i AM MAKING A MOVIE tycoon -like game nd need a system for how may customers buy tickeets and how to do a concession stand and display the profits and number of everything sold.

That's quite a broad question to ask; can't you be any more specific with it? How many customers buy tickets, I assume, might be a function of how expensive the movie is, how "good" it is, and a little bit of randomness thrown in. I guess a concession stand should have a concept of stock it needs to buy, then earn money but lose stock when people buy from it? Cost of the stock should be variable, and you would want to do a supply-demand model such that more expensive stuff is bought less frequently (but might have a higher profit margin). Displaying stuff is as easy as Text(); I don't know what else you want me to say.

Can you give me an example of an equation or code bits with dummy variables so that I can understand how it would work?

I'll lay out your variables:
Ticket Price = For movie
Concession Price = For snack & drink/popcorn
Movie Rating = The average rating the movie was rated by critics
Customer Hype = The amount of draw a movie has based on word of mouth or advertising

If you want a more dynamic result for each movie, add more ticket prices. New release movies or generally higher in price than aged movies, or movies that have been out for a while - which will have a lower value.


These would all be variables per movie. And of course there are variables per person. Do they like action movies, romance? Do they have the money to watch a newly released movie or even an older movie?

Personally, I tend to wait a few weeks to see it movie as it's about 20% cheaper by then. So a more detailed equation could include:

Aged Movie = Movie in theatres for a few weeks
Crowd = How big a crowd would be for a movie, compare opening crowds of Twilight to Planet 51.
Personal Interest = How much interest the person exhibits. I'm personally more apt to viewing a movie with explosions and hot girls or because my favourite actor/actress is in the movie. And also because I read and trust a movie review from a site that has similar tastes & interests as I. If the NYTimes rates a movie 2.5 but the source I read, trust & relate to rates it a 4, I'm more likely to view that movie.

If another person reads a one star review on a site they read, trust & relate to, they are less likely to view that movie.


Getting that into an equation is a lot. But I'd believe you'll need to have an overall answer in the decimals. Multiply that answer by the amount of people who want to view the movie at that time then check if you have enough seats in the theatre.

Also note, time of day and day of week or vastly important. Being out of High School, I watch more movies during school hours than on weekends. For one, the theatre is less crowded. So make sure you don't have any spikes in views during average school hours. If you have a calculator with time and day functions perhaps use those to base sales off of.

If you were to play the game during school, you'd get less sales at the theatre than you were to play after school or on the weekend. Else, use a time and day system within the program. You'll be able to do a day in the game for every hour of real life or something.

Thx your a lifesaver

So where would I begin with the equation I like the second set of variable ideas but now what would be the best way to continue

Wow, I thought this topic was called help with my game, not code my game for me.

I'm not giving any code, I am helping him. He wanted help on where to begin and now he wants help on where to begin this equation.

Steelersfan, you can start the equation anywhere you want, but make sure you place relavent variables together.

Customer Hype will potentially outway official movie rating, so something such as
Code:


Instead of Using a standard rating system (four points or whatever) use decimals. .25 = One Point, .5 = Two Points, etc. Multipling the decimal by 4 will yield a proper rating and the decimal will ensure an answer that will be easy to work in to future equations.

So for the above, if the hype is one star and the rating is three stars the equation would be

Code:


Your equation should be simple. Multipling or Dividing when appropriate as well as adding and subtracting. When it comes to groups or individuals use round(rand,2). So the random number is rounded to two decimals to keep things easy. You could also do the same for movie ratings as well.

Even with the equation, he's no where close to having a game. Even if someone wrote sample code, giving him a basic interface to change variables and what not, there would be still be plenty of things for him to do...

I am confused about what I have began to set up my variables

Ticket Price=A
Concession Price=B
Movie Ratings=C
Customer Hype=D
Aged Movie=E
Crowd=F
The Customer hype=G
Revenue=H
Money=M

As for equations

I am baffled. All i could come up with is

Money Equation
F*A->M
LMovie(list)->M

Concession Stand
randint(1,2)->H
If 1=H: Customers Hungry
If 2=H: Customer isnt
Customer isnt

You've already used H for revenue so using it again for the concession stand may cause some discrepanciesOne way to avoid this is to use lists. Perhaps configure your LMOVIE list to contain all your movie variables. From ticket prices, days it's been in show to the revune and more. And if it's over, say, fourteen days the new release ticket price gets slashed by 20% or something.

As far as equations go, just mess around with similar variables until you get an equation your happy with. If I were you I'd do an equation for the number of viewers you get
Code:
Where capacity is the maximum amount of people that can fit in that one screening. I'm not sure what the average is but I'd go with something like 120. Though I have been in screens, within the same theatre, that hold less than fifty.

So perhaps you setup a LTHEAT that stores the maximum occupancy for each screen. Some theatres have twenty screens, others have 12 or less. How many do you want in your theatre? Do you want a super theatre and have forty, fifty, hundred screens?

i dont get it

can't say i'm suprised

Where exactly am I loosing you? Also, play around with formulas and equations with your variables. You'll get something you'll happy with eventually

Why don't we first figure out how many people will attend a particular showing of a movie? Here's a (rough) way to do it. Anyone have any suggestions?

C-Change in total cost of attendance ($)
For example, if you suddenly raise the price of a ticket from $6 to $9, C = +3. If the cost goes from $9 to $6, C = -3. Remember to include any change in the average cost of concessions.

I-Interest in Movie
combination of Hype, personal interest, etc... ranges from 0 to 1, "1" being best

P-Popularity of venue
number of people who attended theater in last week. At the beginning of the game, start out with something like 50 or 100.

Then, use the following formula to figure out N (number of people who attend), "S" showings since last change in C or I.

N= int(P + .1P(10I-C-3)/(1+e^(-.5S+3))
Whenever C or I changes, simply store N to P, reset S to 0, and start over.

For the sake of making the results appear somewhat realistic, I would also add some (psuedo)randomness to N, perhaps adding something like a +/- 5% of P. Btw, I just made up numbers for the above formula; you should play with some of the constants to try and make it fit better.

Now that we have N (the number of attendees) it's easy to calculate the profit made off of ticket prices; they're directly proportional.

Was wondering when you'd post this, almost posted it myself P:
Going to break down some bits.
Again, what I was saying about using decimals. You could use whole numbers but the resultant integer could be large and blow any sales figures out of proportion unless the integer was made into a decimal.

Think of tax. To get the tax of an item - or purchase of items - you multiply the total by, say, 0.0825 (8.25%). So a ten dollar item would have roughly eight cents in tax. So the ten dollar item now costs ~10.08$.

Similarly, you want to multiply and or divide your variables by decimals so you can get a number you can work with in the end.

This is an example of what you could multiply & divide those decimals into. Make sure you then subtract (or add) the number that results from the number you multiplied or divided into.

I have no idea what's going on here. My maths knowledge isn't this advanced, unfortunately.

Keep that in mind.

Screw you.

I simply tweaked the following formula (quite a bit): y= L/(1+be^(-kx)) Basically, it curves your results towards some sort of limit, L. I adjusted the equation to start close to P, either curve up/down for a little while, and then settle down, approaching a constant. The idea is to simulate a market "adjusting" to changes in Cost/Interest.

Graph it, you'll see.

Thank you Rth Prog You and Comic idiot have a section dedicated to you in the information section of the menu when i finish the game youll see

no problem! Is there anything I can clarify about the formula? Again, make sure you play with the numbers to make the results more realistic; The constants I gave are very, very rough.

I need help trying to figure out what equation would work for figuring out what customers are hungry and which ones aren't and Im struggling with displaying the amounts of concesion stand items sold and tickets sold for certain movies so i could make a view portfolio page showing the theatre sales revenue information.