of mobile communications services. Would recommend having three to four "Wireless Companies" in each city as the starting point to provide competition, with a mix of "MVNOs" and "Network Operators".

Two-tiered operating model, leading to two different pricing tiers.
- Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) model
- Lower quality subscriber base characterized by:
- Lower price for services
- Higher subscriber churn, which increases operating costs
- Offset by:
- Faster subscriber growth, especially in lower socio-economic strata
- Pricing impacted by competition and market share

- Network Operator model
- Higher quality subscriber base characterized by:
- Higher price for services
- Lower subscriber churn, which decreases operating costs
- Offset by:
- Slower subscriber growth
- Pricing impacted by competition and market share

- Pricing for subscribers measured on a monthly basis (ARPU).

Costs:
- Wireless companies should have higher operating costs than Wireline companies as you can factor in phone purchase subsidies and interconnection costs.
- MVNOs should have even higher operating costs since their business model relies on leasing the network of Network Operators. Why would someone choose to operate as an MVNO? Because they can quickly build up subscriber base and gain market share in the telecom market w/o having the high capital expenditure requirement of building out and maintaining the network.
- Should also have high capital spending requirements on network buildout. Similar to the Phone Company above, the Wireless network build can look like the real estate build, however use a larger matrix (implying a tower or node that can cover a wide area vs. wires that actually have to be laid to the premises).
- Should also have network investment expenses which increase based on size of network and need to be maintained for service quality


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3) Cable Operator
What: Provider of cable TV and internet services. Would recommend having two Cable Companies in each city as the starting point to provide competition yet partially capture the monopoly nature of the business in many geographies.

Two-tiered revenue model
- Video
- Revenue side:
- Subscribers charged monthly ARPU for revenue
- Ability to increase ARPU can be a function of programming costs (similar to a media company from a content investment standpoint)
- Video ARPU higher than Broadband ARPU, generally by a factor of 2
- Costs:
- Generally high operating costs as a function of programming costs
- Potential to buy programming from local TV Station(s) to simulate retransmission expenses, allowing the simulation of blackouts (such as those seen by Viacom and Suddenlink, CBS and Dish, amongst other high profile retransmission fights). Would require adding ability of local TV Station to earn revenue from not just advertising but also from retransmission (which has become a much more meaningful source of revenue for broadcasters and has been a major source of revenue for cable networks for decades). This also enhances the existing TV Station model.
- By buying programming from local TV Station(s), Cable Operator should be able to charge more to its subscribers (especially depending on the rating points or content quality of that TV Station). This provides additional flexibility to managing the business model.

- Broadband
- Revenue side:
- Subscribers charged monthly ARPU for revenue
- Ability to raise ARPU a function of network quality and investment/maintenance (similar to content quality and investment in media firms)
- Broadband ARPU lower than video ARPU, generally by a factor of 0.5
- Costs:
- Very low operating costs. Broadband would represent very high margin revenue for the Cable Operator. this is partially made up for in the high capital expenditures of building and maintaining network infrastructure.

- Similar to existing Phone Companies, Cable Operators should have their network partially built out. Similar to real estate purchases (eg. buying squares of land), cable operators should use the same architecture as they figure out where they want to build their network. More dense locations can have higher build cost, but ultimately should have higher ROI
- Network footprint is key to being able to push prices up as customers on the network should be able to complete calls to each other without using another providers' network, thereby lowering consumer cost yet enabling wireline operator to increase prices given greater network coverage.

- Key operating metric: penetration rates; a function of customers as a percent of possible customers, based on network buildout area.

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Hopefully, the above lays out a useful framework for discussion and provides the developers with a roadmap for potential implementation.
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