Real Estate DLC: Shopping Mall

[David]

An idea for a potential real estate DLC:

The player will be able to build a new shopping mall building and lease the retail space to other companies.

The shopping mall building will be 6x6 in size.

There will be space for leasing up to 10 retail shops in each shopping mall.

It will draw consumer traffic better than an individual store if all its stores are offering high quality products with good diversity.

It resolves the problems where there is insufficient land for building retail stores in city centers.

Attached is a a mock up interface. The list of retail stores within the shopping mall are displayed below the firm detail window. The player can click on a retail store on the list to view it.

The retail store icons may be replaced by newly designed store front icons representing different types of retail stores.

If there is a sufficient number of well received suggestions on new features for a real estate DLC, we will consider making one after the banking DLC is done. This is one suggestion. If you have ideas, please feel free to post on this forum.

[Berbe]

Well, the congestion in busy city centers is a thing, but what I was already weary of in the idea of renting retail space in commercial buildings is still there, tenfold: that would be a potential 10 retail stores in a 6x6 lot, conveniently reserved early in the game next to the CBD (either buy buying the whole lot or using 1x1 buys to prevent opponents to settle there while minimizing costs).

The official sober naming for that thing could be: Freaking hell of a cash machine

A mitigation could be considering that when constructing a multiple-story, large base building is made in one go at start, it comes with running costs equivalent to several independent retail store counterparts (less than 10, thanks to shared costs & diminished overhead, but way more than 1). That would make the building only profitable starting with a corresponding number of retail stores inside.
Even if mitigations were put in place, like the aforementioned one, the benefits of such a cash-machine would greatly overweight the downsides.

Don't get me wrong, such a building would be a fantastic new toy, I am merely a little bit worried about game imbalancing.

[David]

Well, the congestion in busy city centers is a thing, but what I was already weary of in the idea of renting retail space in commercial buildings is still there, tenfold: that would be a potential 10 retail stores in a 6x6 lot, conveniently reserved early in the game next to the CBD (either buy buying the whole lot or using 1x1 buys to prevent opponents to settle there while minimizing costs).

The official sober naming for that thing could be: Freaking hell of a cash machine

A mitigation could be considering that when constructing a multiple-story, large base building is made in one go at start, it comes with running costs equivalent to several independent retail store counterparts (less than 10, thanks to shared costs & diminished overhead, but way more than 1). That would make the building only profitable starting with a corresponding number of retail stores inside.
Even if mitigations were put in place, like the aforementioned one, the benefits of such a cash-machine would greatly overweight the downsides.

Don't get me wrong, such a building would be a fantastic new toy, I am merely a little bit worried about game imbalancing.

A solution will be to have a slider in the Real Estate DLC setting menu for setting the building cost of a shopping mall. Maximizing the value of this slider will mean very little profit for the landlord.

[Berbe]

A solution will be to have a slider in the Real Estate DLC setting menu for setting the building cost of a shopping mall. Maximizing the value of this slider will mean very little profit for the landlord.

Well, building costs are a one shot, the initial investment: I suppose subsequent revenue, being rents, should be highly profitable.

Thus, this mechanism would only set the initial bar higher, but would not hinder the cash machine, ie the running profitability. As of time required for writing off the investment with profits, it's not really of a concern, since you usually never get rid of buildings in the game, except on crash courses.

[David]

Amortization of the initial cost will take more years. Each of these years of amortization adds to the running costs from the profitability perspective. Theoretically there is a threshold that will eliminate any unfair advantage of running a shopping mall compared to owning a normal store. Granted, it will still have advantages, but will be offset by the disadvantage of having an enormous upfront cost. So it will be a fair game.

[de1irium]

Granted, it will still have advantages, but will be offset by the disadvantage of having an enormous upfront cost. So it will be a fair game.

I like the general idea. I suggest that the building has the floor functionality having 3 shops/floor. The cost of adding a new floor should be somewhat expensive and its maintenance cost should rise significantly. This way, the building would be really customizable, having a small shopping centre with lower costs in suburb areas and a bigger one where needed considering bigger investments. I see one problem though : what would happen if the player would build a shopping centre and fill it with its own stores .. or even worse with the same kind of store of its expertise products (let's say all drug stores) ? It would then become a giant cash machine as Berbe mentioned if none is made in order to avoid that behaviour. On the other hand, we cannot forbid the player to own a store in its own shopping mall. I am a little mixed there.

[de1irium]

Also, I believe that a good start to a Real Estate DLC would be having the local competitors engaged in the estate market. They could build/buy apartments/commercial buildings and put them on sale depending on their financial condition (this would rather apply to the AI : let's say it has financial troubles, it would then put the buildings it owns for sale in order to generate some cash quickly (I haven't seen this kind of behaviour so far in the game ; they are rather passive and don't seem to do much in order to avoid bankruptcy!!)) or depending on market conditions (selling at a greater price when the demand for apartments/office space is higher). This would add much dynamism to the current Real Estate as well as make the "for sale" button finally usefull.

[Rusty Gamer]

Shopping Mall owners tend to charge, as well as a fixed rent, a percentage of sales turnover to their tenants. Just something to consider.

[colonel_truman]

As the retail world moves more and more into internet selling platforms, what would be the consequences for the mall? Nowadays they´re having many problems due to the internet competition.
It looks like in caplab internet sales came first then the malls later

I like the idea nevertheless.

[brianwiz]

How about an additional building that you lease space and competitors can buy it?