The Executive - Movie Industry Tycoon
Review
An Oscar or a Razzie?
by Howie Howard
reviewed on PC
Movie makers have to start somewhere
In The Executive: Movie Industry Tycoon, players starts off with your character sitting in a small office of a new and unknown movie production studio. You are the CEO of this small one-person movie studio with big dreams of making a mark in the motion picture industry of either Hollywood or the Chinese version called Chinawood. The action begins in 1970 and continues though to January 2020, with the mission of this 50-year time span to produce hit movies, grow a movie making operation while expanding reach with new franchises. In addition, the goals of making money and trying to win the coveted Gaspar's award at the end of each year are the most important.
After giving your character a name along with a logo and name for the studio it's time to start out by choosing game difficulty. Difficulty in The Executive is based on starting cash and the number of movie themes known. The easiest mode consists of a $33 million dollar inheritance sum along with 15 different movie themes such as adventure, action, comedy films, etc. included. The next difficulty level consists of the same initial money which is treated as a loan with the investment patrons taking a 10% cut of all earnings, plus it provides only 10 themes. Difficulty increases from there by providing less themes and less time to pay off the loan, but the 10% payout cut of profits for investors remains.
Pre-Production certainly will teach a lot about movie making
After setting up the game, it is time to start production of the first movie in what is called pre-production. There is a rather simple tutorial which consists of a short explanation of each game option by walking you through the initial steps. Even though The Executive is a sand box game there are goals provided that can help progress forward. In pre-production a director, budget, movie name, genre, theme, rating, leading actor and production team is needed. The beginning production team will consist of just the CEO.
As advancement in the game is accomplished by producing hit movies and hopefully winning movie industry awards, which there is only one, the studio will gain money and research points. The money of course is used to eventually hire studio employees, better directors and actors and to be able to produce bigger budget films. Research points allow the unlocking of additional genres and themes, along with the possibility to increase studio size and to hire better quality staff and movie production crews.
Movie production is where all the money is spent.
As the film moves on to production mode, the need to spend allocated budget money for costumes and makeup, set design and script writing will be required. With the move from production to post production spending the budget money on such things as editing, sound design and special effects comes next. These choices are accomplished by moving a marker on a percentage scale adjusting percentages based on determined needs in the movie. If the production is a science fiction film or an adventure, then special effects might need to dominate budget expenditure. However, the other options will suffer due to less money being available for them.
Making a movie, especially a hit movie, can be a rather complicated endeavor which requires thought, or in my case maybe just a good measure of trial-and-error and then waiting to see what happens. With that said, next comes distribution of the movie with the only option in the beginning being third party domestic distribution. This will be fine because the first production probably won't be all that good, but it will earn a bit of money and some research points. Those resources gained can then be used in the making of better productions. Not having a sales team and with the CEO literally handling everything except directing and acting in this initial movie offering, all that can be done is to wait for the future to come. As time rolls on the need to hire top-of-the-line staff becomes very important and then the CEO can simply sit back and watch the money and prestige roll in!
My movie is finished, now what?
As the studio progresses on to becoming a top-notch movie maker the CEO will be able to hire more talented and experienced production team members. These team members include studio staff, production crew, directors, actors and all of the other required aspects of being a successful movie production company. After the movie has been released for public consumption, it will then be time to produce an analysis report of the movie making effort. During this time the CEO should also focus on using their networking skills to be able to expand the movie industry influence.
The beauty of The Executive: Movie Industry Tycoon isn't just about the making endless numbers of movies, there is much more. As time marches on, a very nice feature is the introduction of technological events that influence the business of motion picture production. Winning a Gaspar award at years end is always important for studio growth but that's not the entire story. It is also about the introduction of advancements such as home movies, including other new tech, which will need to be addressed in order for a studio to remain competitive in the industry.
That's a wrap on this movie set!
The Executive: Movie Industry Tycoon is a game sure to put a smile on the faces of folks interested in the movie production industry. New developer Aniki Games in their first plunge into the world of computer game development picked an interesting topic that turned into a very well thought out and playable business simulation. There have been others in this genre in the past but The Executive overall is a solid game that will provide hours of fun for those of us that happen to be movie buffs interested in how films are made.
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8.5
fun score
Pros
A very well thought out movie-making game
Cons
The lack of an advanced graphical experience might be a turn off for some
