Capitalism 2 and Capitalism Lab Forum

Hi David,
I've encountered an issue with software. First off, let me make a few observations which I find weird:
- In a city where software isn't selling or has tapered off to near zero, opening a new store and selling the software there suddenly jump starts volume (even if the new store prices significantly higher than the old one), but only in the new store.
- Software sales seem to be cyclical and I can't work out when this triggers or why
- There seems no real rhyme or reason to why a consumer buys a particular software at a particular time; its almost like there is a random component in there, but in my mind bad software shouldn't really sell as well as good software, whatever the case.
- There are no local competitors on software and that negatively impacts the game balance imo.
- Because there is no real development or licensing cost, the profit margins for software are ridiculously high, but more importantly this influences pricing in a competitive situation; and if I'm not mistaken this has a knock on effect onto ecommerce sales which become somewhat disconnected (basically if a software sells well in a shop it should sell well online and vice versa).

Some screenshots to illustrate my point on weirdness:
[img][/img]

Essentially I am better in every department (and we're priced the same), yet his software sells like hot cakes and mine does not (even though I had outsold him in the past). I also write to more computers than he does and these are now selling better and his OS does not work on those. Still nothing budges. Can you explain where its going wrong ? What can I do to change this dynamic ? The only thing I can think of here is new releases, but if that new release is still massively inferior, why is it selling more ?

Hi Saffgee,

We will investigate the problems.

Could you please provide us with your save game file and let us know the following?
1) Which version of Capitalism Lab you are using. You can see the version number on the top-right of the main menu.
2) If your savegame uses a MOD, please let us know the name of the MOD and the MOD's version number.

You can find save game files of Capitalism Lab from:
C:\Users\<your user name>\Documents\My Games\Capitalism Lab Post-Release Beta\SAVE

You may provide us with your save game file by posting it here on the forum as a ZIP file attachment or emailing the save game file to us at info@enlight.com.

If your save game file is too large for attachment, you may check out this post about how to send us large files: https://www.enlight.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2473

Hi Saffgee,

- In a city where software isn't selling or has tapered off to near zero, opening a new store and selling the software there suddenly jump starts volume (even if the new store prices significantly higher than the old one), but only in the new store.

I think opening a new retail store, increasing your retail coverage, leads to new sales. This behavior applies to all types of products, not just software. You may do a test with other non-software products and see if there are any differences.

- Software sales seem to be cyclical and I can't work out when this triggers or why

That should be due to new releases. On the software sales graph, there are a few vertical yellow lines. Each of them denotes a new release.

- There seems no real rhyme or reason to why a consumer buys a particular software at a particular time; its almost like there is a random component in there, but in my mind bad software shouldn't really sell as well as good software, whatever the case.

Specifically, any example? Is below an example?

Essentially I am better in every department (and we're priced the same), yet his software sells like hot cakes and mine does not (even though I had outsold him in the past). I also write to more computers than he does and these are now selling better and his OS does not work on those. Still nothing budges. Can you explain where its going wrong ? What can I do to change this dynamic ? The only thing I can think of here is new releases, but if that new release is still massively inferior, why is it selling more ?

It seems that the large number of retail outlets that "Round Petal" has is the main reason why its OS software products outsell yours.

- There are no local competitors on software and that negatively impacts the game balance imo.
- Because there is no real development or licensing cost, the profit margins for software are ridiculously high, but more importantly this influences pricing in a competitive situation;

I would prefer to look at the "Products" page of your corporate detail report in your save game. It seems that the software products are not excessive profitable compared to other industries.

Software products have a slow start as the number of users owning a PC is still low in the beginning of the game. I think it is justified that software products should enjoy better profitabilities down the road, for being a characteristics distinctive from other non-software products. Personally, I think it will add some gameplay variety to the game. In real life, it is also more common to have the software products dominated by a handful companies and not having any credible local competitors, whereas in physical goods markets, local competitors tend to exist most of the time.

I think so long as the overall profit generated by all software products are not unreasonably high compared to other industries, it is acceptable to have a couple individual software products enjoying high profit margins due to lack of local competition.

and if I'm not mistaken this has a knock on effect onto ecommerce sales which become somewhat disconnected (basically if a software sells well in a shop it should sell well online and vice versa).

As for your comments on e-commerce, I am not sure if it is true. You may test it on more than one occasion, and see it always has the same sales pattern.

If you have any further questions or comments, please let me know.

Cheers,
David

I think opening a new retail store, increasing your retail coverage, leads to new sales. This behavior applies to all types of products, not just software. You may do a test with other non-software products and see if there are any differences.

This may well be the case, but I think my main point was why are my sales next to nothing in the first place ? If I design an amazing physical product (eg cat litter) and have a huge lead in tech, once I bring that to market it flies off the shelves regardless of how many stores the other guy has. Software doesn't do that.

That should be due to new releases. On the software sales graph, there are a few vertical yellow lines. Each of them denotes a new release.

This point seems fair enough and I had noticed the causality, but I wonder is it a little overdone potentially ? At one point he improved his product from 48 -> 51 (with a 45 brand) and all of a sudden outsells my 100 product with my 99 brand even though I was priced better. I find that bizarre given the mechanics I'm used to. Also, my product has access to a significantly greater user base (as it is compatible with more devices), but this seems to play no role in my sales at all. People won't buy software if it doesn't work on their computer I would think....

Specifically, any example? Is below an example?

In this case the one above is the example - why is the consumer suddenly buying an inferior product when a much better one is available. This wouldn't happen with other products given the same numbers. If I launch a crap product and don't take the price down to get a better rating I don't sell.

It seems that the large number of retail outlets that "Round Petal" has is the main reason why its OS software products outsell yours.

Again this could be, but that behaviour I see here is not consistent with the other products I make. I dominate the competition in the products I make because I sell those items only when I have superior tech and I can "clean up" with a couple of shopping malls or discount megastores, no need to clog up the cities with 100's of stores. On software nothing seems to move the needle. It simply does not work that way. If you're saying that only new releases and 100's of stores is the way forward on software, then I guess I will have to employ that strategy. However, same question as above, why is my superior rating not a game changer ? Also, as I said, my user base is higher and also more varied. On that note, I notice that our 2 user bases added together make up almost exactly the number of early computer users in existence - makes sense given that there are no local competitors, by that logic should I not have something like 23,5 million more users from my dominance in the desk computer & laptop market ? Where is that user community ?

I would prefer to look at the "Products" page of your corporate detail report in your save game. It seems that the software products are not excessive profitable compared to other industries.

Software products have a slow start as the number of users owning a PC is still low in the beginning of the game. I think it is justified that software products should enjoy better profitabilities down the road, for being a characteristics distinctive from other non-software products. Personally, I think it will add some gameplay variety to the game. In real life, it is also more common to have the software products dominated by a handful companies and not having any credible local competitors, whereas in physical goods markets, local competitors tend to exist most of the time.

I think so long as the overall profit generated by all software products are not unreasonably high compared to other industries, it is acceptable to have a couple individual software products enjoying high profit margins due to lack of local competition.

Sorry I should have explained that better. Excessively profitable vs it's real world product example is what I meant. The game can mirror the mechanics of using 3 (or 2) priced goods to create a 4th that has a base price derived from and based on those inputs, but software doesn't have those inputs or cost constraints and that sets it apart. My inputs are something like blu ray disc, polybox and the software itself to create the product. I forget what the vanilla inputs are but they are broadly similar. This gives it a cost base of about $1 because the software costs nothing to create say a CAD software that sells at $300, this is what I mean by excessively profitable. The consequences of that are:
- The AI (naturally it only sees $1 cost) tends to shred the price very quickly, almost to the verge of unprofitability which is some feat on those numbers, making it even more critical that the typical game mechanics bear out in this product line (ie best tech and brand wins).
- The online pricing gets messed up. I think I remember pricing my software so it would sell online, but that that then led to a constraint on the max price my AI buyers could sell at (the so called "price agreement"), which in turn meant that they tended not to buy it in the first place as the margins were too small. If I put the price up online, then it won't sell, as I assume it has to price competitively vs existing physical products. Also, its worth noting that according to your logic of why Round Petal is winning against me, if I were to sell my OS digitally online (ie straight from the software company), then surely it should sell like crazy as the store advantage doesn't exist in the digital world. Unfortunately it doesn't sell that way either.
I think what I'm trying to say is that the software mechanic actually helps to make software unprofitable in the long run due to the unreasonably large margins or low costs (due to the AI slashing prices) and slight changes to the established game mechanics (ie best brand and tech does not win). I think I agree in the spirit, but totally disagree in the flesh with what you say on "better profitabilities down the road". For me the current mechanic is the exact inverse - if you get in early you make money in software and lots of it. Getting into it late is a total dog and essentially a waste of money. If the product could somehow better reflect a cost of making it, that would help (eg. by adding a development cost and thus an area to compete). My thought on local competition was the same, in that simply adding it might help to unbalance the current mechanic a bit and create a different dynamic.

I'm not trying to be negative here, I just feel that given the behavioural proclivities of software in most of my games, at some point I more often than not prefer it not to be there, which is annoying because I think it should be. I'm just wondering if there might be a way using the existing game setup of a) making software feel more connected to the rest of the game and b) improving the overall choices and areas to compete available to software developers in terms of production and sales. I'm also fairly convinced that there is something wrong with the user base numbers in my game, but admittedly I may have broken this with my mod. It would be good to know if that is the case though...

Hi Saffgee, I would recommend that you use Software Revenue Index slider on the New Game Settings menu to change the revenue of software products to your liking.

The dev team is always open to suggestions for improving the gameplay balance. But since any changes to gameplay balance will affect all users, it is important that we handle that carefully and go through a process of community voting and discussions to make sure that any changes to gameplay balance will not have unintended negative consequences. So for those of your suggestions that you feel strongly that need to be taken care of, could you please set up polls on the Suggestions forum?