Fix the new inventions problem

[gravyten577]

Made a post on this but would rather have it here because this is a big problem. I'm making more on stupid beds than I am on smart phones and tablet computers despite the fact that I have a monopoly on both.

In fact I can't figure out how to make any profit on my new inventions. The competition has much lower quality and selling for exactly $800, I am selling just under that. As you can see I have more of a market share for beds

I should add that the local competition quality is actually about 10 so my produce is far superior. My factory also has overwhelming supply so there shouldn't be any local competition at all. My profits were over 100 million before my new inventions and as you can see they fall under 100 mil

If a new patch could fix this would it apply to my current game? My save point is where the invention first is sold in my store and there is no local competition yet at my save point. Would be fun to be able to go for the rest of my game with it fixed

Thanks for any help

[gravyten577]

Posting this pic because it proves I was the first to invent it because no local competition existed when I first put it on sale. Also I shouldn't have a brand rating while my total sold quantity is 0. Also my factory is overflowed with supply so I should have a 100% share of the market. As can be seen I have a higher market share of beds

I am 100% sure there is no way for me to make a profit on this product, my factory is operating at a loss too. I even fast forwarded the game to get 90 so technology in it

[gravyten577]

This probably should have been put under technical support but whatever, here is the saved game and I dare anyone to try to make a profit on my two inventions

I will try setting the price to a penny but I doubt I would drive out local competition (despite factory overflowing with the product). This is definitely a technical issue but I'll just leave it here. I should have 100% market share

http://ge.tt/api/1/files/6ZgsMmz1/0/blob?download

[gravyten577]

I can't understand the City Average,if the market just one supply,such as tablet ,the average is mine.But...

Its because it is severely bugged

[counting]

This probably should have been put under technical support but whatever, here is the saved game and I dare anyone to try to make a profit on my two inventions

I will try setting the price to a penny but I doubt I would drive out local competition (despite factory overflowing with the product). This is definitely a technical issue but I'll just leave it here. I should have 100% market share

http://ge.tt/api/1/files/6ZgsMmz1/0/blob?download

Too easy... 300m for you, not even over half the market share over all. Smartphone alone has more than 200m profit. If you like, you can add more factories (or train to higher level), and more retail outlets, it's not difficult to breach 500m with higher market share (this can be your "homework", remember to be patient).

The trick is to take over market share slowly and steady. You don't need such high advertisement spending (0.5m/moth) from the very beginning (you could but need to be prepared for early loses), and obviously lots more supply and outlets (with right type of outlets, using computer stores, not electronic stores). When you tried to rush for large market share within months of new products on the market, obviously you had to pay for the cost and sacrifice over-all profit (the reason why you were not making a profit, your rating is 14 points higher than average, lots more profit can be made when rating gap is smaller and price way higher, see my save file).

And it is certainly not bugged. If I would say, new products are still overpowered. (It's possible to reach 1 billion revenue with pure new communication product class alone with this kind of 3 cities setup under monopoly)

P.S. the average is not the same as your product rating/quality is simply because there are blank market share not yours. And their quality and rating is 0 from the beginning and slowly rising up to normal level over years. You could say these blank share are those who like to have and planned to buy, but simply can not find an outlet. (Like those lined up in front of real life Apple store at new product lunches, but are told it's sold out in the middle of the line)

[gravyten577]

Ok I got it now, thanks. I need to add more retail outlets so my factory supply and demand is evened and then add factories for more retail outlets. And I will replace electronic stores with computer stores for smart phones

I guess I was just expecting massive profits right away like in real life and then for it to level off later

[counting]

I guess I was just expecting massive profits right away like in real life and then for it to level off later

In the real world business, instant massive profit for new product type isn't common (a product in the game is more like a series of product type within identifiable function, not particular product like iPad 6). Products with instant success and mass profit (short product life-cycle) usually have very simple or close-to-none development required (unlike most commercial electronics). For product shown here, there were earlier models of tablet computer already commercially available in 1990s, and they certainly did not generate massive profit back then. The fact Capitalism 2 game already included tablet computer as a product more than a decade ago, showed how "old" the familiar tablet computer concept we know nowadays is (IMO Apple iPad is not a "new product type" at the time it hit the market, it was market positioning reallocation). The product life-cycle of tablets began more than 2 decades ago, and probably still in Growth stage (or about to enter Maturity stage, but its market doesn't seem to be saturated yet).

Similar thing happened to "smartphone" (if you count PDA that has communication function as smartphone, it's even older than tablets). Even the defining features of touch screen isn't new at all (mostly just manufacturing procedures cost down and again re-marketing with re-positioning). Even the concept of general mobile device OSs like Android isn't new, as series of Microsoft Windows Mobile OS all the way back to Windows CE showed mobile communication devices that has computer-level processing power is already decades old. (However smarphone flied through Growth stage and entered Maturity rapidly, where individual smartphone products become outdated very quickly)

If you followed the trend of wearable devices, you would find that HUD-like devices (already included in Capitalism Lab) are commercially available for couple of years now in real life. It could be a major paradigm shift in the future for communication devices, but obviously still not generating massive profit at current Introduction stage with small early adapter customer market. The Growth stage of HUD-like produc is still to come (I would expect in the next decade if it really breaks through bigger customer base of early majority. However its future is not guaranteed, it might die out before reaching Growth stage. Lots of product concepts died out before took off)

[counting]

Ok I got it now, thanks. I need to add more retail outlets so my factory supply and demand is evened and then add factories for more retail outlets. And I will replace electronic stores with computer stores for smart phones

As for gaining massive profit in Capitalism Lab game quickly, it's still doable if you used the right "tricks". You can reference my strategy and tactics collections post, find those that are related to increase market share and try them out. Like using Freebie Grabber to get a large target customers and then return the price back to normal, similar to real-life product try-out and give-away when promoting products (you can also try this trick to normal product and see what the result would be. And if you like to know what this is about in real life, you can look up a term called "penetration pricing").

And although computer store has specialty to increase traffic index, but electronic store has higher "throughput" if it can be fully utilized. If find a location for electronic store that has the same traffic index close to computer store level (at least 60+, very rarely find it naturally with 90+), electronic stores can serve more customers quicker with less overhead in total. The reason why I said the "correct type is computer stores" is because cities generated in this save are not very well developed, very difficult to find good electronic store spots, and computer stores are more flexible for these two products if you want to scale up quickly. (If new products are communication class and photography class, then electronic store might be the choice early on, since they could share overhead)

I include a save below, you can check it out. I didn't add more factories right away, so the market in 2 of the cities are under-supplied at the end of Oct 2006. Another homework you could try is to get some loan from the bank and build factories right away to provide sufficient supply and get much more profit before the end of 2006.

[gravyten577]

Thanks for the info I will check it out later

I did make it past a billion in profits selling things like HUD glasses and the other electronic products. I had a ton of different kinds of products for sale because I purchased an investment corporation that owned over 80% of Beta group. I then had the investment corporation and Beta merge and then I merged with the investment corporation.

[counting]

This game has Capitalism in its title after all, so using merger sometimes really is the quickest way of gaining profittable assets . But remember, a lot of time it's maintaining what you get after merger is tricky.

And like I said in my strategies and tactics collection post, the big 3CE would never let you down