Business licensing and it's current state

[Conwell]

2 hours ago, Naeno said:

Prices are too high. Expecting strip clubs to pay 150k every 3 months is absurd. These clubs already barely make profit after all the costs that need to be paid (dancers salary, bar staff salary, security salary, manager salary). These prices will only further make the types of businesses that require minimal investment while making larger profit margins more sought after instead of roleplay businesses that barely break a profit. This is not even accounting for if the business is leased and requires a monthly payment as well.

 

You will end up with players just doing spam openings to farm their goverment aid instead of conducting quality openings.

This. I as a strip club manager make 10-15 grand profit per opening (as I have to split it). It overall comes to about 30k if I didn't have to split it. Having to pay licenses would ultimately mean I have to work for a bit less than a month to break even on the licenses. Either lower the prices or make licenses permanent so it's a one time payment.

[Ink]

1 hour ago, Smilesville said:

Owning a bar isn't a lucrative enterprise in real life - I work in coordination with them regularly, and the net profit margin is somewhere in the 10-15% area (that is - for every dollar of sale, they make ten to fifteen cents of profit after expenses.) It's not unusual to close the business with sales totalling the $20-30k range.

Smilesville, you know I love your posts, but I'm going to have to drop a fat disagree on this. Now 80% of all start-up businesses fail within their first year, and 90% fail within their first two years. Bars have a lot of moving parts and a poorly run bar will easily fail, and if it does keep its doors open it can be coasting at an underwhelming performance for its whole life cycle. But as someone who, before COVID, was running 3 bars in real life and closely interacting with dozens of bar owners, I can tell you with certainty that they are a lucrative enterprise. You're not absolutely printing dummy money, but bars make out well--and most importantly they make out well for everyone involved in them. I'll also point out that your benchmark may be off, because you just described a profitability margin of 10-15% which is pretty fucking decent across the board. Most businesses strive to turn a 10-15% profit when all bills have been paid for. I will say I've been fortunate to work with bars that clear markedly above that.

Quote

They're able to achieve success by sheer volume.

This, however, is true. If your bar isn't bringing in customers, you aren't making money. The trick with bars in real life is figuring out how to keep the demand consistent throughout the whole day (rather than just a spike at night) and throughout the week (rather than just weekends).

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The server does not, and will never have, the proper volume of customers to bring those numbers into line with regards to businesses that inherently possesses a lower profit margin.

I will disagree a little with that as well. We theoretically do have the numbers to simulate a good rush. The problem has less to do with how many people we have on the server and more how long things take on this server. Your bottleneck is not the population. All you need to prove this is run a theoretical simulation: My usual Saturday night rush in a bar looked like a steady stream of 5 people coming in every couple minutes. That's possible on GTA:W. In real life, if I have 5 people come up to my bar, I can serve all of them and take their payment within about two minutes. On GTA:W, it often takes 2 minutes just for that group of 5 people to start placing their order because of the time it takes to RP.

 

The problem on GTA:W is time. We are OOCly human beings with our own lives apart from our characters, we play GTA:W as a game. Some of us have more free time than others, but we are all constrained by time. Our openings last 2-3 hours, not 8-16 hours. A minute on GTA:W is not equivalent to a minute in real life while portraying most actions and conversations, and our ability to multi-task on GTA:W is severely crippled compared to real life. (In real life, I can have a conversation with my next 5 customers while fixing the drinks for my first five and it's not much more work for me than doing each one one at a time. On GTA:W, I can theoretically "RP" multi-tasking, but the end result is I still need to *type* all of that)

 

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The only way to make those businesses profitable (in the absence of a script like the 2k-per-person) is controlling expenses - and for some businesses, this does indeed look like the owner operating everything himself.

 

Ding ding ding. Here's the big one. The #1 cost driver for night clubs and bars is labor expenses. Now, I am a huge proponent of businesses on this server having automatic script pay for employees, that is something I'd been suggesting on GTA RP communities for over 10 years. And I get that night clubs/bars need a bit of a nerf compared to more "niche" business types so that there is some incentive to play these businesses. But currently the artificial cost to labor makes hiring staff for businesses like this a right hassle.

 

The meta, as Smilesville points out, is for the owner to do as much as possible. You look across the server and add up all the most popular bars which open most frequently and have been around for longest, almost all of them are owner-operated. You'll walk inside and it's this big cool bar, and it's just the owner standing there bartending. Usually around server reset time so they can do "one" long opening and make 40k.

 

Now this of course is rooted in the money chase, but it also has to do with OOC ease and flexibility. Handling staffing is hard enough IRL when you're dealing with real human beings who you're paying real money they need to really survive with. In-game, it's even harder because everyone has different OOC schedules, time zones, and drives to play. It's really, really hard to run a business with lots of employees just getting them all together in one place and keeping them interested in playing. Add to that hassle that you also need to pay them a rather excruciatingly high hourly rate as dictated by an artificially set market floor, labor is just a massive pain in the ass.

 

This is helping ruin the opportunity for people to make more complex, multi-faceted businesses.

Quote

At that point, licensing makes every single problem it pretends to address worse, in addition to not addressing the "cash from nowhere" argument.

 

I've stood on the subject of money for a little bit, and I think it's an important subject in the sense that while e-maniez =/= RP, e-maneiz are still IC. Costs and expenses are (mostly) IC. At any point, someone can take any of my business's cash outlays as in-character because that's how our server works. To that end, running a business at a sharp loss "for the roleplay" is still ICly running a business at a sharp loss. How does my character justify running a $50,000/opening kitchen "for the roleplay" when it brings in only $3,000 in revenue for food sold?

 

I will agree that the costs for these licenses are too high, but it seems that we are all in agreement about that. Nervous is in agreement. Bombie in agreement. Pogis and his team are in agreement.

 

So here's the part I want to address:

 

Business Licenses are good for this server.

 

We are a heavy RP community. I still feel like the standards are not equal between "legal" RP and "illegal" RP, but not only is that a conversation for another thread, but I can also tell that the admins really are trying to get that standard closer and closer together.

 

I don't think high standards are a bad thing. We all owe it to ourselves as heavy roleplayers to strive to do better. I think all of us can agree that the state of businesses on this server is really lackluster. We have a lot of really generic and poorly run businesses where everything just seems like an afterthought. Part of that is because this is a video game and running a business is hard work, even a virtual one. But part of this is because there is no real enforcement or oversight short of someone reporting you to RPQ or PM. 

 

Business licenses play a big role in real life. Almost every business decision I make in operating a real life bar hinges around our liquor license and our relationship with the liquor board. Our liquor license is why I make damn sure every single patron, no matter if they look 21 or 81, has to show me their ID. Because that's the state law, and we need to cover our ass in case things go down. That's also why we don't over-serve people, because if someone gets absolutely shitfaced at my bar and kills someone on the way home, our country's laws are such that yes, they literally can come after my bar with a lawsuit and assign us a percentage of responsibility for that. And if we fuck around and run a ridiculous bar, the liquor board will just take our license and we're stuck with a useless box we're paying rent on. 

 

I'm excited to see bars, night clubs, and other businesses held to a higher standard. I'm excited for more IN-CHARACTER oversight rather than strictly OOC oversight. If your bar is not checking IDs, serving minors, and generally operating poorly, it should have consequences. And more importantly, if your business doesn't really have a need to be selling alcohol, you shouldn't be doing it.

 

So how do we make business licenses something that feel important, that make people think twice?

 

Well, that's the challenge. Price is one way. Liquor licenses are relatively cheap in real life, just compared to the costs of doing business. There are usually other fees, and the big expense with liquor is paying taxes on the liquor itself. To put it in more concrete perspective, I pay about $400 a year for each bar to sell liquor in my state. However I also pay about 35% in taxes for all alcohol I purchase. You can quickly imagine  where most of my liquor-related expenses towards the government are going. Of course, every state is different, in California, by far the most expensive state, it costs $15,000 a year (but liquor taxes are about 25%). That's pretty damn expensive, but that's also for a FULL YEAR. By GTA:W's 10:1 economy, $150,000 a year would mean $12.5k a month. While $15,000 for a year seems like a lot of money IRL, and it is, keep in mind that a pretty average bar can clear that in one weekend if competently run.

 

I think the other way is by making the application process a bit more thorough. Of course, we don't want to just waste people's time--both those applying and the poor unfortunate souls who have to handle all the applications. The thoroughness can come in the oversight and the consequences. Getting a liquor license isn't overwhelmingly hard even IRL (a bit time-consuming and pedantic, but not hard) -- the hard part is getting in trouble over your liquor license. Making an enemy out of the Liquor Board is a good way to have your business effectively shut down.

 

That's where I think more of the "challenge" can come in. Do you really want to bother with a liquor license for your business when it means you're subjecting yourself to that much more oversight? Does your mafia family really want to run another bar legally and above the table when it means that they have opened a massive back door into their operation for the government to snoop and meddle with them? Suddenly, investigative bureaus have a really simple way to leverage insight into your operations through the Liquor Control Board. And trust me, yes, these organizations work closely IRL, and trust me the Liquor Board will gladly sell your ass up the river the first second the state police or FBI comes knocking.

Edited March 1, 2021 by Ink

[Vash Baldeus]

3 hours ago, Tsarna said:

For nightclubs which open once a week - not sustainable at all. You get 35-40k, ya pay 30k or so to your staff, and the other stays as surplus. Now - if you have to pay 75k for license, then there is nothing, which is for you, as the business owner. And this is, if ya lucky, and be the sole owner. But if you co-own it with someone, ya have to pay more, than you earn, which will lead for nightclubs being sold or just opening 2-3 times a week, meaning exactly - four-five places being open at once. 

Idk who made those prices, but they should have calculated it through first, not went with unrealistic pricing on businesses. As someone mentioned - 150k for strip joints 😄 And if they are leased? 

I totally agree, that people will log in just to open so they can pay off their licensing, which is pointless, because the RP will suffer. 

Imho - they should stay the same as they were before:
Tobacco - 10k
Alcohol - 10-15k
Gambling, et cetera - 15k 
Usual business - 5k 
 

Not to mention that Tobacco's 10k while General Condut's 30k.. XD

[Vash Baldeus]

1 hour ago, Ink said:

Smilesville, you know I love your posts, but I'm going to have to drop a fat disagree on this. Now 80% of all start-up businesses fail within their first year, and 90% fail within their first two years. Bars have a lot of moving parts and a poorly run bar will easily fail, and if it does keep its doors open it can be coasting at an underwhelming performance for its whole life cycle. But as someone who, before COVID, was running 3 bars in real life and closely interacting with dozens of bar owners, I can tell you with certainty that they are a lucrative enterprise. You're not absolutely printing dummy money, but bars make out well--and most importantly they make out well for everyone involved in them. I'll also point out that your benchmark may be off, because you just described a profitability margin of 10-15% which is pretty fucking decent across the board. Most businesses strive to turn a 10-15% profit when all bills have been paid for. I will say I've been fortunate to work with bars that clear markedly above that.

This, however, is true. If your bar isn't bringing in customers, you aren't making money. The trick with bars in real life is figuring out how to keep the demand consistent throughout the whole day (rather than just a spike at night) and throughout the week (rather than just weekends).

I will disagree a little with that as well. We theoretically do have the numbers to simulate a good rush. The problem has less to do with how many people we have on the server and more how long things take on this server. Your bottleneck is not the population. All you need to prove this is run a theoretical simulation: My usual Saturday night rush in a bar looked like a steady stream of 5 people coming in every couple minutes. That's possible on GTA:W. In real life, if I have 5 people come up to my bar, I can serve all of them and take their payment within about two minutes. On GTA:W, it often takes 2 minutes just for that group of 5 people to start placing their order because of the time it takes to RP.

 

The problem on GTA:W is time. We are OOCly human beings with our own lives apart from our characters, we play GTA:W as a game. Some of us have more free time than others, but we are all constrained by time. Our openings last 2-3 hours, not 8-16 hours. A minute on GTA:W is not equivalent to a minute in real life while portraying most actions and conversations, and our ability to multi-task on GTA:W is severely crippled compared to real life. (In real life, I can have a conversation with my next 5 customers while fixing the drinks for my first five and it's not much more work for me than doing each one one at a time. On GTA:W, I can theoretically "RP" multi-tasking, but the end result is I still need to *type* all of that)

 

 

Ding ding ding. Here's the big one. The #1 cost driver for night clubs and bars is labor expenses. Now, I am a huge proponent of businesses on this server having automatic script pay for employees, that is something I'd been suggesting on GTA RP communities for over 10 years. And I get that night clubs/bars need a bit of a nerf compared to more "niche" business types so that there is some incentive to play these businesses. But currently the artificial cost to labor makes hiring staff for businesses like this a right hassle.

 

The meta, as Smilesville points out, is for the owner to do as much as possible. You look across the server and add up all the most popular bars which open most frequently and have been around for longest, almost all of them are owner-operated. You'll walk inside and it's this big cool bar, and it's just the owner standing there bartending. Usually around server reset time so they can do "one" long opening and make 40k.

 

Now this of course is rooted in the money chase, but it also has to do with OOC ease and flexibility. Handling staffing is hard enough IRL when you're dealing with real human beings who you're paying real money they need to really survive with. In-game, it's even harder because everyone has different OOC schedules, time zones, and drives to play. It's really, really hard to run a business with lots of employees just getting them all together in one place and keeping them interested in playing. Add to that hassle that you also need to pay them a rather excruciatingly high hourly rate as dictated by an artificially set market floor, labor is just a massive pain in the ass.

 

This is helping ruin the opportunity for people to make more complex, multi-faceted businesses.

 

I've stood on the subject of money for a little bit, and I think it's an important subject in the sense that while e-maniez =/= RP, e-maneiz are still IC. Costs and expenses are (mostly) IC. At any point, someone can take any of my business's cash outlays as in-character because that's how our server works. To that end, running a business at a sharp loss "for the roleplay" is still ICly running a business at a sharp loss. How does my character justify running a $50,000/opening kitchen "for the roleplay" when it brings in only $3,000 in revenue for food sold?

 

I will agree that the costs for these licenses are too high, but it seems that we are all in agreement about that. Nervous is in agreement. Bombie in agreement. Pogis and his team are in agreement.

 

So here's the part I want to address:

 

Business Licenses are good for this server.

 

We are a heavy RP community. I still feel like the standards are not equal between "legal" RP and "illegal" RP, but not only is that a conversation for another thread, but I can also tell that the admins really are trying to get that standard closer and closer together.

 

I don't think high standards are a bad thing. We all owe it to ourselves as heavy roleplayers to strive to do better. I think all of us can agree that the state of businesses on this server is really lackluster. We have a lot of really generic and poorly run businesses where everything just seems like an afterthought. Part of that is because this is a video game and running a business is hard work, even a virtual one. But part of this is because there is no real enforcement or oversight short of someone reporting you to RPQ or PM. 

 

Business licenses play a big role in real life. Almost every business decision I make in operating a real life bar hinges around our liquor license and our relationship with the liquor board. Our liquor license is why I make damn sure every single patron, no matter if they look 21 or 81, has to show me their ID. Because that's the state law, and we need to cover our ass in case things go down. That's also why we don't over-serve people, because if someone gets absolutely shitfaced at my bar and kills someone on the way home, our country's laws are such that yes, they literally can come after my bar with a lawsuit and assign us a percentage of responsibility for that. And if we fuck around and run a ridiculous bar, the liquor board will just take our license and we're stuck with a useless box we're paying rent on. 

 

I'm excited to see bars, night clubs, and other businesses held to a higher standard. I'm excited for more IN-CHARACTER oversight rather than strictly OOC oversight. If your bar is not checking IDs, serving minors, and generally operating poorly, it should have consequences. And more importantly, if your business doesn't really have a need to be selling alcohol, you shouldn't be doing it.

 

So how do we make business licenses something that feel important, that make people think twice?

 

Well, that's the challenge. Price is one way. Liquor licenses are relatively cheap in real life, just compared to the costs of doing business. There are usually other fees, and the big expense with liquor is paying taxes on the liquor itself. To put it in more concrete perspective, I pay about $400 a year for each bar to sell liquor in my state. However I also pay about 35% in taxes for all alcohol I purchase. You can quickly imagine  where most of my liquor-related expenses towards the government are going. Of course, every state is different, in California, by far the most expensive state, it costs $15,000 a year (but liquor taxes are about 25%). That's pretty damn expensive, but that's also for a FULL YEAR. By GTA:W's 10:1 economy, $150,000 a year would mean $12.5k a month. While $15,000 for a year seems like a lot of money IRL, and it is, keep in mind that a pretty average bar can clear that in one weekend if competently run.

 

I think the other way is by making the application process a bit more thorough. Of course, we don't want to just waste people's time--both those applying and the poor unfortunate souls who have to handle all the applications. The thoroughness can come in the oversight and the consequences. Getting a liquor license isn't overwhelmingly hard even IRL (a bit time-consuming and pedantic, but not hard) -- the hard part is getting in trouble over your liquor license. Making an enemy out of the Liquor Board is a good way to have your business effectively shut down.

 

That's where I think more of the "challenge" can come in. Do you really want to bother with a liquor license for your business when it means you're subjecting yourself to that much more oversight? Does your mafia family really want to run another bar legally and above the table when it means that they have opened a massive back door into their operation for the government to snoop and meddle with them? Suddenly, investigative bureaus have a really simple way to leverage insight into your operations through the Liquor Control Board. And trust me, yes, these organizations work closely IRL, and trust me the Liquor Board will gladly sell your ass up the river the first second the state police or FBI comes knocking.

More or less sums it up. One of the reasons I don't really bother with hiring random people to work at my business, I hire people I know they'll show up and are people I've roleplayed for a while. These costs are a bother, but the prices need to be adjusted as this is a tad high.

[serah]

i would like to start a union to advocate for business owners rights

 

[shareef2]

this is great i remember suggesting this months ago, hope they 2x-3x it a couple more times

 

businesses very profitable, govt needs money, thank you 

[Smilesville]

7 hours ago, Ink said:

Business Licenses are good for this server.

 

We are a heavy RP community. I still feel like the standards are not equal between "legal" RP and "illegal" RP, but not only is that a conversation for another thread, but I can also tell that the admins really are trying to get that standard closer and closer together.

 

I don't think high standards are a bad thing. We all owe it to ourselves as heavy roleplayers to strive to do better. I think all of us can agree that the state of businesses on this server is really lackluster. We have a lot of really generic and poorly run businesses where everything just seems like an afterthought. Part of that is because this is a video game and running a business is hard work, even a virtual one. But part of this is because there is no real enforcement or oversight short of someone reporting you to RPQ or PM. 

 

Business licenses play a big role in real life. Almost every business decision I make in operating a real life bar hinges around our liquor license and our relationship with the liquor board. Our liquor license is why I make damn sure every single patron, no matter if they look 21 or 81, has to show me their ID. Because that's the state law, and we need to cover our ass in case things go down. That's also why we don't over-serve people, because if someone gets absolutely shitfaced at my bar and kills someone on the way home, our country's laws are such that yes, they literally can come after my bar with a lawsuit and assign us a percentage of responsibility for that. And if we fuck around and run a ridiculous bar, the liquor board will just take our license and we're stuck with a useless box we're paying rent on. 

 

I'm excited to see bars, night clubs, and other businesses held to a higher standard. I'm excited for more IN-CHARACTER oversight rather than strictly OOC oversight. If your bar is not checking IDs, serving minors, and generally operating poorly, it should have consequences. And more importantly, if your business doesn't really have a need to be selling alcohol, you shouldn't be doing it.

Absolutely not.

 

Going through the motions for business licenses is only a "higher standard" in the same way that forcing everyone to use a seatbelt command was a "higher standard" - or how construction companies for new properties were a "higher standard." Neither of those two ended the way we'd first envisioned for the same reason: it departs from engaging RP and enters the realm of an annoying prerequisite that adds nothing beyond the very small niche of players involved with each.

 

For those who don't remember the construction company fiasco, there was really only one individual interested in forming one - at which point he elected to charge exorbitant prices and become a multi millionaire almost overnight. He and his hired hands, meanwhile, were being paid to AFK at a construction site for 45 minutes and type out a few emotes for screenshots. Licensing agents weren't much different - agents simply waltzing into an open business and shouting that everyone had to leave or be arrested on charges of trespassing.

 

These aren't theories, mind you - these things have actually happened. We've already been through the motions of a licensing program.

 

While I'm sure you have your reasons for thinking it will turn out differently and your theory for how the licensing process will impact existing RP is plausible, experience tells us otherwise - which is why it all disappeared in the first place. I would advise against the sort of hubris that comes along with presuming we are so much better than we were back then, lest history repeat itself.

[borhoi]

The business licensing issue is always going to be controversial. While I'm not against it, I do think some of the proposed fees are absolutely ridiculous to the point that they could very well cripple the bottom line of businesses that don't open 3-4 times per week. Make this less about the fees, more about the role play of obtaining and maintaining licensing. Enforcement of regulations, etc. Make the fees lower, keep the RP.

[Pogis]

2 hours ago, Smilesville said:

Absolutely not.

 

Going through the motions for business licenses is only a "higher standard" in the same way that forcing everyone to use a seatbelt command was a "higher standard" - or how construction companies for new properties were a "higher standard." Neither of those two ended the way we'd first envisioned for the same reason: it departs from engaging RP and enters the realm of an annoying prerequisite that adds nothing beyond the very small niche of players involved with each.

 

For those who don't remember the construction company fiasco, there was really only one individual interested in forming one - at which point he elected to charge exorbitant prices and become a multi millionaire almost overnight. He and his hired hands, meanwhile, were being paid to AFK at a construction site for 45 minutes and type out a few emotes for screenshots. Licensing agents weren't much different - agents simply waltzing into an open business and shouting that everyone had to leave or be arrested on charges of trespassing.

 

These aren't theories, mind you - these things have actually happened. We've already been through the motions of a licensing program.

 

While I'm sure you have your reasons for thinking it will turn out differently and your theory for how the licensing process will impact existing RP is plausible, experience tells us otherwise - which is why it all disappeared in the first place. I would advise against the sort of hubris that comes along with presuming we are so much better than we were back then, lest history repeat itself.

 

I don't remember a single case where a Licensing Official would waltz into an open business and shout that everyone had to leave. That simply never happened.

 

Licensing did not 'disappear' because of any of the reasons you mentioned, actually. It disappeared because when Rockford resigned, they took the City Services Platform down with them, so we had no registries of businesses and no ways of making businesses register / apply for licenses. We've decided to resort to forum for that now, as a replacement CSP is still in the works by the GTA:W Web Devs.

 

Licensing is going to be a thing, we'll adjust the prices heavily and then reinstate the system.

[DLimit]

4 minutes ago, Pogis said:

 

I don't remember a single case where a Licensing Official would waltz into an open business and shout that everyone had to leave. That simply never happened.

 

Licensing did not 'disappear' because of any of the reasons you mentioned, actually. It disappeared because when Rockford resigned, they took the City Services Platform down with them, so we had no registries of businesses and no ways of making businesses register / apply for licenses. We've decided to resort to forum for that now, as a replacement CSP is still in the works by the GTA:W Web Devs.

 

Licensing is going to be a thing, we'll adjust the prices heavily and then reinstate the system.

It's happened. They'd shut down the business until the business was licensed. Otherwise, they'd threaten to contact the authorities for legal infracitons.