Back in the Black!!

After slipping as far as 1.4 million dollars in debt, I am now happy to say that my studio is actually making money once again. The studio currently has about $20,000, and even though I am still in last place, I have high hopes for the future.

In case you ever find yourself playing the movies and your studio runs into trouble and goes into a severe debt...here are the secrets behind my miraculous recovery:

1. Downsizing-- I ended up having to sell half of my actors (yes, people have a market value in the movies) so I was left with only four. This didn't allow me to make as many movies, but I saved a lot of money by not having to pay a large number of actors' salaries. This is yet another creepy way in which The Movies mimics real life.

2. Consulting --about two weeks ago, one of my floor-mates asked to play The Movies and got hooked. He is a Movies natural, so I had a conference with him, and he taught me his patented system for success (he currently has the top ranked studio). Basically, he has his writers constantly producing scripts. He sells some of them and produces the others. This is a genius idea since the writers never get stressed out or complain about having too much work to do (insert writers' strike joke here). He also stressed the importance of caring for the talent, and explained how he has established a pattern of providing makeovers, new trailers, fancy dinners, entourages, and pay increases to the actors. It was a very balanced plan, that will make it a lot easier to manage the talent once I really get the hang of it.

3. Getting my hands dirty -- I also found that I can quickly make scripts, which I can sell, using the movie making tool. It's pretty easy to make scripts that will receive the maximum asking price just by throwing as many scenes as possible in them. Normally, a script with 20 different scenes would take forever to shoot, but since I'm selling it, it doesn't really matter.

So, this was the main plan that brought my studio back to a somewhat respectable position. Hopefully I'll be able to start moving up the charts.

I would have to say that collaborating with my fellow Cronk was the main reason why I'm making money once again. Interestingly enough, one of the main ideas that I took out of this week's readings was the idea of virtual environments as places that support collaborative learning. This week's reading for my Online Learning class also dealt with how to foster and facilitate collaborative learning in an online environment. Although I would initially think that a face to face environment would be the best way of supporting collaboration, the Online Learning readings seemed to suggest that online discussions tend to allow more people to get involved. Moving a step further, it seems like virtual environments, such as Quest Atlantis or River City, might be even more supportive of collaborative learning, since students might be less afraid to make mistakes in a virtual world. This absence of any major consequences (although I'm sure some exist) might make students more willing to share their ideas and more receptive to the ideas of others.