Is anyone making money in this game?

[ploppo]

I had a quick go yesterday and found that making money was a non-starter for me.


I am currently playing the Missions - currently in Bootcamp Woods - I noticed that my parks seem to struggle to make any money at all.

The rides are all breaking down and the mechanics seem useless to resolve things - even with their patrol zones.

Isn't the whole point of a theme park to make money? This pre-built park has 6 rides - as part of the tutorial mission, I added 2 food stalls and 2 souvenir shops.

I've pushed everything up by 1$ - there's no money to be made. If I push prices up further then surely Peeps will decide stuff is too expensive.

[ploppo]

Wait a minute!!!

The rides keep breaking down after 1 use by peeps.

Anyone else seeing rides breaking down all the time?

Basically, my mechanic fixes the teacups ride - a bunch of people use it - it breaks down - he fixes it again - rinse and repeat.

[ploppo]

I'm now stuck in the stinking tutorial mission.

I passed the mission - but opted to continue playing (because it gave me that choice) - I was trying to just max it a bit further.

Now I am stuck there - I can't exit the tutorial mission - the game hangs if I try and quit to the main menu.

The next time I get the option to continue playing I am going to dodge that option.

What's so hard about quitting to main menu?

[Lv1 Magikarp]

Start cranking the prices up on your rides, stores and park entrance. You soon start making money pretty fast.

[Lord Bono]

Atari is making money with this game.

[peloxi]

You need at least 500 people to make money, more people more money (EASY).

[ploppo]

Well, I am still not making money with this game.

I tried doubling everything from the default values - double the the entry price - double the price of rides, etc.

This is just not working for me. It is not fun to play this game.

I kept running costs at minimum - the only staff I have is one mechanic.

I don't see this game as any fun at all.


How are people setting up there parks in Sandbox games without unlimited funds?

Is there a particular ride(s) that are money makers compared to others?

[ploppo]

I just lowered the price of the Merry-Go-Round from $3 to $2 and, all of a sudden, my 'This month's profit' surged up by about $200. EDIT - which lasted about a month - then is back to around -$40.

The problem with this is I have 80 people in my park - my numbers went down because I failed to build a souvenir shop for a VIP visitor - so I actually was down by about 20 Peeps.

Surely the the income in this game is simulated - it's not a real-time economy?

[ploppo]

I was charging $2.00 to charge peeps to use a small toilet.

I dropped the price to $1.50.

My monthy income has surged from circa -$47 to +$286.
EDIT: it's actually continued to surge - currrently +$450 and still rising


Surely this thing is comletely broken?

[chill_eule]

thing is, its a bad idea to charge people for entering the park, and then again charging for the rides, i think.
in rct3 the best tactic was to let people enter your park for free, and then charge massive fees for your rides.
atm i'm trying to figure out if this also works for rctw.

in rct3 i hated the scenarios where you were forced to charge an entrance fee and all rides were free. peeps tend to stay a veery long time in the park, so they longer they're staying, the less money you're earning on them compared to what they paid to enter the park.
food and drinks can earn you some money in the lategame, but you need at least 800+ guests in your park.
souvenirs are just for making people happy, and not to earn much money in the longterm, because of course every guest has one sooner or later.

watch at peeps thoughts, they tell you wether a ride is cheap or expensive, or if the ticket to the park is good value. but because the game is not really balanced, you could charge 25$ for a parkticket with just one rollercoaster, 2 flatrides and some shops... thats ridiculous.
another point is the number of thoughts seems to be very inacurate. sometimes i have 20 people complaining about a ride being too expensive but the queue is full to the brim...
the fastest way in the beginning is to charge 20$ to 25$ entrance fee and then ranking up in fame as fast as possible. after that i think its best to switch over to earn money with your rides and not with people entering the park.

all of the above said is what i discovered so far and what my experience is with earlier rct games.

[ploppo]

I just dropped my entry fee to $0 and fast-forwarded the game 3 months.

It made no difference.


I am now going to re-load the level - repeat the above AND drop all of my ride/food/merchandise prices to $0.

I am going to set everything to 0 and fast-forward the game 3 months.

I will post the results shortly.

[ploppo]

So a free park - no entry fee - free rides - free food - free merchandise - free for 3 months results in the following:

No extra visitors.

It doesn't make sense.

[ploppo]

IT GET'S WORSE.

I continued running a TOTALLY FREE park for 6 months.

8 rides + 2 rollercoasters + 4 food stalls + a merchandise store - all FREE.

No surge in visitors.

I have the same amount of visitors.

It does the usual thing that it does - it fluctuates up and down by a few Peeps.

I have 150 people in my park.

150 people in a FREE park that has been TOTALLY FREE for 6 months.

[chill_eule]

more peeps only get attracted by famerank and new attractions. did you try the opposite? raise the entrance fee to say 70$? that would be an interessting counter experiment ;)

[ploppo]

THERE'S AN EVEN BIGGER PROBLEM!

The peeps are completely unaware of their surroundings.

All of my peeps are behaving EXACTLY how they always behave - the are wandering around all over the place.

THE RIDES ARE ALL FREE - why are they not all queing for rides?

THE FOOD IS FREE - why are they grabbing it all?

THE MERCHANDISISE IS FREE - why are they not grabbing everything?

THEY ARE AIMLESSLY WANDERING AROUND IN A FREE THEME PARK. THEY SHOULD BE QUEUING.

[ploppo]

Originally posted by chill_eule:

more peeps only get attracted by famerank and new attractions. did you try the opposite? raise the entrance fee to say 70$? that would be an interessting counter experiment ;)

I will try that.