I believe the crunchiest business sim out there is Wall Street Raider. Mike Jenkins has been making it for something like 29 years and has just released what he says is likely the last update (which I have not purchased because I don’t care too much for the headliner changes). I have been toying with the idea of doing a Let’s Play (in the old sense) with the forum here acting as something of a Board of Directors for the purposes of making biz decisions in the game. It’s a pretty high-level game; you’re not making product decisions or anything but changing management, deciding how much to put in R&D, investing in other companies, etc. Jenkins is a former tax attorney and accountant, and he also wrote a bunch of small biz books, so he knows his stuff professionally.
A-Train All Aboard Tourism despite its cartoony exterior contains a pretty hardcore simulation of running a Japanese train company and associated subsidiaries.
With a GUI that looks like that, you know it has to be a serious business simulation game. Move over Capitalism, we have a new champion in town apparently.
If you want to get a small taste of the level of detail in the simulation, consider this excerpt from the latest patch notes:
In previous versions, when you wished to do an interest rate swap (if a counterparty could be found), the sim searched only for companies with a solid credit rating and no existing swap agreements. In this version, the search for a counterparty will include companies that have only one interest rate swap in effect, if the second one will be an opposite position. For example, if Company XYZ already has a short position in an interest rate swap, it could become a counterparty in a swap where it becomes the long party; and vice versa.
I did download it and fire it up. It looks like a very detailed stock market simulation. (Actually, it looks like crap). But, I was looking for business sim, not a stock market sim. I play the stock market game in real life. But maybe I’m missing something?
It’s not really buying and selling stock, although you can of course sell your percentages on the open market, it’s getting control of companies and setting their agendas.
I tried the demo, and was pretty underwhelmed. It’s a lot like capitalism lab, but instead of factories and stories you have tinkering benches, assembly benches etc.
In another 6 months, if it goes on sale I may give it another shot.
Word is spreading through different channels about ongoing layoffs at Unity that are impacting hundreds of employees about the globe. In the last 24 hours, Unity employees have apparently confirmed word of layoffs on anonymous tech discussion platform Blind, and also in anonymous accounts shared with Kotaku.
The layoffs are reportedly focused in the AI and Engineering divisions, and are apparently still ongoing. Workers have described being pulled into 1-on-1 Zoom meetings with managers or human resources employees, who then shared the bad news.
Unity is apparently promising to pay workers for a month after their layoff, and will offer a further month of severance pay and COBA health coverage beyond that.
Workers posting on Blind and speaking to Kotaku expressed frustration at recent comments from CEO John Riccitiello, who allegedly asserted that the company was not in any financial trouble and would not be laying off anyone any time soon.
I think you want the serious business of making games, unless you want to talk about John Riccitiello Simulator, the game where you buy studios with your private equity firm and sell them to your other company at a 300% markup.
As someone who has worked under John Riccitiello in the distant past, I’d say this is par for the course. How a dude who ran Sara Lee’s baked goods business ended up running EA is still a wonder.
