OFB - Shouldn't a business need to be profitable to be considered successful?

[Motoki]

As I'm getting more into this expansion, my fundamental problem with it is that the way it defines a successful business takes absolutely no account of profitability. A business could be losing lots of money, selling stuff cheap, paying employees out the wazoo and be completely in the red but be considered successful by the game and rewarded with perks. WTF?

Any established sim with lots of money could easily throw it all away to make people happy, but that's not running a business, that's charity. There's no challenge in doing that but there is a challenge to some degree to make a profit, even for a very wealthy sim. It takes strategy to hire enough employees to keep the business running but not so many as to drain profits, and to pay them enough for maximum efficiency and minimum expenditure and to price things enough to make them easy to sell well still turning a decent profit etc etc.

Unfortunately, the game doesn't give a rat's ass about this! All it cares about is how many customer loyalty stars you have. Hell, I've seen multiple posts from people who didn't even know how to put items for sale yet and that had a level 4 or 5 business still. Something is wrong with this picture. It makes no sense to me that a business that loses money or even doesn't actually SELL anything could be considered a successful business.

Overall, I do enjoy this expansion more than the others but I think they really screwed up on this aspect of it. Only measuring customer loyalty to consider a businesses success is way too simplistic and unrealistic. It also makes getting the perks too easy and no challenge for established sims.

[/soapbox]

[Li'l Brudder]

Hey man, lifes not about material values...

Lol, sorry, couldn't resist.

I totally agree.  Just because people like you doesn't mean you're sucessful.

[Mirelly]

You're talking my kinda language, motoki. I've sweated blood trying to get profit as well as all the game goodies ... 

[Motoki]

I have too! And when I figured out the profit didn't matter at all I felt cheated. What's the point? Why was I working so hard at it when I can just get the perks by giving everything away and overpaying a bunch of high level employees.   

[ThyGuy]

I'm getting quite sick of having to pay my emplyees retarded amounts so they don't just up and quit. I went motherlode to try and see if I could somehow make a profit, but ended up running out of money.

Oddly enough, I can make very decent profit off selling food, but since half of it keeps dissapearing when it's made; ; the chances of keeping a profit are low.

[MutantBunny]

So Maxis used themselves as a business model?

[Motoki]

So Maxis used themselves as a business model?

No, if they used themselves as a model it would be the reverse. Only profitability would matter and customer loyalty would not be taken into account at all. 

[sanmonroe]

The only reason that we think a company has to be profitable to be sucessfull is there are laws preventing many companies from selling at a loss in order to out-compete smaller companies.

There are several lawsuits right now against gas stations that have been offering special incentive plans in an attempt to get around the law that drop the price below the legal mandate.

The reason for the laws was simple, and is exactly what the tactic in OFB is.

Someone with huge backing (private or large corp) opens up and sells services or items far below cost. They suffer large net losses, but they can absorb the loss. In the process the smaller companies, whose prices may be as much as double the big corp lose customers and go bankrupt. The big corp just earned a monopoly in the area for one service, a huge customer base, and can then raise prices to normal and reverse the losses.

Its an extreme Wal-Mart tactic. The only reason that Wal-Mart doesn't do that completely is legal limits, they have to resort to other manipulations in addition to smaller versions of this to take over an area.

[Motoki]

I'm not arguing this for real life      I just mean the point of a business is or should be, to make money. And if you want to nitpick and split hairs over whether this is or not the case, let me put it to you this way, it makes the game more of a challenge to play that way. :p And poor sims just starting out really NEED to play that way. They don't have a choice. This gives the rich established ones and advantage. And yes I know money always gives people an advantage, but I think the game would be more challenging if it was on a level playing field.

I suppose we could send out sims to work to volunteer or pay money to their employer to let them work too, but that doesn't make a whole lot of sense since the point is kind of to earn.

Anyway, to be clear, I wasn't making an existential philosphical debate here, but an observation of the game play. I think it would be better if it took multiple factors into account instead of just one. It's too simplistic and too easy to exploit.

[Sagana]

So the game is keeping track of cash flow on that screen (tho I'm not sure where it's getting the starting numbers), but not doing anything with it? As long as you've cash on hand, it doesn't stop you from getting stock or whatever, but you can see if the company is in the red... I think? As it seems to be tracking something, maybe one of the hackers can make that count towards a business score?

[sanmonroe]

The tracking only works on comm lots. At home it tracks everything you bring in or spend, from ordering groceries, to losing a poker game.

[Sagana]

What a mess sim taxes must be. 'But I tell ya Mr. Irssim, these groceries are a business expense! The cucumbers and lettuce are for facials and the hamburger is for... uh, black eyes, yeah.'

Does the game do anything with the tracking it does on community lots?

[Pegasys]

As I'm getting more into this expansion, my fundamental problem with it is that the way it defines a successful business takes absolutely no account of profitability. A business could be losing lots of money, selling stuff cheap, paying employees out the wazoo and be completely in the red but be considered successful by the game and rewarded with perks. WTF?

Overall, I do enjoy this expansion more than the others but I think they really screwed up on this aspect of it. Only measuring customer loyalty to consider a businesses success is way too simplistic and unrealistic. It also makes getting the perks too easy and no challenge for established sims.

[/soapbox]

I agree, Motoki, and it is my personal goal to make my businesses profitable, even moreso than business ranking. From the customer's viewpoint, however, profitability doesn't matter for loyalty, as they would have no idea whether the business is profitable or not. Think about it, if you were filthy rich, you could open up a coffee shop, have great customer loyalty, get positive reviews, and no one would care that it was bleeding money. Perhaps this is closer to real life than not.

I think it should come into play though when considering selling a business (how can you sell a business that is losing money? Don't investors usually take that into account?)

[Wolfee]

I agree Motoki, this is wierd how this game goes. My business has made it to rank 9 and I'm still trying to figure out the game. This makes no sense, I am making a small profit but still, I don't deserve a rank of 9.

As far as I can see my rank goes up chiefly because I have my Sims greet,chat them up and show them around, plus I have a hot tub and a piano which the customers really like. I get really high marks when a Sim makes out with another . Well, at least I'm charging them for doing that  Whoa, wait a minute, I think this means I'm running a brothel      .

[ZephyrZodiac]

Personally, I think maybe home businesses should only be allowed to be run by sims who don't have a community lot, usually because they can't afford one yet.  And if the rules of the game changed a bit, so that only one adult/teen or elder on the lot was allowed to take paid employment, profitablility would be far more important.  And I really think the paying to enter the lot is stupid, unless you are running a night-club or gambling club or maybe a gym, health spa etc.  Do you pay to go into the supermarket?  I know I don't, and if they were set on charging me before I went in, and then kept charging me every hour, I'd tell them where they could stick their groceries!

But from now on, I think I'm going to use Inge's paytoilet and paybuffet - I'm sick of having to feed the whole darn lot of them because you want your sim to cook for the kids!

[Sagana]

I'm sick of having to feed the whole darn lot of them because you want your sim to cook for the kids!

Just lock the doors to the family areas. I think it's very funny that the way that works looks so similar to Inge's doors.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Unfortunately at present there just isn't room to do that!  These sims are poor!

I think I have to take some time out and build my own "over the shop" type starter homes!

[J. M. Pescado]

As I'm getting more into this expansion, my fundamental problem with it is that the way it defines a successful business takes absolutely no account of profitability. A business could be losing lots of money, selling stuff cheap, paying employees out the wazoo and be completely in the red but be considered successful by the game and rewarded with perks. WTF?

Well, some perks implicitly assume that a starting business will operate at an initial loss until you get those perks. In fact, in real life, many starting businesses begin at a loss and only become profitable once they're established and have some level of recognition.

Any established sim with lots of money could easily throw it all away to make people happy, but that's not running a business, that's charity. There's no challenge in doing that but there is a challenge to some degree to make a profit, even for a very wealthy sim. It takes strategy to hire enough employees to keep the business running but not so many as to drain profits, and to pay them enough for maximum efficiency and minimum expenditure and to price things enough to make them easy to sell well still turning a decent profit etc etc.

Well, yes, if you want to make any MONEY out of it, sure. Even a deep well runs dry eventually. At some point your business is going to be faced with having to make money SOMEWHERE.

Unfortunately, the game doesn't give a rat's ass about this! All it cares about is how many customer loyalty stars you have. Hell, I've seen multiple posts from people who didn't even know how to put items for sale yet and that had a level 4 or 5 business still. Something is wrong with this picture. It makes no sense to me that a business that loses money or even doesn't actually SELL anything could be considered a successful business.

Seems realistic to me. Look at TSR. They don't sell anything, but they're taking in millions of dollars a year.

Overall, I do enjoy this expansion more than the others but I think they really screwed up on this aspect of it. Only measuring customer loyalty to consider a businesses success is way too simplistic and unrealistic. It also makes getting the perks too easy and no challenge for established sims.[/soapbox]

Realistically, if you're a private business not required to post profit/loss summaries for your nonexistent shareholder, your customers have no way of knowing that you're losing money. If they LIKE your business, *THEY* think it's a success, and that's what matters to them. The problem with tracking whether or not your sim is posting a profit on a business is kinda vague because on a business, any cash into or out of the business is considered profit/loss. Meaning if you consistently reinvest your profits back into upgrading your business, you will probably be constantly running at what the game perceives as a loss, and conversely, if you have sources of side income, such as retaining your day job, the money you earn doing that posts itself as profit in any home business.

[Jysudo]

Pescado, are you sure that TSR is raking in MILLONS? Although they have thousands of subscribers  but the sims is still a small community compared to the vast world of the internet. Although they are getting paid for nothing (as in the creations don't cost $ to buy), they still have full time staff, need to pay some FAs, have a lot of servers blah blah... millions is like a  bit exaggerated? 

Motoki, I am with you. Biz is about making a profit. So why don't you just play ur game the way its supposed to be? That's what I do. I practically sell out the whole shop in a day but my ranking is only level 6. Those sims are there for me to wring money not to play pool or hang out 

But since I sell 'cheap' stuff like flowers , I don't make $50,000-$100,000 a day (someone on TSR claim they make that kind of money) although I sell my stuff at 'ridiculously expensive'. having 2 handsome sims and the 'dazzle' technique helps a lot. And because I do so much selling, I am seriously microhandling all my sims. That means hundreds of clicks for every action and turning off free will (super tiring if you ask me).

[J. M. Pescado]

Pescado, are you sure that TSR is raking in MILLONS? Although they have thousands of subscribers  but the sims is still a small community compared to the vast world of the internet. Although they are getting paid for nothing (as in the creations don't cost $ to buy), they still have full time staff, need to pay some FAs, have a lot of servers blah blah... millions is like a  bit exaggerated? 

'fraid not. TSR has a million listed members. They demand $43/yr. That's a maximum potential of $43M a year. Assuming only 10% of those subscriptions are active yields $4.3M/yr. Even at 1%, that's a not-inconsiderable $430K/yr.

And this does not include advertising revenues. MTS2's monthy ad-and-donation revenue is about $3.5K. MTS2's userbase is about a quarter the size, so TSR's advertising revenue can be roughly estimated at $14K monthly, or about $168K/yr.

So, TSR is literally, yes, making millions. Server and bandwidth costs don't even measure up to on the same order of magnitude and can be considered a negligible sum. Few if any of their content producers are paid, and of those that are, they receive negligible sums of money.

This means the rest of these millions disappears into their pockets. Or into the pockets of the nearest Porsche and Ferrari dealers. Same idea. So no, "millions" is not exaggerated.

[Jysudo]

I think most cheapies like me only sign up for 2 months sub. I doubt many have money to throw on one year sub.
I thought MTS2 need to pay at least $1.5k a month (Delphy told some simming magazine in some interview somewhere , i think) for their servers and bandwidth (. that means TSR should be at least $6k onwards. $6k x 12 = $72k (not neglible if you ask me?) And they have those big forums threads to maintain and their downloads.

I know they don't pay the mods. One mod told me that (I was a bit shocked she volunteer to Walmart and didn't expect to get paid ) so that's one sum less.

Maybe a profit of $1million sounds reasonable but Millions? 

Anyway, I do think TSR is a pretty powerful machine. Not everyone can get paid for creating nothing (which is just what they did).

Not starting an agrument here but just want to find out more about TSR's costs and revenue (which I have to say I have no idea of but only that US$8.95 for 2 months for everything (although some are crap) is still a pretty good deal).

[ZephyrZodiac]

Not being funny, but if they are charging that kind of money, then they should weed out the crap first!

Also, let's say I buy a donation set from 4ESF2.  Something in that set is faulty.  I e-mail Carola and tell her.  She puts it right straight away.  She also does the same with free sets - I know, because it happened withe one of her early sets, and she took action at once.  Now, if you email TSR about a faulty download you get no response WHATSOEVER, and that has been the same since Sims1.  OK, you can post on the forum, but why should you have to weed through everything there to find out if anyone else has had the problem?  They are in business, and they should reply to customers' e-mails!  Otherwise, what's the point of having the facility to "Contact" them available on the site?

[J. M. Pescado]

I think most cheapies like me only sign up for 2 months sub. I doubt many have money to throw on one year sub.

That actually works out better, since per-2-month sub rate is at a higher per-month rate than the per-year rate. Which means people have to sign up more often, which means a larger pool of "active" subscriptions, and that results in an even higher profit.

I thought MTS2 need to pay at least $1.5k a month (Delphy told some simming magazine in some interview somewhere , i think) for their servers and bandwidth (. that means TSR should be at least $6k onwards. $6k x 12 = $72k (not neglible if you ask me?) And they have those big forums threads to maintain and their downloads.

Even assuming bandwidth costs were that high, which I am very skeptical of, that's still not on the same order of magnitude as any of the calculated revenue streams.

Bottom line: Yes, they DO make that much money!

And the idea that they *PAY* their staff is absurd: That's not really payment, that's division of the plunder. It can't rightly be considered a site expense because moderators are free.

[Jysudo]

And the idea that they *PAY* their staff is absurd: That's not really payment, that's division of the plunder. It can't rightly be considered a site expense because moderators are free.

They don't pay the mods but they need to pay the team maintaining the servers? I am not sure if they actually have a team but with a site that big, they shld be having some full time staff.
Sometimes, I wonder what the mods get for their time but of course, I didn't dare to ask 

Not being funny, but if they are charging that kind of money, then they should weed out the crap first!

Also, let's say I buy a donation set from 4ESF2.  Something in that set is faulty.  I e-mail Carola and tell her.  She puts it right straight away.  She also does the same with free sets - I know, because it happened withe one of her early sets, and she took action at once.  Now, if you email TSR about a faulty download you get no response WHATSOEVER, and that has been the same since Sims1.  OK, you can post on the forum, but why should you have to weed through everything there to find out if anyone else has had the problem?  They are in business, and they should reply to customers' e-mails!  Otherwise, what's the point of having the facility to "Contact" them available on the site?

zz, of course you are not being funny. I think you are right. They should do some quality control. I am sick of weeding through hundreds of pages of crap to get one good object. TSR customer service have responded to me (but after a long time). I don't know why they never respond to you though. Perhaps I have the support of a FA that's why. I complain privately via the email that one of FA's downloads set is not working. They never responded so I posted publicly and volia, FA appear and do her best to get them to correct it. It took about 1 week odd to get the download right again. (they were upgrading site at that time and that was the excuse for slow response).



Anyway, I am not spending money at TSR anymore. I don't have that kind of money to throw everytime.

[lordrichter]

I'm still learning how to get the customers to actually purchase something.

I have a sales shop (baked goods) on a commercial site, no employees, and the owner and family have, after day 2, reached a rank of 3.  The two main family members have a bronze sales badge from the constant "Sell-Basic sell" that they do.

The customers will stay all day, and will go through the entire purchasing cycle, sometimes 2 or 3 times, without purchasing anything. 

All my expensive stuff is marked "Average" and I use "Cheap" quite a bit, with "Very Cheap" on a few items.  After spending all day with these customers, one of them may purchase something, usually an "Average" or "Cheap" item.  Occasionally a "Very Cheap" item, particularly if I bring it to their attention.

I tend towards one sale per 10 hours and have to constantly babysit the customers.  Needless to say, it takes close to 30 minutes to ring up a sale because the owner and family only get the use the cash register once.

I think part of my problem is that I did not install Blue Village (and the townies that go with it) and months of not regenerating townies has limited my customer base to playable sims only.

However, if one of my non-owner playable sims visits the business as a customer, the poor owner will have 5 customers with 3 waiting in line at the cash register within minutes.

So, I have determined that the best way to build rank is to play the lot and the best way to build profit is to visit the lot.

By the way, it is a nice advantage to have the business on a separate lot.  With a large family, each family member can take turns running the store on the same day at the same time and I can get 2 or 3 store days into a single residential lot day.