Any tips ?

[Almasy]

I always end with bankrupcy, but I think I am doing somthing wrong... My movies at the begginign are always bad and I loose money with them all the time. What are your tips ?

[Danikov]

Any staff with recurring salary, you're probably worth firing most of them left over from the previous studio, some of them are pulling $50k a cycle when you can have someone average for $1k and those costs add up.

Fill your screenwriting room, good screenwriters are hard to find and take a long time to grow, plus you want a steady stream of scripts so you can pick and make the better ones. When a great script lands on your desk, you can do 1-3 picture deals with the top talent to get it made rather than having them sitting around uselessly on yearly contracts.

If you have a good movie on your hands, make sure you go wider than just your own theatres and make sure you do plenty of advertising in advance., taper off the use of extra theatres to try and match the decline in viewership and always use the last 4 weeks in only your own theatres as a way to squeeze the last drops out of a run. Don't release more than one film at once as you'll compete with yourself, instead try to run them back to back.

You don't have to advance each stage when it completes. It can be worthwhile holding onto a blockbuster to release it on a holiday, or putting off post-production until your A-team editor and composer are ready. That said, cheap movies can still be profitable and are worth valuable experience to your crew; try to match the level of the script/film with the level of the staff you're using to make it and don't be afraid to pump crappy movies that you hold in reserve to drop between bigger titles to keep your seats filled and making money. And nothing stops you from having 3x productions on the go in parallel, sometimes you can profit from sheer volume as long as everything is making some money.

Biggest thing, though, seems to be managing happiness, unhappy people seem to tank the quality of a film. This means giving people holidays when they ask for them, making choices that treat their happiness as precious, and buying loads of watches and cigars from the service building to keep people in the green as much as possible. I also steer away from negative traits like addiction or anger, they seem too volatile for the person themselves, they can sabotage the happiness others with their drama and productions in the process, and it makes certain gifts more dangerous and volatile too. Only stars can really get away with having the whole thing revolve around their foibles.

[Strifeboy]

How about getting new tech for filming? Not sure how to buy or get them when they appear.

[the marten ever]

Originally posted by Strifeboy:

How about getting new tech for filming? Not sure how to buy or get them when they appear.

I'm a day late but you'll need the technical support office upgrade in pre-production building!

[Goliathus]

I plan to write a full guide on "surefire way to survive early game" but here are some short tips:

0. Treat this like a math game
All tycoon sim games are ultimately number-based "excel sheets with graphic". If you just want to "win" without caring about other things like immersion and etc, always look for ways to "win in numbers". Stop thinking about emotional-driven goals like "Imma make my own stars", "Imma make the movie I want to make with all the weird themes!" at first and play the number. After you are rich, you can do whatever you want but you play the number to survive at first!

1. Find an A-team as soon as possible
The salary needed for high stars talents VS the potential profit they can generate is completely lopsided in your favor. Hence, the first step to survival is to find an A-team composes of 7+ stars talent. They are helpful to maintain your script quality despite the low tech and low production value in the beginning.

Check the labor market every 2-3 months and look for new or released, established talents. Always sign them for 3 years deal, it's the most cost-efficient choice. Always give them things like insurance and gift so you cut down their salary. Salary costs more than those things anyway.

For instance, I found a 9.5 stars actress on 1929 July 29. She only asks for 241K over 3 years. She can easily make millions for me in one single film. Meanwhile, there's a 4.3 stars actress asking for 91.3k over 3 years and she is probably losing me money every movie. 241K earning me millions VS 91.3k losing me money. Think with numbers in mind and you will realize that forming an A-team right away is easy on the money and is straight up winning.

2. Think like an indie filmmaker
Don't start with fancy adventure movies shot on actual wild. Do boring city-based films that you can do with a soundroom. They are low on cost and can be filmed faster than your fancy action-adventure films and they will get the same amount of crowd into theater as well. Irene Dunne draws like John Wayne except her films take you less time and money to make. In terms of min-maxing, that's the optimum (albeit boring) way to play.

3. Rush the best upgrades
In term of min-maxing, there's a certain path you should take:

HR: Rush service center (gifts are easy way to boost happiness)
Finance: Rush $500 cash (so you have more options when it comes to events)
Distribution center: Rush ads center (you need ads to earn money, no way around it) THEN theater center (buying theater is OP and critical to early survival)
Pre-production: Rush Casting office (so you can assemble the avengers -- I mean, the A-team asap)
Script office: Optional but feel free to rush freelancer script writer (so you can buy high star scripts early on to feed to your A team)

4. Hard-level your script writers with story writer (It doesn't matter how you play, you need a full team of them!)
After you unlock the story writing office, hire the cheapest scriptwriters up to 7 (the max you can get without penalties). Don't worry about their low stars, scriptwriters are the easiest to level up so just pick the cheapest and work them like some mules.

After recruiting them, spam storyboard scripts with them. Why do storyboards instead of other options? because storyboard scripts have the fastest writing time (55-60 days) vs other things like "inspiration" (90-100+ days to write). For your 1 star crappy scriptwriters, you are not expecting them to produce scripts you will use, you are just asking them to write and write and write so they will become the Stephen King of scriptwriting after 5 years. That's why we chose the fastest option so they can write more and gain the highest exp in the shortest time ever.

You will be doing a lot of storyboard plot setup so just go with fast and easy -- I put a single number as script name like 1, 3, or 0. 1 genre, random setting. Not sure if the script's synergy affect the scriptwriter's EXP rate so I just play safe and go with boring-but-sure combo like 100% adventure + adventurer protagonist + Roman Reigns -- I mean... the tribal chief + Rival + treasure hunting + protagonist gets treasure OR other obvious-as-heck starting synergies you can find. I am sure everyone of you are smart enough to pick the right starting combos.

-- If you want to use your own script, have 1-2 best scriptwriters write "serious scripts" that you will use. Otherwise, just buy high star scripts from the market. The biggest pro of using your own script is that you have complete freedom as to what gender and what role you want your actors to appear in.
-- The other 5 you let them do stereotypical storyboard script and say "good job dude", throw those scripts away, and tell them to work on the next one. By throwing those scripts away, I do delete them so my script storage aren't loaded with 100 pieces of crap.
-- Some of the scriptwriters will have 2-3 stars max potential. If so, just fire them after maxing out and look for new 1 star scriptwriter to train. Some of them are bound to have Stephen King potential, you just gotta dig them up and train them again and again to find out.
-- Be prepared to be sick of having to do multiple storyboard scripts every 55-60 days. It's a small price to pay for long-term success.

After you train up your Seven Samurai -- I mean, your Seven Godly Writers, you can use them to spam a lot of good scripts at once OR use them to get a lot of story elements early on so you can have fun writing the scripts with all kinds of elements and enjoy the creative process. The success rate of getting a new story element is tied to their star which is why you need to remove the 2-3 max potential guys and look for better writers. Even if you don't care about writing your own high star scripts, you want them as your "element researchers".

5. Clear the expensive useless
A lot of your starting staffs you have are too expensive for their talent. I keep those with a year-based contract because I am not sure if firing them save any money. I see there's a research that is about saving cost from early cut so I assume if I fire these dudes I still pay the full contract without said upgrade. Thus, actors, directors, and etc, I just keep. I wouldn't re-sign a lot of them after 1931 though.

For immediate firing, I always cut my whole post-production team. 3.7 stars and 13.6k per month? No thank you. Happily taking the 1.8 stars lady with $300 and train her up. Just take the rating penalty for a few films, you will still be earning money anyway. Also, you will be taking penalties with 3.7 stars anyway, so screw paying 12K more for "slightly less penalties". As I said, maximize the number.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Now that you have most things set up, it's time to make sure-win movies.

6. Gather all your A-team to do 1 movie on every cycle
Always stick your whole A team together. It's a boring formula but it will work every time -- and that's how most of these sim tycoon games go anyway. Find the formula and loop it a million time for guaranteed result.

7. Buy more theaters every cycle.
Owning a lot of your own theaters is essential the difference between making a lot of money or go bankruptcy in the current version of the game. Buying a lot of theaters is "stupidly OP" (as in, it's stupid to not buy them because they are way too good). It's the biggest "number maker" in the game for many reasons:

-- The monthly theater maintenance fee is so much lower than the distribution fee to get a movie up on a neutral theater. Huge advantage in number min-maxing for owning as many of them as possible.
-- Even with just a 6-7 rating film, you will be filling up a ton more showing than your initial theater count so you should buy asap to get most out of your film. This cuts down your "distribution cost per film" by a lot.
-- It's free to release your own film in your theater. We might as well be playing theater tycoon at this point!

You don't have to buy all the theaters at once. Just buy some before your A-team film every cycle so you earn more and have more money to buy more theaters on the next cycle.

[Starshine]

I just focused on one kind of movie, detective, so got one writer lots of xp, and did per movie not annual contracts for the best actors/etc i could afford for them
A team dectives high score
B team whatever is needed for quests who cares about score, always have two movies on the go.

also i ignored sets entirely and went for locations only, dont know if that was a major factor or not in my success

[Almasy]

I did that too, hire for a movie rather than a year, but it is worth it better ?

[Goliathus]

Originally posted by Almasy:

I did that too, hire for a movie rather than a year, but it is worth it better ?

Year-based contract is better if you use the personnel a lot. I would only do "a movie" deal if you only want the personnel temporary.

Look at the math: If I make 12 movies with the same actors in 3 years, clearly the 3 year deal is cheaper than "a movie deal" x12 times. OR 4x "3 movies deal".

This is moreso because the personnel's price is going to be higher after he/she earns exp and have higher skill level after the first deal. Like it's a "salary increase" after every 3 movies VS "no salary increase at all in the next 3 years".

[Pedroig]

Originally posted by Goliathus:

Originally posted by Almasy:

I did that too, hire for a movie rather than a year, but it is worth it better ?

Year-based contract is better if you use the personnel a lot. I would only do "a movie" deal if you only want the personnel temporary.

Look at the math: If I make 12 movies with the same actors in 3 years, clearly the 3 year deal is cheaper than "a movie deal" x12 times. OR 4x "3 movies deal".

This is moreso because the personnel's price is going to be higher after he/she earns exp and have higher skill level after the first deal.

Until 1932 or so it is almost always better to do per movie deals. Here is why:

1) Do a one movie deal with a "big name".
2) Make sure they are as happy and loyal as you can do at the early stage of the game before they want to renegotiate.
3) Do not renegotiate right away.
4) Wait until after the movie they were in is archived.
5) Now with the "successful collaboration" bonus giving a 10% discount AND their base price will be cheaper due to increased reputation, AND they will offer a smaller multiplier to their base on longer contracts. Also get loyalty bonus as well. Loyalty and Happiness are static while not at the studio.

So it ends up cheaper in the long run to do so, plus one can use the medical coverage as a small discount as well. The other studios won't hire the free actors until 1932.

Also, doing much more than 2 movies a year with pre-production people has a malus to their happiness. And until one can afford medium landscaping and production services, it is hard to keep folks happy even with semi-annual gifts.

[fedostio]

Increase ticket prices
buy theaters

[Mark]

Make a mix of 3, 5, 8 star movies.
Gets everyone at 3,5,8 levels to skill up.

Try lower cost topics:
Detective, thriller, romance that does not need costs with locations and prop like work.
Have cast and crew who can do 4, 6, 8 level work..working.
Then when ready buy the cinemas.. have a few million in cash ready for that. Get as many as possible, to show movies for free and over a longer time.

10000, 5000, 50000 in $ profits for free in own locations as weeks and weeks per movie as extra free weeks... adds up over the 1930s.

But it needs that buy in of a lot of cinema locations to be ready.
Have a few million ready.

Happy staff, gifts, 8 hour work days.. keep workers happy and working and getting skills.
Even at 4, 6, 8 levels.
Write own scripts...
Detective, romance, thriller... can get a 6 to 9 ready content. quick and as a constant quality of teams to work on.

[HeartFoam]

The first script I wrote -- the tutorialised one, where you have to tell a writer in the department to write a script from one of the ideas -- came out at 0.0/0.0. I produced it anyway. It released at 2.4/2.4. It made $760,646.

That's the worst script, at the worst time of the game. I don't understand how people lose money.

[kujopett]

A few things I found helpful.

Firstly dont worry about going bankrupt.....it might not be your fault, as the devs are still trying to find the right balance. and have decreased some operating costs to address the high bankruptcy rates. remember its still very early access.

First, dont sign stars on 1 to 3 year contracts, hire them for 1 or 3 movies depending on your budget. especially early on this really helps.

Try and get your own studio production costs down by developing your own printing and studios.

Not every script has to be 9's, ive had low budget movies scrimping on everything with 3/4 star ratings make me a couple millions in profits.

be selective in casting. try to match the theme of your script,

if you have good scripts dont waste low rated staff on them, better to use poor scripts 2/3 stars with better actors that increase the script by their own talents.

If your still struggling, then you can always try "WE Mod" trainer, its free and has cheats that can speed up your research techs or give you unlimited funds, or experience.
If you do use We Mod, just disable it before trying to launch a movie at the cinema as it bugs the game and youl get no money when the speed up is activated.

you dont always have to use all your script options, sometimes a very simple script 2 characters and a couple of locations when filming can get good profits,

Dont need to spend big money hiring big star actors early game, same with scripts, dont waste money buying them, or hiring very expensive free lance writers, keep them for when you can afford it, just keep getting your team to write trash, remember you can bin scripts they dont all have to get published. (on that note, the ability to sell your spare scripts would be nice)

Lastly always remember to scale your cinema renting down. 1st week should always be highest, then by third week and 4th you should be 1k and 1.5k less as the audience attendance declines.

I also seen someone claim they made 77 million by letting a movie run for over 900 days, I tried this a few hrs ago on a not profitable film and just kept it in my own cinemas showing 1k screenings and 150 rentals from others. so dont be too quick to archive a movie, remember you own your own cinemas, so you can run the movie there for free almost and just stop paying to rent other studios, once your movies had its main 4 week run.

[greifental]

Originally posted by HeartFoam:

I don't understand how people lose money.

I think the same way I got bankcrupt in my first run: Producing too many and too expensive movies at the same time while the revenue of the current distributed movie comes in too late.

The right distribution and advertising is often a bottleneck aswell. That needs some testing and experience at first until you get a feeling for it.