Business & Gov't Bonus Overhaul

[Smilesville]

Short description: A series of changes that will not only bring business income in line with what would be expected relative to the server's overall economy, but will also encourage hiring (and therefore, more people to join the roleplay) through the addition of potential revenue per employee that you have. GPS markers would be given to all open businesses, the exact marker of which can be specified through commands relative to each individual business.

 

Detailed description: Every individual inside a business will fall into two groups - a CUSTOMER, or an EMPLOYEE. As normal, CUSTOMERS will be the primary source of income for a business, and this will be achieved by keeping them entertained in a location for as long as the business can manage. The bonus will scale with the amount of time a CUSTOMER has spent in a business, tracked beginning when an individual enters and stopping when they leave - hopefully with an exponentially increasing amount of revenue to encourage businesses to create RP that will engage a large number of players for a long time. For instance: $100 for ten minutes, $500 for thirty, $2000 for an hour, $5000 for two hours, and so on(?) I'm interested to hear whether a cap on the exponential function would be a good thing or not, but I imagine we could safely cap the income gain at $5000 for two hours inside a business.

 

However, each business would not always be able to gather money from each customer (as is the case with door fees at present.)

 

The business would also track how many EMPLOYEES, including the owner him/herself, are inside the business at a given time as well. It makes sense that more customers means you need more staff to accommodate them, and so each EMPLOYEE would allow the business to collect income from a certain number of CUSTOMERS - my recommended number is three CUSTOMERS per EMPLOYEE, but I'm sure the staff can crunch specific numbers and come up with a figure that works with the server economy. Another idea to accommodate smaller businesses with more focused RP is to allow businesses to set this number themselves, with larger (but comparatively smaller) amounts per customer per hour than others.

 

So, for example, if the orange column represents the chosen number of customers per employee and the yellow row represents the amount of time you've kept a customer in your business, I would ideally like the profits per customer to look like this:

 

 

This suggestion would obviously require restructuring and additional faction infrastructure to support businesses as well adding a script/commands to discriminate between whether someone is acting as a customer or an employee on a given day. Perhaps an /onduty function for every business?

 

So what would a typical day for a business under the new system look like?

 

1. When you have your staff collected and are ready to open your business, you'll stand at the front door and type /openbusiness. This command would be available for all employees of a particular business. This sets your predetermined GPS market at the location of the entrance of your place of business. This will also start a cooldown timer for when you're able to /openbusiness again; you will only be able to open the business once every 24 hours, so planning will be essential.
2. Customers entering are tracked to determine how much money you will receive for the day according to the scale above. Over the course of the day, an employee will be occasionally required to /refresh the business's open (once per hour, perhaps.) This will prevent businesses from being left open 24/7 or close down a business that was accidentally left open.
3. When you've locked your doors, all the customers are out, and you're ready to close down, you will type /closebusiness. This will remove your GPS marker from the map and tally up the appropriate amount of funds to be deposited to your business's account.

 

I understand that this system caters to a particular style of roleplay and am eager to hear feedback as to how we could ameliorate that, but at present for the businesses we have on the server, this is the best solution I could come up with.

 

Commands to add:

• /openbiz (To begin tracking customers for purposes of determining income.)
• /closebiz (To stop the timer and dish out the appropriate cash for the aforementioned customer tracking.)
• /refresh (To be used periodically to keep the business from automatically closing.)
• /bizgps [#] (To set the specific GPS marker of your particular business.)
• /bizscale [#] (To set how many customers you'd like each employee to collect revenue from.)
• /onduty and /offduty (To discriminate between individuals acting as employees or as customers in a given business.)

 

Items to add: N/A

 

How would your suggestion improve the server? At present, the stresses and time management required to open a larger business is simply not worth the effort when you take into account that a small dive bar attracting at least 20 people will generate more profits after staffing costs are taken care of. This would be a step towards rectifying the parity between the two. This also brings businesses created by players a bit closer to the income level of scripted legal organizations if the business is successful enough.

 

Additional information: More of a Q&A of various people I've spoken with this idea about.

 

Q: "What if someone just gets their friends to hang around in order to classify them as 'employees' and make more money?"

A: If a player is willing to spend two hours in a business for no profit, might as well let them.

 

Q: "Won't smaller businesses be disproportionately impacted by the change?"

A: Allowing businesses to choose how many customers each employee handles is a step towards rectifying this, but I would posit that they receive too much support for the amount of RP they generate already.

 

We may also need to figure a way around the fact that the server can crash on occasion - if the server can add money dynamically as players remain in the business that would be well and good, but I suspect this may be a bit draining on server resources.

 

What would make this better? Easier to implement?

Edited October 21, 2018 by Smilesville

[Heyste]

I don't support this for a number of reasons:

1. It's very exploitable.  

Quote

Q: "What if someone just gets their friends to hang around in order to classify them as 'employees' and make more money?"

A: If a player is willing to spend two hours in a business for no profit, might as well let them.

You said it yourself.  That's how it's exploitable, and the answer to that is not just "let it happen". That 2 hours is the equivalent of 2 of the 5k starter checks.  It's going to be adding a LOT more money into the economy that's literally AFKable.  Not a good idea.

 

2.This isn't a copied off of a real life economy, this is GTA:W's own economy with it's own value.  Just because a scripted organization makes a certain amount, doesn't mean other businesses should.  You could be making more, or less, depending on how you run your business

Quote

How would your suggestion improve the server? At present, the stresses and time management required to open a larger business is simply not worth the effort when you take into account that a small dive bar attracting at least 20 people will generate more profits after staffing costs are taken care of. This would be a step towards rectifying the parity between the two. This also brings businesses created by players a bit closer to the income level of scripted legal organizations if the business is successful enough.

Opening a business is very profitable already.

 

Let's say it's a small dive bar for instance.

 

20x250(popular entrance fee)= 5,000

 

You've already covered a popular wage to hire the single bartender at.  And if it's a small dive bar, one is all that's needed.  If you want more profit, the owner can run it himself.

 

Now, for drinks.

 

Let's say out of the twenty people, 12 get beer, and the other 8 get some sort of hard liquor.

 

*360-1200* (I've been charged anywhere from 30 to 100 dollars for a single beer) +

*400-960*(50 to 120 for hard liquor) =

*760-2160*

So with just everyone buying ONE drink, not multiple, you're looking at a wide profit margin depending on how much you bought the drinks for vs. how much you charge for them.

 

And those two price points aren't representative of if the charge more for entrance, if people come in and leave multiple times, or for any tips for the bartender which is very common.

 

Running a large business isn't meant to be easy.  If it was, everyone and their uncle Gregg would be running one.

 

If you want more profit for your business, it should be roleplayed, and  not just added as a passive scripted income.  You see the community events ALL the time, promoting clubs and the sort.  If you have problems opening your bar/business, reach out to people who are successful, and see if they'll help you.

 

That's what I did, and even though my 'business' doesn't really need a lot of income, it's more successful now since I've created a network.

Edited October 21, 2018 by MChavera

[Velora]

Its going to come down to .. and for alot of things.. Admins need to step up and do RP spot checks.  If they enter and see Bob tagged as an employee, and he's just idling in the corner not serving guests? Well.. RIP Bob and the company.

 

The system as it is now is broken, and 'something' needs to be done, just saying RP better is a terrible idea.

[Smilesville]

Perhaps my "let it happen" comment needs further explanation; I was not saying "let people AFK farm businesses." This is fairly well covered in the rule prohibiting farming paychecks to begin with. If they're not AFK, I have no problem with it - since taking issue with that would require developing a strict definition of what qualifies as "working" and that's not a road I'm about to travel. If they're willing to sacrifice their time so someone else can make money, that's fine.

 

If you're unable to keep a customer engaged, they will leave. The system, as it stands, does not encourage businesses to retain customers. You could make wild advertisements and fail to deliver without impacting your bottom line in the slightest. You could berate your customers without seeing a significant drop in revenue due to the way the gov bonus currently works. This is a problem.

 

The issue is this - if we want to honestly call ourselves a Heavy RP server, our mechanics should encourage roleplay. Mining being the fastest method of gaining script cash is not indicative of a Heavy RP server.

 

The current business system encourages you to get people in the door - and that's it. I'm not pretending this is a solution to all that ails us with regards to businesses, but it takes a step in the right direction by giving businesses a scripted motive to keep people in their businesses, and they have no way of doing that except through engaging RP of one sort or another.

 

Try to step away from the bar mentality when doing your calculations; ultimately this system will encourage people to branch out into other areas. How many businesses do we have that AREN'T a bar or night club? I can think of a gym, a tattoo shop, and a comic book store off the top of my head, and twice as many bars.

Edited October 21, 2018 by Smilesville

[Thirteen]

As said on Discord, I think this suggestion would only apply to bars and clubs as an incentive to get as many people through the doors and hold them inside for as long as possible, ruining other smaller businesses in the process. So because of that, I can't support this solution to the "issue" you're describing.

[Franelli]

You inspire to fix the server's economy, yet you suggest a method that spawns even more money to the server. It is rather confusing.

I can see you've put a lot of effort into the suggestion, but it doesn't really make sense.

Managing a business isn't meant for everyone, as stated above. It is a hard task and a lot of experienced is required.

If a business owner wishes to make more money with his business' openings, he needs to think of a certain way that will help him reach that goal. If the business becomes a bit hard to handle - this needs to be resolved and handled IC, either by hiring more staff or simply getting rid of it, if there's no good income.

Getting the script to do this for you is a bit RPGish and doesn't really fit the standards of the server.

[Smilesville]

The suggestion doesn't spawn any more cash than we do presently - not to mention it doesn't "spawn" but rather comes from the 40+ million tax vault that typically serves to do nothing but collect revenue endlessly.

 

The point of the suggestion is to reward that cash in a manner that rewards roleplay, not mining to supplement your staff costs, as is the case with the "good" businesses you reference.

 

Would you prefer to reward business owners who RP and encourage others to do the same, or would you prefer to reward those who do the bare minimum to get someone in the door, then mine to supplement their income? Or perhaps the businesses that charge exorbitant fees and ultimately offer nothing beyond any other business?

 

This is the reason anything that's not a bar or club never gets off the ground - the mindset that the current system "works" and any business that fails is simply not trying hard enough.

[Franelli]

I see where you're coming from and understand the current issue you're facing, but rewarding players with money which was removed from the server (I won't call it 'spawning money' again although it's pretty much the same) doesn't do any good to the server's economy overall. Money should be exchanged between players, not between a player and the script. I do realize that's what happening now with the paycheck system but that's another issue.

 

You wish to reward business owners who manage to keep customers in their business for as long as possible, okay. Question is - what exactly will be the difference from the customer's point of view? If a customer doesn't want to visit a certain business (a comics store for instance), what would make him all of a sudden DO visit it, with your system implemented? How would the business owner manage to attract new customers, and more importantly - why can't the same method be applied now with the current script?

 

I'm not saying that those who fail to successfully run a business were not trying hard enough (as you've put in your own words), but there IS a reason certain businesses do not succeed and make revenue - be it due to the fact customers simply show no interest in such establishment, lack of management skills from the business owner or any other reason). 

 

Let's say you open a unique type of business. You try your best to make it work, but you simply don't make enough money to cover the renting & advertisements fees. Given that issue - what would you do? I doubt you'll approach an administrator and ask to be paid with money you haven't earned simply because you provide outstanding roleplay. A reasonable person would try and understand why his idea isn't working out. Maybe it's a bad niche, maybe he pays too much to his staff? Maybe his staff is not needed, maybe the advertisements cost too much, and last but not least - maybe he is simply not good at running his own business.

 

Realizing the reasons for the issues mentioned above, a business owner is faced with two options. The first would be to try and change certain things in order to make it work. Cut unneeded staff members, seek different methods of advertisement, maybe offering something new to his clients? Something that might attract new customers who seek to experience whatever the business offers. If none of the above works and the owner continues to lose money no matter how hard he tries to overcome those issues - the best solution would be to shut down and try something else instead.

 

Here's some statistics regarding business failure from Fundera.com, which is relevant to understanding the discussed issues:

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Why Do Small Businesses Fail?

According to Investopedia, the four most common reasons why small businesses fail are a lack of sufficient capital; poor management; inadequate business planning; and overblowing their marketing budgets. cash flow problems. But there are many more than four reasons why early-stage businesses in this country don’t survive. 

A CBInsights analysis of 101 startups polls the reasons why those businesses failed, according to their founders. Here were the top results:

• 42% of small businesses fail because there’s no market need for their services or products.

• 29% failed because they ran out of cash.

• 23% failed because they didn’t have the right team running the business.

• 19% were outcompeted.

• 18% failed because of pricing and cost issues.

• 17% failed because of a poor product offering.

• 17% failed because they lacked a business model.

• 14% failed because of poor marketing.

• 14% failed because they ignored their customers.

 

As the list shows, there is more than one reason for a business failure. With that being said, the solution to this problem should NEVER be having the script / administration team to hand over money to a business owner simply because he tried. Don't get me wrong here - encouraging players to try and contribute some unique roleplay for the entire server to enjoy is one of the most important goals we (as a community) strive to achieve here, but this needs to be done properly. There's always room for tips to be given and guides to be written - all those which may assist the players of the server to start something of their own and make it work. I myself ran multiple business in my past (excluding obvious ones such as clubs and bars) - many of them where quite unique and the profit was always there. I used to operate a florist company, and in some point I made porn (all in-game obviously :P). Whilst some didn't work - others did. Players also often overpaid just for the sake of the creativity and the fresh ideas presented by these businesses & myself.

 

To sum it all up, it all comes down to how you do it. There's always those who will appreciate your effort and those who will show absolutely no interest. Such players (people) exist both in-game and in the real world, and business owners need to learn how to deal with such 'obstructions' properly.

[Heyste]

I will add, there are governmental programs you can sign up for that helps business owners.

 

https://gov.gta.world/stimuluspackages

[Smilesville]

I'm not sure where you're missing my point, @Franelli, but you don't seem to be addressing my concerns at all and make arguments that have no bearing on how a business on the server is actually run. I'll try to address your post point by point, then.

 

11 hours ago, Franelli said:

I see where you're coming from and understand the current issue you're facing, but rewarding players with money which was removed from the server (I won't call it 'spawning money' again although it's pretty much the same) doesn't do any good to the server's economy overall.

Businesses, at present, receive kickbacks from the government vault for every customer who comes in their doors up to a certain number. My suggestion does not alter the amount of money that flows from that tax vault into the server economy in any appreciable way, but rather redistributes the flow of wealth. It does this in two ways: First, income will drop among businesses that do not provide engaging RP for their customers while increasing for those businesses that do. Second, income will drop among businesses that hire fewer employees in favor of businesses that hire more individuals, thereby creating an incentive not only to bring customers in the door, but also to create RP for employees as well.

 

11 hours ago, Franelli said:

You wish to reward business owners who manage to keep customers in their business for as long as possible, okay. Question is - what exactly will be the difference from the customer's point of view? If a customer doesn't want to visit a certain business (a comics store for instance), what would make him all of a sudden DO visit it, with your system implemented? How would the business owner manage to attract new customers, and more importantly - why can't the same method be applied now with the current script?

Nothing. The system is not designed to change where a customer wants to spend his or her time - but rather, to change the manner in which the server itself endorses businesses. At present, the cap on the government bonus as well as the nature of the bonus itself results in a disproportionate amount of income being fed to those who create more of the same stale RP simply because it does not require them to hire staff - and without the bonus, there is no business on the server. This is simply not how it works in real life, and so any analog you would attempt to draw falls flat because of it.

 

If you'd like to argue that point, I would encourage you to start a business with a $100 door fee and maintain three employees over the course of a month - but I suspect you will find this nigh on impossible. Not to say that there aren't individuals who would stick with it despite the lack of a scripted cash incentive, but if we're going to have scripted cash in the game at all, shouldn't we try to distribute it in a way that rewards those who bring RP to others?

 

11 hours ago, Franelli said:

Let's say you open a unique type of business. You try your best to make it work, but you simply don't make enough money to cover the renting & advertisements fees. Given that issue - what would you do? I doubt you'll approach an administrator and ask to be paid with money you haven't earned simply because you provide outstanding roleplay. A reasonable person would try and understand why his idea isn't working out. Maybe it's a bad niche, maybe he pays too much to his staff? Maybe his staff is not needed, maybe the advertisements cost too much, and last but not least - maybe he is simply not good at running his own business.

I'll give you a much more specific example - we'll have John running a small dive bar, and James running a larger entertainment establishment, both rented for ease of comparison. Now, 95% of all the businesses we have involve alcohol sales, so let's say that the alcohol proceeds all go towards paying for the cost of the rent (and replacing the alcohol) to make the math simpler.

 

John has very little overhead. He charges $200 at the door in order to qualify for the bonus the script gives out for the first 20 customers to walk through his door. We'll say he has a good day, and twenty people show up to his bar - under the current system, John has made $200 per customer to walk in as well as the $2,000 gov bonus for those customers - for a total of $44,000. This is all profit that John gets to keep, as he does not hire any staff.

 

James runs a larger establishment that's able to bring in many more people, but also hires six employees to entertain the customers, serve them alcohol, keep the peace, etc. We'll say he charges $300 at the door and manages to bring in 40 customers. Despite bringing in double the business of the dive bar and having a higher door charge, James is only able to exceed John's income by $12,000 - for a total of $52,000. The typical wage for a two hour shift seems to be about $8,000 to $10,000 per person, but this can fluctuate, so we'll say James has a loyal staff that will work for $4,000 each. If you're doing the math, you've realized by now that after taking into account staff expenses, James only has $28,000 remaining, nearly half of what a dive bar makes in profits.

 

If James wants to break even with John and justify the increased expenditure, he has a number of options at his disposal, none of which are pleasant.

1. He could cut the salaries of his already woefully underpaid staff to keep a lion's share of the profits - at which point you're asking characters to forego the obvious choice for their characters for the sake of your business. Not a winning issue.
2. He could inflate the price of entry. This would likely impact the bottom line by turning away people who would otherwise give the business a try - he would need to set his door fees to $700 in order to achieve parity with John. Bear in mind, this is assuming he maintains double the business of his competitor (which, after doubling the door fee he will most surely not - never mind that getting half the server to one location is a nigh on impossible task no matter how well you market.)
3. He could do a lot of mining to supplement his business. This is ultimately what tends to happen for legal businesses - go out and mine for a few hours using a script that actually generates good levels of cash, then distribute that money when it comes time to pay your staff.
4. He could supplement his income with illegal activity. This is why most of the businesses you see are a front for one sort of crime or another. It's less of a business and more of a clubhouse - the income they earn from other players waltzing in is icing on the cake.

Like it or not, this is the business model that the script currently endorses. This does not remotely factor in how well anyone roleplays and does not reward anyone for innovation or capturing a player's attention.

 

There is absolutely no avenue for a legal business to compete with those who break character to go mine, or illegal organizations using businesses as a front who could care less about how a business should actually be run (and rightfully so, perhaps) and this will result in the same tired tropes we've been seeing over and over unless we fix a broken system.