I never got the chance to experience The Movies when it released way back when. My roommate at the time was obsessed with the game and so I got a lot of over-the-shoulder time with it and really enjoyed the idea behind the managing of a movie studio. Now developer Super Sly Fox has released Blockbuster Inc., a title that should appeal to The Movies fans and sim fans in general with what it has to offer.
If you are new to the experience, Blockbuster Inc. might feel a little daunting. There are seemingly dozens of long and drawn out tutorials about all the minutia of the games various systems. Thankfully, the systems in play are very easy to wrap you head around and you should be running a movie studio in no time, but those tutorials are not fun and quite the slog for those new to this genre. After the “fun” the game has you select you era to begin with and you can play the game much in the way The Sims works, with no real defined end-game.
You start off with very little money and must build your movie studio from the ground up, having control of just about every aspect of how it runs and the people inside. This means you’ll build on a vacant lot in the era of your choosing with mostly the tools of that specific era open or needing to be unlocked/purchased. If you are starting in the 1920s you can expect those vintage cranking cameras and an era of the silent movie. You can jump into later eras and have access to more technologies and bigger budgets, so if you enjoy experimenting you’ll find a lot on offer for movie buffs out there.
Building your studio works much as it would in The Sims. You enter a paused ‘Build Mode’ and can build the various offices and studio areas that you will need to run a functioning production as well as extra bits to make it look fancy. You’ll need writers rooms, producer rooms, lounges, canteens, classrooms, research labs, stunt training, doctors, and bathrooms to cater to the staff that you’ll be hiring and managing. Each staff member that you hire will get tied up in a production, so if you want multiple movies or TV shows running at once you are going to need the hires and the dedicated space for them.
And all of these things, from the buildings to the staff, from the actors to the sound-stages, are going to cost you money and can be upgraded and managed. And the only way to earn cash to expand is to release movies into theaters. But it isn’t as easy as clicking a button to make a movie happen. You are in control of everything from deciding each staff member that will work on a project. You select writers, the producer on the project, the actors, the director and film crew. And the better staff will cost more money, so expect to start off with some B-movie caliber staff and productions.
Each of these workers has their own specific stats, wants, and needs. This means some might be better suited for certain projects and performing certain actions. A dramatic actor might not work well in comedy and certainly not in an action film doing their own stunts. Each member you hire will have their own attributes that will give buffs or status effects on a given production. On top of this you’ll need to manage each staff members meters as you would in The Sims lest they hurt a production, get poached by another studio, or need to be fired.
A canteen will keep the hunger at bay, but hiring a poor cook can impact the food on offer as does the quality you choose to serve if you are trying to save a buck. And while these meters are handled automatically as each staff member goes about their day, you will need to assign all the staff a workday schedule. You can choose when they get breaks to eat, when to have free time to do what they want, when to go to work, and when to be home to rest. On top of that the talent (actors, directors, producers) will need places to live. As their industry rating increases you’ll be able to move them from the slums to the Hollywood hills, all of which you’ll need to pay for and will impact their overall stats.
The management part of Blockbuster Inc. is a real blast. You’ll constantly be balancing all these different needs all while working toward a films release. And the film itself is also a gamble as you can get into the small details of a production by directing each scene and the actors within them. Maybe you want to add more scenes, remove others, or even re-shoot scenes that rate low in certain aspects. And if you aren’t all that detail focused you can simply let the game assign players and let the chosen director run their film as they wish. We really like that you can be as involved as you want in productions making Blockbuster Inc. be as deep as you want it to be for your style of play.
The production really is all in your hands. You also build the sets from the ground up or download ones created by other users, all of which cost green. Each set must be based on a specific theme that you unlock for use through research and points earned from other productions. The details are pretty insane as you can not only choose the films genre but you can also pick its rating, the best suited audience, and what cameras and lighting to use. You can play costume designer and choose actors wardrobes, and even go as detailed as how they move and emote in any given scene. You’ll also have access to full camera controls for zooms, cuts, and pans to really play director. And much like in The Movies, Blockbuster Inc. features an exporter that lets you save your creations to save or upload to YouTube.
There’s nothing quite like managing all these pieces and getting a movie into theaters. You might have a hit on your hand that rakes in the cash and allowing you to expand your studio and improve/hire new staff, or you’ll have a bust that will have you making cuts and being more hands-on on with your next big release to get you out of the hole. And all this while managing the ever shifting needs and desires of actors and directors as they make more demands of you as their star-power grows. And all of that work culminates in the games version of the Oscars that sees all your releases in a given year go up against other studios.
If you win in the various categories the prestige of your studio will increase with more money coming in and buffs to future projects. The feeling of winning ‘Best Picture’ or ‘Best Actor’ for someone that you’ll helped rise up the ranks feels pretty great and makes for a nice reward for a game that has no real goal outside of staying afloat. And while the awards can be a great boon for your studio, the press can also destroy you. Reviews on your films can affect acting and directing staff both positively and negatively. An actor that has a few hits is going to become harder to handle, especially if they star in a run of stinkers or have a PR disaster. A director in rut after a few misses will start skipping work out of depression and an actor not getting the good roles might flex their muscle and leave your studio for greener pastures. You may even need to fire staff to save money during those leaner months of bad releases.
Blockbuster Inc. offers a wealth of possibilities, especially for those that want to dive into the deep end of micromanaging. But it isn’t without its faults, especially once you make it as a big-time studio. You might see yourself with a hit or two early on during a play-through that does so well you’ll essentially be on easy street for the rest of the game. And while this might be accurate to real-world Hollywood, is doesn’t make for an engaging game as it removes much, if not all, of the challenge. You’ll have the money and access to everything the game has to offer and your staff will never want for anything every again when this happens.
Once you become the top studio in any era your game will essentially be over in terms of stress and challenge, especially as there are a lack of goals outside of “make _____ amount of money on a production”. In many ways Blockbuster Inc. feels backwards in terms of traditional gameplay. It’s incredibly tough to make it early on, but once you make it the later stages of the game feel empty of stress or threat to your financial dominance. On one play-through in the 1920s we had a couple of massive hits back to back that set us up for life. That year we won every Oscar and everyone was happy. From then on I was on easy street and spent my time playing with all the directing features and designing my studio lot.
I’m really hoping for a few updates that address the endgame content, or lack of it. I feel like the later stages should become more of a challenge with new things opening up that you might need to be aware of. The random events do help and I think these should become more frequent and expanded on once your studio reaches a certain status or income. And because of how easy it is to game the system for money the build mode should at least offer something deeper to keep us building. It really lacks options in terms of design objects lending to studios more or less looking all the same after a while.
Sly Fox Studios is a small three person team that has created the bones of something really impressive. But so many features are yet to be really fleshed out and you can easily abuse systems to give you advantages early in the game. You can easily make a dozen films and reviews will keep saying your director or actor is having their debut. You can flood the awards as other studios might only release one or two films and sandbag the show. The game pacing is also off and the issue of balance pops up a lot, especially once you’ve made it big. There is a lot of waiting to do at points and not a lot to see while work is being done.
Blockbuster Inc. is lacking the little details to help keep you engaged like in The Movies or something like The Sims. Those small interactions are lacking from your staff, the silly actor moments while filming, the press having some fun, and the general lack of anything other than staff acting like an ant colony on the move from point A to point B. And I know that a lot of players will find it hard to get past the long tutorials that feel more like homework than getting ready to play the game. I really do love the bones of Blockbuster Inc., but the devil is in the details when it comes to these sorts of experiences. I just hope the studio can expand and build on what they have to provide for a more engaging experience overall.
Blockbuster Inc. fills that management itch especially in the early hours but feels emptier and lacks challenge the longer you play.
Final Score:
Steam code provided for the purpose of this review.
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