Real Stock Market

[SimpleRules]

I think a real stock market where shares are more than just 25% of a business, and where they are valued on income, performance, loan ... not value, and with fancy graphs.

I think being able to float shares, and buy back shares, would also be good.

For example if a train crashes, a news alert could come up "Wallstreet sells short on Chonborough Transport due to crash" and such.

[maartena]

They could adopt the old Railroad Tycoon model, where shares were indeed based on more then just the amount of money you have in the bank. Stock could split for two when it would hit a certain price, and shares were bought per 1,000. One could start with 10,000 shares, each worth $10, which equals the $100,000 starting money, and the bank owns all shares. On top of that, you can loan money as usual. To buy shares, you will have to buy them from the bank that owns them, and of course other players can do so as well. When a share hits $100 per share because of good performance, the shares will then split for 2 shares each worth $50, giving you a total of 20,000 shares. Obviously people that had once bought 1,000 shares, now own 2,000 shares as their stock splits as well.

It would require quite some recoding I would imagine, not sure that it is that easy.

On top of that, I would not mind seeing the ability to buy shares of industries. For instance, buying shares of a factory with the same model as mentioned above. When a factory gets supplied materials, and it processes a lot of materials to make goods, the value of the factory increases and so does the value of your shares.

Right now, the buying shares option that is built in can be easily abused in multiplayer, when 2 people agree with eachother they both want to be rich, and one of them already happens to have 1 or 2 million in the bank and no more loan. Company A would give his 2 million dollars to Company B. Company A drastically decreases in value as it has no more money. Company B would then buy 100% of the shares of Company A for a CHEAP low price, and then give the 2 million dollars back to Company A. Now the value of company A increaes overnight to 2 million+ dollars, and Company B will sell the shares. Result: Company A and Company B will both have 2 million dollars, where before only one of them had 2 million dollars. This could be repeated about 10 times within a matter of 10 minutes, and both of them will have like 40 million+ by then. A single player can abuse this by simply opening 2 sessions to the same server.

Thats an issue that will need to be addressed, but it is difficult to do so. A new share system that won't drastically fluctuate the share value simply based on the amount of money one has in the bank could solve this issue, and make share-buying/selling a nice addition again to multiplayer. Right now, most servers have it disabled for this specific reason.

[Lonergothincorperated]

I think this whole idea for a new stock market is brilliant, at best I can own 75% of my competitors shares before buying them out completely, how unrealistically boring. when i buy shares in reality I lose money running a risk that might not come through not just buying soo much an owning a company.
well good idea from M up there^ a little much thought out.

I play this game recreationally, not competitively or cooperatively. Realism would in theory kill this experience.
... if one plays a game one may not have much grip with the reality of anything any more and would probably need realism in the game to compensate for inadequacies when in reality.

[AntBUK]

I would just prefer it if you bought 5% at a time instead of 25% then add the rules system when over 50% as found in the Subsidaries thread.

[zlasher]

Hi guys (first post here).

I've searched around, and this seems to be the best thread I've found to cover this - even though it's slightly off topic.

When playing singleplayer (with AI)..

- When (if) you buy up one of your competitors - you should have the option of "removing all tracks" and NOT get all that AI generated tracks/roads. I won't complain to much about the AI - it's fun to play against - but it's not really how I would lay my track .

I guess this option is common in newer games, like Railroad Tycoon, and others?..

Or maybe it's even an option today, that I just haven't noticed??

Steinar

[PPT]

Hi guys (first post here).

I've searched around, and this seems to be the best thread I've found to cover this - even though it's slightly off topic.

When playing singleplayer (with AI)..

- When (if) you buy up one of your competitors - you should have the option of "removing all tracks" and NOT get all that AI generated tracks/roads. I won't complain to much about the AI - it's fun to play against - but it's not really how I would lay my track .

I guess this option is common in newer games, like Railroad Tycoon, and others?..

Or maybe it's even an option today, that I just haven't noticed??

Steinar

They went bankrupt because of bad management. If you buy them out you get all of their problems to sort out, as well as useful infrastructure.

[magnato]

How difficult can it be to calculate value based on rentability eg 4%. How much capital do you need to make the give profit?

it is only a multiple of 25.

If you again bases your calculation on income, not on profit, you would get an value a bit overestimated, but maybe more realistic.

Then add the capital of the given company and you have the value!

[kul]

Maybe it should also be possible to buy shares of other companies then just transport companies, what about industries, or other ficional companies?

Another thing I'd like to see is getting a share of the profit. ie getting 20% of a companies profit when you own 20% of it?

[Bilbo]

Maybe it should also be possible to buy shares of other companies then just transport companies, what about industries, or other ficional companies?

Another thing I'd like to see is getting a share of the profit. ie getting 20% of a companies profit when you own 20% of it?

Hmmm .... may be quite nasty.

If you buy 75% of someone and he buys 75% of you (quite common if there are two strong companies and "a herd of weaklings"), what will happen?

Also, will he share losses?

This may end up with people buying all other company shares and just watching for money to grow without actually building much of the tracks.

Many servers simply disable share trading (alobng with all exploits associated with it)

Though now it is usable to use shares to deposit free money - you buy 75% of someone for few millions on start, then build ... and when you need excessive amounts of money (like for building industries), you sell the stock back .... which may have risen in meantime to 1G worth or more ...

[Nasher]

(first post on these forums, hello everyone )

Here's a summary of my point of view:
- each company should be able to choose wether it wants to sell its shares or not
- buying/selling 25% of a company is a bit excessive, 5% would be fine
- when a company owns 50% of another company, it can ask for merging
- as it has already been said, share value should be based on the income

issues:
1) new industries funded by players:

• - does the industry belong to the company ?
  - does it gives its benefits to the company ?
  - if it belongs to a company can it be sold apart ?

First of all, does industries makes profit ? Obviously they do only transform materials into refined ones or goods

Game-created industries owner ? They seem to belong to cities...

So, if industries belong to cities, when a company "creates" an industry... does it just give a subvention to help local city to build the industry ?

2) what if company A owns 50% of its stock plus 50% of company B stock... and company B does the same ?

Companies belong to the main shareholder but if 2 companies own 50% of themselves and 50% of the other one...

• - is it a deadlock ?
  - should the game allow hostile takeover bids ?

3) allow or not companies based on stock-based profits only ?

[richk67]

Take a look at my Shares Trading thread. I came up with this a long time ago, and have planned to write it... but other projects got in the way.

[Nasher]

i just like what you wrote, there are common points between your proposal and mine but you give a solution against hostile takeovers, that's what i wanted to find out

i also appreciate what you wrote about reversibility, the ability for companies to go back to private

regarding the UI, it might be noticeable to add a graph to track share value variations

but there's one thing i don't understand: the 30% limit per investor...

anyway there is still an issue: industries...

[Tom0004]

i lot of you have said the samething abut buying 5% instead of 25% there is actually a patch for this, to make some of you happy, can be found in this thread

[richk67]

but there's one thing i don't understand: the 30% limit per investor...

That is a UK stock market rule. If you take a 30% stake in a company, you must offer to buy the whole company.

[Nasher]

and what is the common international rule about this ? (i mean outside of the UK )

[Bilbo]

Thats an issue that will need to be addressed, but it is difficult to do so. A new share system that won't drastically fluctuate the share value simply based on the amount of money one has in the bank could solve this issue, and make share-buying/selling a nice addition again to multiplayer. Right now, most servers have it disabled for this specific reason.

Disable giving of money to fix the exploit? http://bugs.openttd.org/?getfile=1237 - patch from http://bugs.openttd.org/task/921, allowing to disable exclusive rights too.

[TheJosh]

Ill write a patch for this

[zargondm]

Can't for get about dividends, if I own part of a profitable company, I am entitled to some of the profits.
The company own has the option of sending out dividends or or dividing the stock.
Also most company's can buy up a portion off the stock to prevent a buy out.

Features then.
1. Purchase the stock in you own company.
2. Dividend options.
3. the option to increase/decrease the number of stocks.
4. Company value/ stocks = stock price.


this could create a whole new way to play the game.

[LurkerL]

(I am a long time player but a new poster here.)

May I suggest my own version of what to do wrt this idea:

1. UI additions, while not changing gameplay.

While not changing the gameplay, add to the UI so as to represent the company's finances within the conventions of accounting. I.e.

*One page dealing with the overall state of the company. Display Assets, Expenses (and Drawings...) one one side and Liabilities, Revenue and Capital on the other. (New window)
*One page dealing with profit/loss (new window)
*One page dealing with cash flow (About 90% of the current version of the Finances screen. A moderate number of changes to company_gui.cpp.)
*Maybe a page dealing with assets. Here could be stats on the market ( = resale) values of assets, total distance of tracks etc. (New window)
*etc

This is not impossible, since most (if not *more than needed*) data is present in the game. The game ALREADY computes depreciation, value of rolling stock/land/etc and a whole lot of other minor details. This will organize the financial info already present. Perhaps call this new interface "The Accountant" or something.


2. The "Real Shares"

Develop a way of manipulating the company's capital. That is, allow capital to be owned by many transport companies. The rest of the suggestions then "fall into place".

Can I say that actually implementing a Real Shares system would turn TTD into an accounting game rather than what it is ATM. I know that the TTD accounting system is a bit thin. But I don't play TTD to admire its accounting.

The bottom line is, it is quite simple to implement (that is, no new data needs to be added to vehicles etc) if people are comfortable with adding one (or maybe two) more screens to the financial interface. All that needs to be done is to create a new window containing information already present in the game. Step 1 is where the hard work will be.

WRT maartena's concerns with cheating, which simply cannot happen with accounting controls. See it this way: Some mysterious benefactor (Mr X) invests $100,000 in firm A, so Mr X owns all of A's capital. A grows into a $2,000,000+ operation (in TTD's language). A gives firm B $2,000,000. A's net worth is $2,000,000 less and B's net worth grows by the same amount. "The Buyout": If A wants to be sold to B then B must give Mr X whatever amount his interest in A is worth (in practical terms, the remaining value of vehicles and land). Now there is no extra money for B to play with, so it cannot give more money to A. (Of course, there are all sorts of things which are wrong with the previous story, such as the magical transfer of two million dollars.) I hope that that clears any concern about cheating.

WRT the concern that bank balance affects company's worth too much. It is because the definition of Net Worth is incorrect. The more correct term would be closer to "Equity", which in TTD would be Assets - Liabilities + Profit. A loan increases assets (cash) but increases liability (loan payable). So borrowing money but not spending it does nothing to Equity, and the main way to increase equity is through work ...

EDIT: Add more to how cheating/exploit cannot occur.