Millionaire Life DLC: Features/Ideas

[David]

Hi Jonathan, thanks for your suggestions. I've forwarded your ideas to the dev team and got some feedback from them as follows.

Art does sound like an interesting idea, I suppose it would be a bit like Mansions in that you could buy them and later flip them for a profit to other rich persons.

It is already implemented this way. You can buy paintings from auction or art galleries run by other AI persons and then you can put those paintings you have acquired for sale in your own art gallery. The simulation system is actually quite detailed with price trends on different art movements and artists dynamically influencing individual painting prices. When you bought or sold a painting that is above the market price, it will have an impact on the price trend of the artist, which will in turn affect the prices of all paintings by that artists. It also affects the art movement price trend, but to a lesser degree.

Some other ideas:
- Expansion of the Philanthropy system - building a private foundation that could direct donations towards certain selectable causes. Foundation could even have a headquarters.

This is also planned for the DLC. Do you have any suggestions about how the Philanthropy system should work? The list of causes can include vaccination, education, and etc. Do you have specific ideas about the types of causes?
Will the player just donate money or also have to made some decisions regarding the directions of the charity projects and manage them to a certain extent? Do you have any specific ideas on the gameplay mechanics?

- Ability to commission self-portraits, donate art to museums (and your foundation).

Players will be able to build museums and donate art collections from their art galleries to the museums. This feature is currently being implemented. Philanthropic contributions and donating art to museums will increase the person's influence score, allowing the player to enter the Most Influential People chart ultimately. If you have any suggestions on extending the influence score to affect other gameplay elements, for example, generating some kinds of bonuses for the player in certain business activities, please let me know.

As for donation to foundation, it is not part of the plan but it would be helpful to know your suggestion on this in more detail.

Commissioning self-portraits is an interesting idea. What would be the gameplay implication on this in your opinion?

- Collection of items aside from Art such as Luxury/Classic Cars, Sports Memorabilia, Jewelry, Rare Books or Manuscripts.

Yes, the DLC will include luxury goods and your suggested list looks interesting. Currently these types of luxury goods are being implemented: Jewelry, Luxury Cars, Yachts, and Private Jets.

The player will be able to trade some of them, like art trading, and build museums for jewelry and luxury cars.

The current plan is to have rankings of collectors of different luxury goods types. For example, a ranking of the largest luxury car collectors.

Do you have any suggestions on any additional gameplay effects that amassing a large collection of such luxury goods may have?

- Horse, Yacht or Automobile races perhaps? Could make a random minigame out of it.

Very interesting ideas indeed. Someone has suggested a Sports DLC, which seems to be a good place for these more expansive ideas with minigames. Please feel free to suggest more details and I will send them to the dev team for their consideration of the Sports DLC in the future.

- I would also suggest creating some sort of mechanism to give your in-game character some 'Personhood'. Currently you can just ignore your person and nothing will happen even if they have no money and no home. Perhaps at the start of the game your person could live in a small house or a rented apartment and after a while you could be 'Pushed' into upgrading your living conditions. Might even be interesting to simulate other aspects of life such as a family that automatically spends your money and asks for things as well (which could be the mechanism that pushes you to spend personal money).

I think a lot of the players will like such a design as it has recently become fairly popular in the strategy game genre.

Since people do not age in Capitalism Lab, having a family will lead to some illogical circumstances. Do they have kids? Will kids grow up? Will the parent age and die? And etc.

As for their living places, there is a lot of potential here for added details. What kinds of home upgrades would you like to see in the game? But since the corporate profit amounts in CapLab can be huge, it may easily make purchases of home upgrades seem effortless and not challenging. What do you think?

I also think Millionaire Life is a good name, but I asked ChatGPT for some ideas as well and I liked these in particular:

- Executive Indulgence DLC
- Spoils of Success DLC
- High Society DLC
- Opulence DLC
- Summit/Spoils of Success DLC

(Full list here: https://chatgpt.com/share/68bb56d6-f36c ... 5e565a90df)

The dev team chose "Wealth Spending DLC" as it is direct and convey the meaning effectively. We prefer something that sounds more direct and less fancy, as many users of CapLab are from non-English speaking countries. But it is not final, so please feel free to make additional suggestions.

[Stylesjl]

Hi Jonathan, thanks for your suggestions. I've forwarded your ideas to the dev team and got some feedback from them as follows.

Art does sound like an interesting idea, I suppose it would be a bit like Mansions in that you could buy them and later flip them for a profit to other rich persons.

It is already implemented this way. You can buy paintings from auction or art galleries run by other AI persons and then you can put those paintings you have acquired for sale in your own art gallery. The simulation system is actually quite detailed with price trends on different art movements and artists dynamically influencing individual painting prices. When you bought or sold a painting that is above the market price, it will have an impact on the price trend of the artist, which will in turn affect the prices of all paintings by that artists. It also affects the art movement price trend, but to a lesser degree.

Some other ideas:
- Expansion of the Philanthropy system - building a private foundation that could direct donations towards certain selectable causes. Foundation could even have a headquarters.

This is also planned for the DLC. Do you have any suggestions about how the Philanthropy system should work? The list of causes can include vaccination, education, and etc. Do you have specific ideas about the types of causes?
Will the player just donate money or also have to made some decisions regarding the directions of the charity projects and manage them to a certain extent? Do you have any specific ideas on the gameplay mechanics?

- Ability to commission self-portraits, donate art to museums (and your foundation).

Players will be able to build museums and donate art collections from their art galleries to the museums. This feature is currently being implemented. Philanthropic contributions and donating art to museums will increase the person's influence score, allowing the player to enter the Most Influential People chart ultimately. If you have any suggestions on extending the influence score to affect other gameplay elements, for example, generating some kinds of bonuses for the player in certain business activities, please let me know.

As for donation to foundation, it is not part of the plan but it would be helpful to know your suggestion on this in more detail.

Commissioning self-portraits is an interesting idea. What would be the gameplay implication on this in your opinion?

- Collection of items aside from Art such as Luxury/Classic Cars, Sports Memorabilia, Jewelry, Rare Books or Manuscripts.

Yes, the DLC will include luxury goods and your suggested list looks interesting. Currently these types of luxury goods are being implemented: Jewelry, Luxury Cars, Yachts, and Private Jets.

The player will be able to trade some of them, like art trading, and build museums for jewelry and luxury cars.

The current plan is to have rankings of collectors of different luxury goods types. For example, a ranking of the largest luxury car collectors.

Do you have any suggestions on any additional gameplay effects that amassing a large collection of such luxury goods may have?

- Horse, Yacht or Automobile races perhaps? Could make a random minigame out of it.

Very interesting ideas indeed. Someone has suggested a Sports DLC, which seems to be a good place for these more expansive ideas with minigames. Please feel free to suggest more details and I will send them to the dev team for their consideration of the Sports DLC in the future.

- I would also suggest creating some sort of mechanism to give your in-game character some 'Personhood'. Currently you can just ignore your person and nothing will happen even if they have no money and no home. Perhaps at the start of the game your person could live in a small house or a rented apartment and after a while you could be 'Pushed' into upgrading your living conditions. Might even be interesting to simulate other aspects of life such as a family that automatically spends your money and asks for things as well (which could be the mechanism that pushes you to spend personal money).

I think a lot of the players will like such a design as it has recently become fairly popular in the strategy game genre.

Since people do not age in Capitalism Lab, having a family will lead to some illogical circumstances. Do they have kids? Will kids grow up? Will the parent age and die? And etc.

As for their living places, there is a lot of potential here for added details. What kinds of home upgrades would you like to see in the game? But since the corporate profit amounts in CapLab can be huge, it may easily make purchases of home upgrades seem effortless and not challenging. What do you think?

I also think Millionaire Life is a good name, but I asked ChatGPT for some ideas as well and I liked these in particular:

- Executive Indulgence DLC
- Spoils of Success DLC
- High Society DLC
- Opulence DLC
- Summit/Spoils of Success DLC

(Full list here: https://chatgpt.com/share/68bb56d6-f36c ... 5e565a90df)

The dev team chose "Wealth Spending DLC" as it is direct and convey the meaning effectively. We prefer something that sounds more direct and less fancy, as many users of CapLab are from non-English speaking countries. But it is not final, so please feel free to make additional suggestions.

Philanthropy system - I think certain causes link vaccines, education, etc are good ideas.

I think it should have a system of metrics - how many vaccines were bought (maybe even choose the disease to focus on like Malaria, Polio, AIDS, etc), how many students were educated (K-12, University Scholarships), etc. To give an idea on what the money is doing. Perhaps if very large amount of money were spent it should have diminishing returns. Maybe even choosing which country to provide philanthropy to could be worthwhile.

Perhaps this money could be administered by founding your own charitable organisation or channelling it through another org started by another philanthropist. If you have a lot of money it would be more effective to have your own organisation but otherwise it might be better to channel your wealth through another's organisation (you would still get credit for your contribution).

Overall it should contribute to your score ("Philanthropy Score") and maybe even have some scenarios where you must achieve a certain amount of philanthropic giving.

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Museums
I like the idea of building/giving to museums as well, it could be also integrated into the Philanthropy Score as well.

In regards to self portraits, I guess you could not really sell them or give them away but they could still something the player could strive for. Maybe it could add to the Influence score instead.

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Luxury goods collections - I like this idea. Perhaps a "Luxury Score" could be added which tracks the overall luxuries accumulated by the player. It could be added as a scenario objective. There should be a rule for diminishing returns however to encourage diversification of luxuries (10 private jets should not have 10x the effect of one private jet).

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Families
Yes I agree that this could pose a problem given the way time works in the game. However I still think the scaling up of housing could work. Mansions are often quite expensive, the highest price for a private home in the world is valued at $4.6 billion (Antilia)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antilia_(building)

So I think even with high corporate profits there is still room to upgrade a player's home to a very expensive price while still being somewhat realistic.

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Wealth Spending DLC - seems a bit bland and unimaginative to name a DLC that to be honest. Maybe Personal Wealth DLC or Private Wealth DLC?

[David]

Wealth Spending DLC - seems a bit bland and unimaginative to name a DLC that to be honest. Maybe Personal Wealth DLC or Private Wealth DLC?

How about "Billionaire Life DLC"? We can propose this to the dev team if you like it.

Millionaire Life DLC may sound too ordinary when people in the game typically have hundreds of millions or billions of dollars.

[cantdownloadit]

personally i think you should leave name until you have decided what will be in it

as it stands i wouldnt really bother with this dlc i dont think

i can think of far greater uses of personal cash that should be added... like being able to start a new company if your first one goes bust.

[David]

personally i think you should leave name until you have decided what will be in it

The feature list is mostly defined as I described in the above post replying Stylesjl's suggestions. The details of some of the features, the philanthropy system in particular, are not fully defined yet.

What name would you suggest based on the existing feature list?

i can think of far greater uses of personal cash that should be added... like being able to start a new company if your first one goes bust.

This is a good suggestion and I will forward it to the dev team, as it is currently not a planned feature.

Would you buy this DLC if this feature is added? The price point of this DLC is going to be lower than the existing DLC (below $9.99), as its appeal is different from the other DLCs. The final price point will be decided based on the final feature list. (We will gift it to you as you are a CapLab contributor and closed beta tester. But just asking the question from a customer perspective. )

[cantdownloadit]

Would you buy this DLC if this feature is added? The price point of this DLC is going to be lower than the existing DLC (below $9.99), as its appeal is different from the other DLCs. The final price point will be decided based on the final feature list. (We will gift it to you as you are a CapLab contributor and closed beta tester. But just asking the question from a customer perspective. )

i would most likely buy it whatever to support the development of the game.

but the ability to use personal funds to start if company goes bust (or even just start multiple holding companies) would make more a lot more likely to play with it activated.

personally id rather the buildings were mostly state buildings that players can "lend" art too, or sports stadiums where players can "buy teams", universities where you can fund vaccine research, airport where you can buy your private jet etc etc to avoid the map filling up even more.

as for name ? Billionaires Playground?

[ALICE]

I’ve also given some thought to this DLC.

■ Dinosaurs
It would be nice if the collection also included dinosaur bones. Ideally, we could support an excavation team, and when bones are discovered, they could be displayed in the museum.

■ Charity
Support an animal protection organization ⇒ protect animals ⇒ exhibit them in the zoo. I think it would be interesting if charity, collections, and zoo (exhibits) elements were all connected in this way.

■ Paintings & Collections
Maintaining paintings and collections should come with some repair and upkeep costs. If the upkeep costs cannot be paid, the value of the collection should decrease, and the player (manager) would need to consider letting go of the collection.

■ Paintings
In the current game system, where do paintings actually come from? I think it would be better if players could support artists, and those supported artists would create paintings as a result.

■ Museum
Implement visitors and admission fees. It would also be nice to have a museum ranking system. If you collect enough items, the admission fees could cover repair and upkeep costs, but ideally, the balance should be such that it’s difficult to avoid running at a loss without serious effort.

■ When the first company goes bankrupt
If a feature is added where you can start a new company after your first one goes bankrupt, I would definitely buy it. And if a feature allowing players to own multiple companies is added, it would make for a truly wonderful DLC.

[Potato_capitalis]

Since it’s pretty much common knowledge that AI CEO is a waste of oxygen in the subsidiary DLC, please make it possible for player to own multiple companies directly and to be CEO in multiple companies (as a part of these post initial company’s bankruptcy gameplay suggestions).

I wouldn’t literally mind buying this feature alone for a few bucks

[Stylesjl]

Wealth Spending DLC - seems a bit bland and unimaginative to name a DLC that to be honest. Maybe Personal Wealth DLC or Private Wealth DLC?

How about "Billionaire Life DLC"? We can propose this to the dev team if you like it.

Millionaire Life DLC may sound too ordinary when people in the game typically have hundreds of millions or billions of dollars.

Billionaire Life DLC definitely sounds better than Millionaire Life. Living like a billionaire sounds more enticing than millionaire.

Perhaps also:

Billionaire Lifestyle
Wealthy Lifestyle
The Rich Life

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The idea of owning multiple companies sounds interesting although I am not sure how much more functionality it offers on top of the existing subsidiary system. I suppose it is in theory possible to be a CEO of more than one company at the same time but it isn't common.

On the other hand perhaps if you do have a corporate bankruptcy it might be an interesting feature to just create a new corporation out of personal funds. Maybe even go out and IPO it.

But frankly I just think you should take better care of the company you just founded.

[David]

I’ve also given some thought to this DLC.

■ Dinosaurs
It would be nice if the collection also included dinosaur bones. Ideally, we could support an excavation team, and when bones are discovered, they could be displayed in the museum.

■ Charity
Support an animal protection organization ⇒ protect animals ⇒ exhibit them in the zoo. I think it would be interesting if charity, collections, and zoo (exhibits) elements were all connected in this way.

Thanks for your suggestions. These are interesting ideas. I've forwarded them to the dev team.

■ Paintings
In the current game system, where do paintings actually come from? I think it would be better if players could support artists, and those supported artists would create paintings as a result.

The player can purchase paintings through auctions or art galleries.

There will be art galleries operated by AI persons offering paintings for the player to buy. These AI owned art galleries with existing art collections are limited in number and are only generated by the game system in the first year of the game.

A single auction house handles all auctions in the game. You can view a screenshot of the auction interface at viewtopic.php?t=10462.

■ Museum
Implement visitors and admission fees. It would also be nice to have a museum ranking system. If you collect enough items, the admission fees could cover repair and upkeep costs, but ideally, the balance should be such that it’s difficult to avoid running at a loss without serious effort.

1) Do you have any suggestions about how museums should be ranked?

2) I asked the AI about museum entrance fees and here is the info it provided:
"Art museum entrance fees vary widely, but they’re rarely high enough to cover operational costs or generate significant profit. Most museums rely on a mix of revenue streams—admissions, memberships, donations, grants, and gift shop or café sales—to stay afloat. For context, major museums like the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York charge around $30 for adults (as of recent data), while smaller institutions might charge $10-$20 or offer free entry. Discounts for students, seniors, or locals are common, and many museums have free admission days to boost accessibility. However, these fees typically cover only a fraction of expenses—often 10-20% of operating budgets. The rest comes from endowments, private donors, or government funding, especially for institutions with high maintenance costs (e.g., historic buildings, climate control for art preservation)."

■ When the first company goes bankrupt
If a feature is added where you can start a new company after your first one goes bankrupt, I would definitely buy it. And if a feature allowing players to own multiple companies is added, it would make for a truly wonderful DLC.

Do you have any suggestions for the name of the DLC if this feature is also added?