I am new to Vitronomics. Probably less than a month. Firstly, I would like to commend the great work of the developers. This is a great game for which I have been searching for awhile.
Now to my point. I think it is great that we can have trademarks and Market share data (Sales volume tab). However, may I suggest two enhancements which I think are important.
1) Trademarks
If I manufacture a product, say a car, and I give it a trademark, I am forced to give the product from all factories the same name. I think it will be better if we can give different names based on quality and price. For example, I want to target 3 or 4 market segments, from those focusing on price, to those focusing on quality and brand. I should be able to brand my cars (Called X for example) as follows:
Obviously, it will be the responsibility of the player to maintain the quality of his sub-brand to protect its reputation and market share.
This allows me to target different markets and penetrate different segments. It also gives the game a more realistic feel.
2) Sales Volume (Market Share):
Currently market share is only calculated and shown for the number of units sold in stores. This is not in line with real life situation. For example, Samsung's market share in the mobile industry is calculated based on the number of mobiles (or dollar value) that the company sells to distributors, 3rd party re-sellers and others. It is OK if we want to keep the market share calculation and graph for stores, but we should also show the market share of the manufacturers for different products.
I hope these suggestions don't fall on deaf ears
What do the other players think? Answer the question
Well, unlike in Capitalism, low quality items tend to not being sold when the market has higher quality ones in the same city. Usually, most of the sales rely on item quality. I can produce both cheap alcohol with lower quality, and higher quality one at a not too different cost. As both products are exactly the same (but with different quality), it would have no point for me to spend double the advertisement costs when the current one works for both of them. In this game brands only "lose awareness" when they are not supported with advertisement campaigns past certain limit, changing the quality of the product doesn't affect it in any way. There is the option to use "trademarks" in order to keep cheap cars with their own brand, and the good ones with another one, but it requires game points to be used. Worth it? Not in my opinion...
As for market share, it is the final consumer the one who counts for that, I guess. If the final consumer doesn't buy them, the mobiles will remain on the stand, or at the storage room. No matter how many of them they bought from the suppliers. The reports page for each product in each city displays the top suppliers, as long as they have a noticeable market share there. I guess that is the closest thing to manufacturer's market share.
And don't get that idea of mirroring real world economy here, just check the price of cotton, flowers, fish... This is an alternative universe, with its own supply and demand rules.
I know it is not completely real, so the prices are different. But, my point is that I am doing well as a manufacturer. I sell all my production immediately. However, I can't see my name on the sales volume tab. The ones who show are the ones buying my product and selling them in their stores. For me, this is a bit unfair because my company's name doesn't show anywhere.
So I suggest to have a tab for stores, and a tab for manufacturers.
As for brands, even if the low quality products won't sell in a certain country, they might in a cheaper market. I still want to have a different name for those products
I agree, it would be nice to see a market report based on production instead of having to buy a warehouse, change the specialization, and dig through the listings without any real information provided except what their price and Q is. Such a feature only exists for retail stores, factories get no fame!
I agree, it would be nice to see a market report based on production instead of having to buy a warehouse, change the specialization, and dig through the listings without any real information provided except what their price and Q is. Such a feature only exists for retail stores, factories get no fame!
By the way, just commenting, same happens with politic weight of the voting companies. Only stores results are taken in account, producers are ignored unless they have their own store their products there.
I agree, it would be nice to see a market report based on production instead of having to buy a warehouse, change the specialization, and dig through the listings without any real information provided except what their price and Q is. Such a feature only exists for retail stores, factories get no fame!
So do you think we can do something to manage to convince the administrators to change that? I mean in the "real life" business i am in, which is Medical Devices, people care about the producer and not the distributor or the re-seller. I mean it matters, but market share and brand awareness is that of the manufacturer!
So you can't really say that Siemens Healthcare for example doesn't have a market share, whereas their distributors enjoy the fame!
Here you can see that as for medical devices (to stick to that example), I'm currently the second largest producer in the realm. And Golden & Trix is the world's (realm's) largest producer.
Nope Nash. This only shows production capacity. But how much of the production is being sold is what we are really talking about.
Production capacity is not really a good measure because you can be the biggest producer but still not sell well enough, so you are not really capturing market share.
The real measure would be one of the two below examples
1. Market share by dollar value: Which means companies are ranked by number of dollars they sell from a certain product
e.g Medical Devices Company's share = # of units sold X Price
2. Market share by units sold: Simply which company sold more units of the product
I think #2 is what is being used for stores now, as you can see it measured in units. The problem with the current model is explained by the below example.
Assume the top 3 market leader for Sedan cars are:
Company A: Selling 1,000 units in stores
Company B: Selling 750 units in stores
Company C: Selling 650 units in stores.
It also happens the company B & C by their cars from me! In this case i should be the market leader is me (Selling 1,150 units).
My suggestion, and not to disturb the current model, is to keep the market share for stores (Sales Volume Tab), and add one more tab (Sales volume by manufacturer/ Market share by manufacturer)
This way everybody is happy, and as WillKarol said, everyone gets some love
I have another issue concerning this topic. I read that if Apple's iPad were a separate company, it would be the size of McDonald's. BUT Apple doesn't produce those iPad's themselves. There is a Chinese manufacturing company that employs 1 million slaves, er workers, that produces Apple's products.
Which statistic would you like to see? The Chinese company's or Apple's?
Tied to this, I'd like to raise the idea that you could brand a product even if it was produced by another company. For example: I produce 100.000 cell phones a week which I sell to you. You put your brand on them and distribute them to shops. This might be directly to your own shops or wholesale to other players' shops.
. There is a Chinese manufacturing company that employs 1 million slaves, er workers, that produces Apple's products.
Hm ok this is going a bit off-topic but just to clarify: the company you mean is ASSEMBLING the products, not manufacturing them, and they are a Taiwan company which also assembles for HP, IBM and others in their China workshops. There are more than 10 different manufacturers who actually manufacture those Apple parts and you won't be able to see the screen of your phone if they'd all put their brand on it.
Nothing personal but calling workers in China "slaves" is pretty hypocritical. Almost every western household contains more than 50% of goods assembled or produced in China. The consumers are making the price, the Chinese and many other countries are merely doing their best for the crumbs those buyers are willing to shelf over.
indeed, Foxconn's headquarters are in Taiwan. I did not know that. The million workers are mainly in China though, right?
I did deliberately call those people "slaves" to point out the hypocrisy. Plenty of westerners are constantly complaining about lots of stuff.
"The cost of living is too expensive."
"China is stealing our jobs."
"People around the world should have equal rights."
None of them would trade their situation for that of the people working for Foxconn (or other companies). None of them have any problem purchasing products that they know are produced by people in circumstances that they themselves wouldn't last for more than an hour in (especially if you take wages into account). Over here, some people won't work because they can hardly earn more than what they get from social security. In some cases, they even get less.
(I'll be stopping my rant now, coz I can go on and on about this ; the main thing is that I agree with your remarks)
As for the topic: yes: they are assembling the iPhones etc. As much as my company assembles mobile phones from microprocessors and plastics that I may or may not have manufactured myself. The point is still: it is not Foxconn that gets mentioned in the statistics for smartphones, it is Apple. All Apple does is market a product. Apple has done nothing with regards to the production of the product. Its parts are produced by third parties and even the assembly is outsourced.
I have been thinking (weird), and I guess that it looks a bit like the "cities supply" tender thing. The final list displays the top producers for that product in that city. In fact, the same results might be used for displaying the top-10 producers for that city, or the ones keeping the main share as suppliers (for example). That way, it would be simple to reflect what you suggest: producer name, brand level, units sold, etc. Something like this maybe?
I am not sure Rogue_cat. I really don't know how to check that. It is not straightforward.
However, I must say that I have just tried something and I'm extremely disappointed!!
I paid 30 USD for 30 game points to be able to use trademarks! Only to find out that I can only brand one product for 30$!!! This is a huge expense, and I must say that it wasn't clear in the description!
So let's say I am producing 10 products, then I would have to pay 300 USD every 3 months to use trademarks!! This is too much, and to be honest isn't worth it at all.
I am not sure Rogue_cat. I really don't know how to check that. It is not straightforward.
However, I must say that I have just tried something and I'm extremely disappointed!!
I paid 30 USD for 30 game points to be able to use trademarks! Only to find out that I can only brand one product for 30$!!! This is a huge expense, and I must say that it wasn't clear in the description!
So let's say I am producing 10 products, then I would have to pay 300 USD every 3 months to use trademarks!! This is too much, and to be honest isn't worth it at all.
Good to know this. I thought that you could create more than one ("for each retail product"/"para cada mercancía producida") while it was working. If I had collected enough VIRTs for getting it, it would have been a major jaw-bruiser for me. It makes me feel bad now, as I talked you about those as an alternative, even when I said I didn't consider it worthy.
There, you can see the suppliers FROM that city for that product. Other kind of tenders, indicate the main suppliers for a given city, no matter where they produce it (brand 0.02 or higher in order to be displayed in that one). This one is a good example: http://virtonomics.com/mary/main/tender/19164 (Not close enough for me. Alas, maybe next time I'll begin my way to gaining points.)
Something like a mix of those maybe?