Movies

Movies are usually the most lucrative part of TSG. Whether it's producing a film or releasing a finished film to theaters, their is going to be alot of money on the table. TSG is foremost a business simulation so making money is important. You don't want your $200 Million summer blockbuster to gross $50 Million total and you end up in debt. This game is a text based online simulation so you will not be making actual movies but depending on your career path, you will have complete control over the quality of your film. This section lays out the movie aspect of the game.

HOW TO PLAY
Brand new studios in TSG will receive a small, basic studio lot which includes one small soundstage (which can produce a total of two films at a time), a backlot, a marketing office, main office and a distribution office. More information on the studio lot can be found here. In addition to the studio lot, you will also begin with $450 Million. This is the money that your "investors" have given to you to begin your dream of taking over Hollywood. While you can't actually "lose" the game and you will never close unless you close the studio yourself, being in debt will cause you to be restricted to what you can do. For instance, you may be limited to making straight to DVD movies or other low budget films with lesser known stars. It can also decrease your reputation which can lead to the big name talent not working with you until you increase it. But you can always seek a bank loan or new investors if times get really tough.

BEGIN A NEW FILM
Once your studio is opened and you have a feel for your studio, it's best to start work on a new film. This is done a couple different ways. You can purchase a concept from another player and hire some in game writers to write the script, you can create your own concept and hire writers, or you can purchase a previously released film and reboot it. Once a studio has purchased a film, that studio owns it. Nobody else can produce the film unless it is sold to them.

WRITE THE SCRIPT
Once you have the rights to a film idea or concept, you own it. You can do whatever you want with it. The best thing to do now is to write a script. This is done by hiring up to 3 in game writers to write the script. Much like on-screen talent, writers will have skills in numerous categories. These include genre scores and also attributes such as dialogue, story, etc. The list of attributes and their details can be found here. Each genre in the game has a Length Of Production (LOP) which determines how long in game time a film will take to produce. This does not include the pre-production stage (writing, casting, etc.) Just the length of time the actual production of a film takes. Once you have hired a writing team, they will begin writing the script, A script will take a week in game time to complete. Once a draft is finished, the studio owner will be sent a message indicating the script is completed. The email will include a quality rating (1-100). If you are satisfied with the quality of the script, you may put the film into pre-production and begin casting and hiring crew. If you are not happy with the script quality, you may send it back to the writing team to try and improve the quality. Every rewrite will take an additional week and will decrease the happiness of the writers. Their is also no guarantee the script quality will increase.

CASTING
Once a script is written and approved, casting can begin. There is no set time-frame for this stage. It is completed once all the roles and director are hired. A film can have up to 10 on-screen talents with up to 5 Lead Roles and 5 Support Roles. TSG also incorporates a "salary cap" similar to pro sports. If your total on-screen cast goes over this cap, you will be warned that you are over the cap and will have the option to re-cast. This is in place to help studios control some of their costs and also to allow every studio or production company a fair shot to cast top tier talent providing a more competitive atmosphere. If a film is put into production while over the cap, the studio will have their cap decreased for the next three films. The default casting cap is $50 Million.

Talent may decline a role for a number of reasons including the role being a supporting role and the talent feels that they have earned a lead role, they will not work with a director, or your studios reputation is too low. In the event that a talent declines a role, you will receive a notification from the talent directly or their agent and you can either continue negotiating or reach out to another talent.

If you hire a talent that is currently hired for another project, production on your film will be delayed until the conclusion of the talents other film.

HIRING CREW
Once the script is written and your cast is finalized, you should hire a production crew. This is done by hiring one of the production houses in the game. Each company will handle all the behind the scenes stuff such as Cinematography, hair/makeup, effects, etc. Every production company in the game will have a skill attribute in the categories and a hiring cost. Some are better than others....and more expensive. It is important to know what production company will work best for your film. If your film is a comedy with no special effects, you don't want to hire a company that is highly rated in special effects as it will do you no good. This is also where tracking your finances and your budget is important, If you have a film budget of $75 Million and you have already spent $45 Million, you may have to settle for a production company that isn't very good or risk going over budget.

PRODUCTION
Ok, so you have a script, talent hired, and a production company hired. Now your film is ready to be produced (provided your talent are all available). Put your film into production and let the magic happen. The film will remain in production for the duration of the Length of Production. During this time, the users involved don't really have anything to do when it comes to the production of the film. The performance scores and film quality will be calculated throughout the duration of production.

The quality of a film ranges from 1-100 with 100 being the best. The quality scale is divided into 10 separate sections (1-10.00, 10.01-20.00, etc.) Each tier increases the maximum number of screens a film can be shown on with the maximum being 4,500 for the best quality films.

MARKETING
Studio presidents can access the marketing department through the marketing office and here they can develop a marketing plan for their film. This includes setting a marketing budget and developing a marketing plan. Films can be marketed through different methods such as Local TV ads or a Fast Food Promotion. Each method has a positive and negative effect. This is one of the main factors used to determine box office success or failure. Each method has a cost associated with it which is added to your films final expense. Marketing effects only the first weekend (Fri-Sun) of release.

POST-PRODUCTION
Once a film is completed, the Executive Producer (Studio Rep) will receive a notification which will include a production report. A production report will layout the quality details of the film. It includes Talent performance scores, production quality scores (set design, art design, etc), final film quality, etc. At this point, the Studio can decide to keep the film the way it is or send it back into production to try and improve a films quality. If a film is sent back to production, it adds an extra month (in game) to the production length and costs an extra $1 Million per week to the films production cost. It could pay off with a better quality film or it could be worse.

DISTRIBUTION/RELEASE
If a studio is happy with a films quality and decides to release it, they can then go to their distribution department and set up the release details for the film. Before a film is released to theaters, they can be entered into a film festival. Film Festivals allow a studio to increase a films hype prior to a films release. Each film festival has an entry fee that the studio must pay and each one has a max number of films allowed to be shown. Each film festival also has a max film quality that they will accept with the top tier films usually not being included.

When a studio is ready to release a film, they can decide how many screens they wish to show their film on. The max number is based on the quality of a film with the maximum being 4,500. The game world consists of 40,000 screens. The distribution cost of a film is determined by the format (Non 3D or 3D) and the number of screens to show the film on. Films can be show in theaters for a maximum of 3 months and as new films are released to theaters, the oldest films will have their screen totals decreased. The number of screens a film shows on will automatically decrease weekly in game time after a film has been in theaters for three weekends.

BOX OFFICE
Once a film is released, the box office numbers will be released every day in game time. Box Office charts will be updated in numerous categories including Opening Weekend, All Time, etc. A studios finances will be updated once the box office results are calculated.

POST RELEASE
Once a film is pulled from theaters, it is entered into a studios archive. Here, the studio can decide to release the film to DVD, Blu-Ray, Streaming Services, or TV.