Business Sims - Just Glorified Incremental Games?

[Wavelength]

From Theme Park to 1503 A.D. to Sim City to Golf Resort Tycoon, I've always loved Simulation games where you build stuff. But the other day, as I was listening to this Design Doc video on Roller Coaster Tycoon's "timeless" game design, one observation they made really stuck out to me, and it's been bothering me a lot. To quote the video:

"But on top of the coaster engine is a second layer of the design: a great Management Sim. If you strip away the theming, Management Sims are more or less a progression system. Like an RPG, you set out to build stats and guide development according to the options at your disposal. Instead of a character, in RCT you're developing your theme park business. Instead of taking actions to boost magic or strength, you're boosting customer opinions, cleanliness, and profit. Management Sims and RPGs both use the mechanics of progression, but each with different facades... [Good Management Sims] work as games because of how well they incorporate progression mechanics to make you believe you're the person in charge..."​

'Malarkey', I said to myself! 'I call bull! It takes skill, judgement, creativity, intelligence, and luck to run a business - and any good business sim takes the same things, right? They're nothing like the Incremental ("Clicker") Games we find in mobile gaming today, which are literal Progression apps where you click a few things onscreen and then just wait for the numbers to grow.' I thought back to the times I was successful in my old business sim games, where after hours of hard work I had laid the foundation of a physical business, made money on each transaction, earned new tools, bought those tools, and made more money, and eventually ran a thriving business empire... Oh my God were they right all along?!?

Thinking about it deeper over the last couple days, the idea of Management Sims as really well dressed Incremental Games - disturbingly - made more and more sense, and I can't shake the feeling that it's a pretty accurate way to describe the genre.

Growing up, these games filled me with entrepreneurial spirit and I wanted nothing more than to start a business. With more hindsight and a clearer view of how entrepreneurship actually works, though:

• In the real world starting a business can result in wild success or crushing failure, sometimes for reasons completely outside of the scope of the business owner's control. You might capture lightning in a bottle, or you might toil away at something forever without a reward because the timing isn't right. In business sim games, there is usually an unwritten "formula" for success, and the player will predictably find incrementally more success throughout the game if their decisions don't deviate from that formula.
• In the real world, there are millions of potential customers out there but you need to find creative ways to educate them and compel them to try out your business. In business sims, the customers are provided by the game and "if you build it, they will come".
• In the real world, nearly every business must find a niche - a need that some people have but that remains unfulfilled - and focus on ways to serve that niche. In business sims, you can usually get away with building one of everything that's available (and this might even be the optimal strategy).
• In the real world, technology is an outside force that serves as both a threat and an opportunity. In business sims, all technology puts you closer to runaway success (and you often have to "research" things yourself using money and time).
• In the real world, ten different people could start the exact same business (perhaps in different locations, or hiring different employees) and make nearly identical decisions - and five might succeed and five might fail. It's thrilling and scary and uncertain. In business sims, the world adheres to strict rules and a strict correlation between cause and effect, meaning that all ten are likely to find the same success (or failure).

Surely it's good that some elements of "real world business" are abstacted out to keep things fun - few people want the realism of legal troubles, difficult employees, or years of trying to find funding for capital-intensive ventures. But as I examine the genre closer, is there really anything about Business Sims that actually simulates starting and running a business? The design actually does seem to have more in common with Incremental "Clickers"; essentially they are glorified and well-themed progression systems where you need to hit a checklist of basic items that you must plop down into your business, and besides that you're allowed a bit of creative control (where you place neighborhoods and industries in Sim City, how you design coasters in Roller Coaster Tycoon, etc.) that doesn't greatly impact your success.

I'm so interested to hear your general thoughts on the mechanical and creative design of the Business Sim genre, but as a few specific points that might get the discussion rolling:

1) Do you disagree entirely? Is it abjectly unfair to lump business simulations in with incremental games? Does the genre (of business sim) provide tons more than its progression system?

2) Would it be good for business sims to try to feel more like starting and running a business? Or would it be too easy for this approach to lead to tedium and frustration, rather than excitement?

3) How might you design a business sim that would capture the same unpredictability, creativity, and need to respond to outside factors that businesses in the real world work with?

• One idea that came to mind for me was having each new game in a business sim bring with it a completely different world of customers with different preferences and different trends impacting their preferences; you'd still need to build a working, balanced system that provides for all the necessities (food and bathrooms in a theme park, power and water in a city sim, etc.), but also one that specifically caters to the preferences of your customers in order to get them to keep coming back, and your designs and marketing could also have some influence on the type of customers that come in the first place.

4) What do you think of the video's comparison of building character stats in an RPG to building popularity and income in a business sim? Would it be fair to also compare RPGs to glorified Incremental Games as well (except with RPGs offering rich narrative and physical exploration in-between the power progression), since the expectation is for the player to spend time in random battles and earn stats that are high enough to beat the bosses in their way?​

 

[Poryg]

Jesus Christ, did you really find that out just recently?
No, seriously. The only thing that is supposed to be as close to reality as possible are driving sims, where the conditions are supposed to be as realistic as possible due to the fact that you use them for training in real life situations. Everything else, despite calling itself simulator, is not a simulator, because it's not meant to simulate anything. It's called this way for historical reasons though, because in past people called simulators things that resembled reality at least in some way (since there was just this close you could get to reality in past).
As for the comparison, strictly speaking any game that has a sort of progress system is a glorified incremental game, because stuff increases, it's just different coating. But you can't take it like this, because it's like saying every life is meaningless, because we all die one day.

 

[VioletSpark]

I enjoy Kairosoft games, even though they're nothing like actually owning a ramen shop/ hot springs/ horse park/feudal village.

 

[TheoAllen]

1) Do you disagree entirely? Is it abjectly unfair to lump business simulations in with incremental games? Does the genre (of business sim) provide tons more than its progression system?

I don't disagree that sim games are glorified incremental games and it doesn't bother me, while I didn't exactly found that out when I was still playing RCT long years ago. But the idea of playing sim games is not actually to find out what business in real life looks like (while you can still get the basic idea of it). Like, alright I want to build a roller coaster on the top of mountain and it will have some tunnels on it. Which basically I want to create my own "fantasy" theme park with all the rules within the world. Whether my choice actually impact of me succeeding it, it doesn't really matter (unless I'm trying to complete the mission that has time limit, or set my own rules/goal).

See Theme Hospital with all these weird sickness that is not even happening in real life. See Transport Tycoon where the landscape is grid based and sometimes the factories, cities are placed in ridiculous place? Can you even relate it to a real life? I don't think so. The sim/building/business games are about controlling a continuous world that has its own set of rules then you bend it to your will. It also named as a game for reasons (I think I also answered your second question).

On the other hand, the interesting fact that one of my country city major said that she claimed to be a simcity player and plan the actual city based on her experience of playing simcity. Whether it's true or not I don't know. I've heard it years ago and I've already lost the article.

4) What do you think of the video's comparison of building character stats in an RPG to building popularity and income in a business sim? Would it be fair to also compare RPGs to glorified Incremental Games as well (except with RPGs offering rich narrative and physical exploration in-between the power progression), since the expectation is for the player to spend time in random battles and earn stats that are high enough to beat the bosses in their way?

No, RPG is not an incremental game. You do nothing, you gain nothing. Progress stop once you do nothing. It's an opposite to the type of incremental game where you simply click and see things progresses.

---------------
So where is the 3rd question? Frankly, I'm not interested to make a concept of sim game, so I can't answer this.

 

[Kes]

Long story as short as possible.

I think all sim games, irrespective of their overt type, fall into this category. I cannot think of one which goes remotely near to capturing the particular activity. Even the driving ones which Poryg mentions don't include realistic other drivers who do unexpected (and inexplicable) things.

 

[Countyoungblood]

If you havent played it look into dwarf fortress. Its a managment game youd like enjoy.

Since videogames are like simplified portions of reality you could get more understanding on how business works.. but its better to read books about doing business in this reality. And even better still would be to start and run a mini business that wont break you if it fails.

Look for a book called " Before you quit your job" by Robert T Kiyosaki. Its the same guy who wrote the rich dad poor dad books and it might help connect some of the dots.

What do the games and reality have in common?

Well in all business you can only sell two things.. goods.. that you've bought to retail or upgraded from a lesser product or made from raw materials...

Or services.. a task that you can do for someone else theyre willing to pay for. Mowing grass is a service. Though its one with very little barriers of entry. Most anyone can mow a yard but that doesnt mean its bad money there just might be faster easier money avalible to you.

In reality you can do a lot of different things to goods and offer tons of services.. anything you learn to do if other people like it and want it you can make money.

In a game goods/services become crafting/quests. These are more like.. following a recipe to bake or using a navigator to travel. The limitations and hand holding of videogames are the big difference here. You can only do the jobs/crafts that exist in the game.. you get told each step and almost always craft the item without failure or waste and you almost always have customers tied up waiting to buy your item.

Reality is much more messy. Often to achieve the desired result you need research then attempt and fail then more research. Its tons and tons of research and failing. But the harder your process is to learn and master the less likely others can jump in and do the same thing. (Assuming your product or service end result is desirable) the barriers to entry being high is a good thing.

 

[Tai_MT]

Every game is an "incremental game". Because, frankly, every game has a progression system of some kind. Beat this mission, move on to the next. Incremental Progress. Each step in the progression lets you feel accomplished. Drop your pistol, pick up this assault rifle. Progress. Incremental Progress.

There does not exist a single game that is not an "Incremental Game" if you boil it down to its base parts. But, then again, Life itself (reality) is an Incremental Game as well. You finished today, your reward is sleep, you get to do something different tomorrow. Progress of any kind is an "Incremental Game".

The problem with games like "Cookie Clicker" is that they're labeled wrong. They shouldn't be labeled, "Incremental Games" (whomever decided this is what they were is an idiot, same as the person who decided having stats or level ups in a game made it an RPG, which is also patently false). "Cookie Clicker" is probably best described as "Minimal Effort Game". You do one thing. You click. No effort. No skill. No strategy. No gameplay elements. No challenges. It is a "game" in the same way tapping your pencil on the desk is. Or typing "1+1" into a calculator and then just continuously hitting "Equals" to get the number to increase by 1 every time the button is hit.

While I don't play a lot of "business sim" games, I do enjoy things like Sim City and such. The wonderful part of Sim City is that a player never need "upgrade" anything (unless you're playing the few most recent versions of the game where they're designed terribly). You can create a thriving city by connecting to neighbors and making it almost entirely Commercial Zones. People will flock from other cities to go to work in yours and you collect taxes from those businesses to keep going. A player can specialize if they like and know how to do it. I've built cities using nothing more than low density everything and never changing. You never get skyscrapers or anything, but you can make a perfectly valid city and take it to the end game without using any of the unlocks if you want. One that houses over 50 million people if you build smart. But, Sim City has no end. It has an upper limit of what you can accomplish and built in optimized layouts... But, you don't have to do any of those things if you don't want to. At some point, you'll likely decide you just want your city to "look pretty" and who cares about increasing 1 stat or another? I certainly didn't. In one of my playthroughs, I unlocked everything, had everything, and got a ton of money... Then I just set about making my city pretty to look at and didn't care about how much money I was making or how large my population was. In fact, I had my taxes all set to 1% and was still raking in 50,000 every month of the game. It was enough to keep going and make changes.

In that regard... Sim City is really nothing like "Cookie Clicker". Or games like Cookie Clicker.

But, I mean, if we're going to boil everything down to its base components for the sake of silly comparisons like the video you watched... Call of Duty is little more than a Glorified Incremental Game as well.

One can boil anything down to really stupidly simple terms if they want. Eating food is little more than converting particles into electrons so your body works. But, that kind of misses the point of taste, smell, sight, sensations of being full, of having a satisfying meal, etcetera. Right?

 

[Countyoungblood]

Every game is an "incremental game". Because, frankly, every game has a progression system of some kind. Beat this mission, move on to the next. Incremental Progress. Each step in the progression lets you feel accomplished. Drop your pistol, pick up this assault rifle. Progress. Incremental Progress.

There does not exist a single game that is not an "Incremental Game" if you boil it down to its base parts. But, then again, Life itself (reality) is an Incremental Game as well. You finished today, your reward is sleep, you get to do something different tomorrow. Progress of any kind is an "Incremental Game".

The problem with games like "Cookie Clicker" is that they're labeled wrong. They shouldn't be labeled, "Incremental Games" (whomever decided this is what they were is an idiot, same as the person who decided having stats or level ups in a game made it an RPG, which is also patently false). "Cookie Clicker" is probably best described as "Minimal Effort Game". You do one thing. You click. No effort. No skill. No strategy. No gameplay elements. No challenges. It is a "game" in the same way tapping your pencil on the desk is. Or typing "1+1" into a calculator and then just continuously hitting "Equals" to get the number to increase by 1 every time the button is hit.

While I don't play a lot of "business sim" games, I do enjoy things like Sim City and such. The wonderful part of Sim City is that a player never need "upgrade" anything (unless you're playing the few most recent versions of the game where they're designed terribly). You can create a thriving city by connecting to neighbors and making it almost entirely Commercial Zones. People will flock from other cities to go to work in yours and you collect taxes from those businesses to keep going. A player can specialize if they like and know how to do it. I've built cities using nothing more than low density everything and never changing. You never get skyscrapers or anything, but you can make a perfectly valid city and take it to the end game without using any of the unlocks if you want. One that houses over 50 million people if you build smart. But, Sim City has no end. It has an upper limit of what you can accomplish and built in optimized layouts... But, you don't have to do any of those things if you don't want to. At some point, you'll likely decide you just want your city to "look pretty" and who cares about increasing 1 stat or another? I certainly didn't. In one of my playthroughs, I unlocked everything, had everything, and got a ton of money... Then I just set about making my city pretty to look at and didn't care about how much money I was making or how large my population was. In fact, I had my taxes all set to 1% and was still raking in 50,000 every month of the game. It was enough to keep going and make changes.

In that regard... Sim City is really nothing like "Cookie Clicker". Or games like Cookie Clicker.

But, I mean, if we're going to boil everything down to its base components for the sake of silly comparisons like the video you watched... Call of Duty is little more than a Glorified Incremental Game as well.

One can boil anything down to really stupidly simple terms if they want. Eating food is little more than converting particles into electrons so your body works. But, that kind of misses the point of taste, smell, sight, sensations of being full, of having a satisfying meal, etcetera. Right?

Using models to understand the underlying moving parts of a ststem or process is much more than just making "silly comparrisons" but Id say youre more of a sensory type than analytical.

 

[Tai_MT]

Using models to understand the underlying moving parts of a ststem or process is much more than just making "silly comparrisons" but Id say youre more of a sensory type than analytical.

The "underlying moving parts" aren't what make something a game or not. Or make something a system or not. It is merely the base description of something if you remove anything of note.

When you boil things down to their "base components", then yes, they're silly comparisons. If you boil every story ever told down into the 7 or 8 or whatever many stories there are in terms of "variety", then it's fairly disconcerting and it's difficult to see how stories could ever be "art" or even "done well". Why? Because you're removing everything of note from them.

The same can be said of anything. If you remove taste from all food, then it's all just the same. Right? It's all just "biological fuel". A means to power your brain. Flavor doesn't matter at all if you remove it from the equation. Except, that if you were to apply reality to the situation... The comparison falls flat on its face and is essentially False Equivalency. Because, flavors do matter. Personal preferences of flavors matter. How fresh the food is matters. The manner in which it was prepared matters.

Thus, boiling things down to their "base components" and then trying to say they're all the same thing is... well... ludicrous. External factors and other factors determine whether something is different enough to be called something else. They also tend to determine the choices a potential audience would make.

All games are basically "Cookie Clicker" when you boil them down to the base components, like the guys talking about Sim City said. But, think about that for a moment. What if every game in the world were exactly like Cookie Clicker without any of the extras? Any of the Bells and Whistles? If they were all "Cookie Clicker", nobody would play games. The fact of the matter is... Despite their "base components" being the same, they are not the same. You can make a thousand different things with the same base components, but it does not make them all the same.

That's the point that was being raised here. "Oh, they're all essentially the same". Well, no, they're not. They use the same ingredient... which is the same ingredient simply being alive uses (Incremental Progression), but they're not all the same. They're not even remotely close to the same in any reasonably logical way. In fact, you have to discard large swaths of logic and analytical thinking in order to use those kinds of comparisons or find them relevant.

 

[Countyoungblood]

The "underlying moving parts" aren't what make something a game or not. Or make something a system or not. It is merely the base description of something if you remove anything of note.

When you boil things down to their "base components", then yes, they're silly comparisons. If you boil every story ever told down into the 7 or 8 or whatever many stories there are in terms of "variety", then it's fairly disconcerting and it's difficult to see how stories could ever be "art" or even "done well". Why? Because you're removing everything of note from them.

The same can be said of anything. If you remove taste from all food, then it's all just the same. Right? It's all just "biological fuel". A means to power your brain. Flavor doesn't matter at all if you remove it from the equation. Except, that if you were to apply reality to the situation... The comparison falls flat on its face and is essentially False Equivalency. Because, flavors do matter. Personal preferences of flavors matter. How fresh the food is matters. The manner in which it was prepared matters.

Thus, boiling things down to their "base components" and then trying to say they're all the same thing is... well... ludicrous. External factors and other factors determine whether something is different enough to be called something else. They also tend to determine the choices a potential audience would make.

All games are basically "Cookie Clicker" when you boil them down to the base components, like the guys talking about Sim City said. But, think about that for a moment. What if every game in the world were exactly like Cookie Clicker without any of the extras? Any of the Bells and Whistles? If they were all "Cookie Clicker", nobody would play games. The fact of the matter is... Despite their "base components" being the same, they are not the same. You can make a thousand different things with the same base components, but it does not make them all the same.

That's the point that was being raised here. "Oh, they're all essentially the same". Well, no, they're not. They use the same ingredient... which is the same ingredient simply being alive uses (Incremental Progression), but they're not all the same. They're not even remotely close to the same in any reasonably logical way. In fact, you have to discard large swaths of logic and analytical thinking in order to use those kinds of comparisons or find them relevant.

Mk you win. Wont argue since logic doesnt dictate how you debate as you've already explained. Good game.

 

[lianderson]

@Countyoungblood They're all videogames made for human purposes, so therefore they're all the same. (I'm just messing around)

There's obviously a progression difference between a tycoon game and a normal RPG. If you think otherwise, then let me in on some of that acid you're taking, cause I haven't seen my skin breathe into a zombie for a few years.

edit: After some thinking with the brain fat, neither of you are wrong. It's just different perspectives of the word "progress" and/or having a conversation with a word that doesn't yet exist or has yet to be brought up. But then again, I could just be a crazy game dev, so don't mind me too much.

 

[Tai_MT]

@Countyoungblood

Why is everything winning and losing with you? Why does every opinion different than yours also warrant an attack on the person?

 

[Countyoungblood]

@Countyoungblood They're all videogames made for human purposes, so therefore they're all the same. (I'm just messing around)

There's obviously a progression difference between a tycoon game and a normal RPG. If you think otherwise, then let me in on some of that acid you're taking, cause I haven't seen my skin breathe into a zombie for a few years.

edit: After some thinking with the brain fat, neither of you are wrong. It's just different perspectives of the word "progress" and/or having a conversation with a word that doesn't yet exist or has yet to be brought up. But then again, I could just be a crazy game dev, so don't mind me too much.

There is a difference sure but progress and establishing a sense of acomplishment happen in more than just tycoon/rpg games and incremental clicker games are really just "progress" with less imaginary work.

Instead of clicking the flour.. then the milk..then the butter.. then the oven and watching an animation or a loading bar until a cookie apears its just one click. So five clicks in different screen regions or one click. Seems like a world of difference from the hour or so baking actual cookies would take. Bit of splitting hairs eh?

But this wasnt really the topic.

@Tai_MT it doesnt there just isnt a point debating with you when you yourself said people just want to win and dont care to progress the argument so...why would I argue?

 

[Tai_MT]

@Countyoungblood

Okay, now I'm confused as your reply makes no sense to me. You spent two posts attacking me as a person and accusing me of being things for the purposes of dismissing me and what I had to say.

Now, you're putting words in my mouth by telling me that I said people just want to win... when I didn't say that. Ever. I asked you why everything had to be winning or losing with you, because you decided to simply say, "Fine, you win, I don't want to debate". At which point, I wonder why a person would even reply to me except to throw an insult in there (which you did). You seem to care an awful lot about whether or not you win an argument, rather then whether you might learn something or see someone else's point of view. So, I asked.

The point of my posts was to disagree with the quote about "oh, management sims are a progression system" and then with the larger issue of, "oh, cookie clicker is a progression system too, so essentially, these games are similar". I disagree. Mostly because if you boil everything down to their base components like the quoted people did... Well, everything in the entire universe is a Progression System of one sort or another. Progression in games looks differently though. Progression in a shooter may be getting to the next mission or level. Progression in an RPG might be gaining a level and getting to add +3 to a stat. Progression in a Cookie Clicker might be simply clicking your mouse 3000 times (or programming a macro to do it for you). Progression in a "Walking Simulator" may be simply finding the next note that delivers to you the next piece of the story. Or, maybe, walking to the next room. It is all a Progression System.

Everything in the world is a Progression System. Did you turn 21 this year? Congratulations, you did a series of things that let you be alive for another whole year. You Progressed. Did you earn a paycheck? Congratulations, you did a series of things that made sure someone gave you some money that you can use to make progression on your "how old am I?" meter.

It's all a Progression System. So, I disagree that a "Business Simulator" is similar to an RPG on the basis that they "use the same Progression Mechanics". They don't. They're different. But, if you boil them down to simply, "I increased a number", then I guess, yeah, you can make silly comparisons all day long that have nothing to do with reality or with logic or with being analytical in the slightest.

Does that make sense?

 

[Countyoungblood]

More often than not, when a "difference of opinion" comes into focus, neither side is trying to learn from the other. Most often, they are trying to "prove the other wrong". They are trying to "win". They do this in order to validate their own worldviews. To validate their own existence.


How many people have you ever offered a counter opinion to, anywhere in life, that those people have changed their minds? Or even admitted "okay, you're right"? Even when you've presented overwhelming factual evidence?


Personally, in my 32 years of life. Maybe two people. One of them only did so 4 years after the fact when they realized things I'd been saying were right the whole time and they were stubborn. The other was because I'd managed to make them demonize their own opinion enough by simply asking questions about it.

This is why i dont want to debate with you.

There is no gain to it nobody learns anything.