Based on the results in this thread, we’ve got enough interest to run a game of The Videogames Off-Season right here on the forums, as designed by @RevRyeBread and @regresssion on twitter. Their original rules can be found here.
Due to the forum format, there will be a few small changes to the rules, as follows:
Rule Changes
Players have 48 hours to take their turns, starting from when the last player took their turn. If you miss your turn, you’re free to take it whenever you get the chance, but the player who’s turn it is gets priority if their action conflicts with yours
Bidding in blind auctions is done using spoiler tags. Put how much you’re willing to pay in your post under a spoiler tag, and everyone else has 48 hours to do the same or opt out. (If bidding five million, you can write it as 05 so it’s not visibly a single digit under the tag, eg. 5 vs 05)
The salary cap is 120m rather than 110m. This isn’t forum related, I just thought it would be nice to have a bit more wiggle room.
Turn order is randomised, in case anyone doesn’t want to disclose how long it’s been since they got a new videogame (also I haven’t picked up anything new since Monster Hunter World, and if that makes me go first it would feel awkward given I’m organizing it too).
As always, if you disagree with any of these changes, or find them unclear, let me know!
As for spaces, three people in the podcast thread asked for their spot to be held, and with me too that only leaves one spot spare… But as with all forum games, someone might fall through, or maybe we’ll get enough people to run multiple games, so feel free to put your name down anyway!
I’ll throw myself in for consideration as a platform holder, and I’ll do my best to not completely screw my loyal fan base.
One suggestion though, perhaps it would be helpful to get more people involved if we assigned publishers instead of platforms? I suppose that would require some tweaking of the rules, but it might be more inclusive. Plus, it would make for some interesting starting power dynamics if you start with Devolver or Chucklefish instead of an Activision or Nintendo. Just a thought.
I’d be interested, though I’m curious about some details of the game (such as the win condition), and know nothing about sports. The Waypoint crew seemed to play as if the win condition was making the most money, even though that’s nowhere in the rules laid out for it.
The real winner is the one who has the most fun, but I think the Waypoint crew were using best role-played announcement post-facto justifying what you’ve done to your fans / shareholders as the final showdown.
So, at the moment we have eight signups, so if we can get another two we’ll have enough for two full games! I’ll be leaving signups open for at least another 24 hours to see if we can get that.
If we don’t, we could probably handle two games with four players instead of five (and whatever’s not taken going in the free agent pool). Alternatively, we could add a few more slots by adding some larger publishers. Both Bethesda and Activision-Blizzard have enough properties in the free agent pool already, and if we add in Megaman, Capcom would too. The downsides might be that at eight players, turns could take a while, and, for example, ‘Zelda, as published by Bethesda’ is less evocative than ‘Zelda, only on Xbox!’ It is an option if we don’t get more players before it’s time to start, though.
Spinningmind is right that there’s no concrete win condition and if you wanted to, you could just pick all the your favourite games from the list and create a company that’s just for you. However, if you do want to compete with the other companies, general consensus decisions about who would make the most money, or who would ‘win’ E3 make good benchmarks to measure by!
Alright, let’s get straight into it. We start by picking one of the 5m picks from the draft pool, so I’ve gone ahead and taken the Disney license.
I took a look at Disney’s history of video games and it’s honestly larger than I expected. They have so many valuable properties to juggle at any one time. Plus, those tie-in games with Disney/Pixar films like The Incredibles or Toy Story are basically invisible to game journalists, but they’re out there consistently making steady money. That’s why I think it’s worth more than any singular niche property available in the draft this year.
I’m going to make a similar first move, picking up the Avengers license. I have a plan in mind, and while I don’t care for the current superhero fad, it definitely still seems to be popular.
Honestly, PC thinks that this is a fairly weak draft class. There’s some high upside picks (CP 2077, Starfield, etc.), but all these picks come with too many questions for PC to feel comfortable building a franchise around (plus, PC is never built around one franchise, PC is Gaming For All Gamers, something for everyone).
That’s why PC is choosing to take the less flashy route this year and take the Baulder’s Gate license with the second pick in the (Game 2) 2019 Draft, doubling-down on what built PC into what it is today, Pretty Cool.
