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Have you ever wanted to start a business? Do you have an interest in finance and the stock market? Do you like working with numbers and engaging in analytical thinking? If so, Trevor Chan’s Capitalism Lab might be a great game for you!
What Is Capitalism Lab?
Capitalism Lab is a business simulation game. It was published in 2012 by Enlight Software. Enlight develops games with the goal of educating people as well as being entertaining. The title was designed by Trevor Chan. The game continues the Capitalism series. The earlier installments of the series were:
- The game Capitalism published originally for the MS-DOS and Macintosh in 1995
- Capitalism II published on Windows and Mac OS X in 2001
Difference Between Capitalism Lab And Capitalism II
The game follows the same core concept as the earlier installments in the series.
Your goal in the game is building the greatest business empire known to man. You start the game with a predetermined amount of money (the default amount is 100.000USD). The money can be used to:
- buy real estate
- set up factories
- setting up retail stores
- set up farms
- build warehouses
- found research centres
- engaging in financial actions such as buying stocks
- donate community and sports facilities.
Capitalism Lab reintroduces many of the same functions found in Capitalism II. The new game takes the elements that made Capitalism II popular and made them better.
There are also many DLCs that take the business simulation to a new frontier:
- Digital age DLC
- Banking and finance DLC
- Subsidiary DLC
- City Economic Simulation DLC
Unfortunately, in Capitalism Lab there’s no multiplayer as there was in Capitalism II.
Capitalism Lab Strategy – What Do I Do?
The player can choose between different success strategies. My favourite one is to pick four products with high necessity index (such as razors, hair brushes or flour).
I then build factories producing these. Then I build research centres improving the quality of these four products.
After setting up the production I like to set up discount megastores selling all four of my specialization products. I like to place the factories in cities with lowest real wage -rates. I then place the discount megastores selling the products in cities with highest wages (buy low sell high eh?).
A high marketing budget (radio- or tv-station, newspaper) is a must in order to build brand value for my products.
My strategy is to begin the game by maxing out my company’s credit card. I do this by taking out as much debt as the bank allows me to.
Then I use my cash to build out factories and stores as described above. I spend the remainder on stocks of companies nearing a breakeven (turning a profit). I focus on stocks whose prices aren’t yet reflecting the improving of the fundamentals.
Playing In the Stock Market
As the stocks I own increase in price (if everything goes according to the plan), I use them as collateral to take more loan. I then use the loan to build more stores selling the products from my factories.
This way I can increase the revenue of my company and utilize more of the production capacity of the factories.
R&D And Marketing in Capitalism Lab
Eventually the R&D projects I set in place in the beginning get ready and increase the quality of my specialization products. When this happens I can raise the prices of the products and improve margins.
At the same time the advertising from earlier continuously improves the rating of my products and creates brand loyalty. In the end the double-engine of improving quality and brand value allow me to significantly improve profit margins.
Investing Accumulated Capital
At this point the company produces significant earnings. These reinvested in either acquiring companies or building new stores in new cities. I target the cities with highest wages in order to be able to ask as high prices for my products as possible.
At a certain point it’s good to diversify the company’s portfolio into either software or internet. My strategy is usually to start developing an operating system. This is a highly in-demand product that can be sold for great margins. I usually aim to achieve dominance in the OS markets by pricing my offering low in the beginning and having several R&D -centres researching OS tech.
When my company is producing lots of cash, I always keep the credit maxed out in order to acquire other companies. I aim for the most profitable ones. In the long run, time is often the friend of a profitable company, and the enemy of a loss-making one. The profits of the acquired companies contribute to my company as dividends. I usually set the payout ratios at 10% which is low but provides a good amount of cash that I can use as collateral for new loans.
Summary: What Is Capitalism Lab and Is It Any Good?
Capitalism Lab is a fantastic and immersive strategy game where the player gets a base level understanding of how business works. For the nerds willing to go deep into details of optimizing profit margins of individual products, practicing financial engineering and investing in R&D to ensure future dominance of industries this game is a great fit. I see Capitalism Lab as a business sandbox where the player has their imagination as the limit for what they can achieve.
All in all it’s fitting that the first article on Proqet Magazine was on Capitalism Lab as this is one of the author’s favourite titles to date!
Stay tuned for more content!
accounting business business simulation capitalism capitalism lab capitalism lab strategy guide classic pc game cliff harris country democracy 4 democracy game dlc farm finance game game review guide ig2 income statement industry giant industry giant 2 investment modding open-source open transport tycoon openttd pc politics simulator positech games proqet r&d research center sales searoute simulation simulation game simulator game steam early access stock market strategy strategy game transport tycoon trevor chan uig entertainment user-created mods
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