The Big Picture

For some time I wanted to write down some high-level overview of what is an Airport CEO’s job.
When I read in the Dev Blog 133 that the devs will have a talk about the big picture after their holidays, I felt like I should do it now.
I identified three big fields of interest for any CEO: Vision, Finance, and Employees, and I wanted to check how are or could they be implemented in a game.

It’s a bit longish and here’s the management summary:

  • Visions and Missions based on dynamic developing context instead of fixed campaigns
  • Real financial controlling tools, statements on income and financial statements
  • Developing of employees, company standing with employees

Vision and Mission

CEOs have a vision where their company will be in the future. From that vision they create a mission how to get their company to that visionary state.

In most games you have a campaign mode in which you get new milestones after you accomplished one, but they rarely lead to a vision.

A vision very much depends on the economic environment. Today, a vision often deals with digitisation , cloud computing , climate change . Without emulating or simulation such an economic environment, a vision is not possible.

If Airport CEO allows to have those visions and a mission, based on in-game grown challenges, it could be a revolutionary business simulation game.

Finance

That’s the core functionality of a business simulation.
As a CEO, it should be possible to follow any financial transaction. (I can see them in Airport Tycoon, for instance). I don’t know how to find them today in ACEO, I’m afraid it’s not possible. I’m sure they’re somewhere…

I never understood why no economy game (at least none I know of) has an excel interface implemented. There I could find the information in the data I need: how much did we spend on fuel, how much did we earn for fuel? Employees costs by job type, Repairing and maintenance of moving staircase… do you really want to implement all those reports or just an excel download with all data and let the gamers develop the reports. A wide new field for modders, too.

Employees

Richard Branson said, the employees are the most important stakeholders. Many CEOs think, it’s the customers, but he said if the employees identify with their company and they are happy, they will make the costumers happy.

If you agree with him or not, employees are a very important part of any company. Some basics are already in the game, any employee has some features that qualifies them for the job. It should be more clear how they influence the quality and speed, the efficiency of the task.

People change over time, they gain experience, get old, need training (how to control new devices, licences). This could be represented in the game.

If the company takes good care for their employees, it should be easier to hire good people for less money even if the (emulated) job market is almost empty.

2 Likes

I accidentally found this in feature voting. I think it is too high-level and contains more strategic ideas than features. No wonder it got no votes (I’m already out of votes, where can I buy new ones? :smile:)

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