Games developed by Stardock Entertainment, Inc.
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Business Tycoon
You may have played 'corporate empire games' before, such as 'Detroit' or 'Motor City' for cars or 'Air Bucks' for aviation industries. Unlike them, this game focuses only on the business aspect following the military style: 'Risk' or 'Centurion: Defender of Rome', without the battle sequences or practical product testing.
Business Tycoon is an update of the original 'Entrepreneur' game that goes beyond the single industry of 'computers' to include 'airplanes' and 'automobiles' in a more refined and less cluttered interface. Players can choose an industry and area of specialization between marketing and manufacturing, doubling their production or engineering for faster research. Up to seven computer-controlled opponents, each with their own artificial intelligence, or against a friend on Stardock's IPX LAN and Internet game server.
The game starts in the infancy of your industry, and witnesses the evolution of technology. The map view shows your initial region, where you branch out to neighboring countries by researching them to open new markets. A series of demographics highlighting each region with different colors illustrate exactly the market share, sales, distribution and penetration level of the leader. You can also set up new distribution centers, sites and send a salesperson or a marketing campaign to any available region. It is useful to improve your domain.
Your main site contains a small factory and a sales office; these can be expanded to increase production. Other buildings you can build are: the 'Research Center' for advanced technologies for cheaper and more reliable products; the 'Marketing Office' to help increase brand awareness and market perception, covering press, radio and TV; the 'Training Office' to increase factory efficiency and, in the long run, reduce costs; and the 'Staff Cafeteria' to improve staff morale. All of these require staff allocation and a share of the gross revenue.
Most things are done internally with little intervention. Research projects need to be initialed and are appointed in any order, as long as they are selectable, as the more engineers employed the faster they are completed. The factory runs itself after hiring workers, with no need to order or source parts for assembly. Products are sold directly to the market. Sales statistics allow the price of the products to be changed, and gives a view of the number of units according to the number of workers in the factory, being: produced, sold or stocked in inventory to the demand for its products.
Future world events occur through 'direct action cards' usable for improving labor, marketing, research resources or subway deals have destructive consequences for your opponents, such as strikes or driving competitors' products off the shelves, political bonuses in the form of government subsidies to unfair favors. Humor takes some of the seriousness out of the game and adds another dimension. Jokes about monkeys are quite common.
To win the game, you have to strike the right balance between price and performance with the largest market share to outperform your opponents. The best product need not win if the price is too high or production is insufficient to meet demand.
The next game in the series is 'The Corporate Machine'.
