In today's world, licenses for specific artifacts of (pop) culture play an important role. Having a license allows you to create movies based on a given idea.
Once a player has produced their own film, they are automatically licensed to it. Thanks to the license, he can create sequels to a given film. However, the license owner may decide to sell/buy licenses from other players. Thanks to this, the new owner will be able to create various types of continuations of the film whose license he has purchased. Of course, the producer who sold the license is no longer able to create sequels to the film (unless he buys back the rights to it).
Players can put their licenses up for sale (such a movie is specially marked in the list of movies). Then another player (it can be both a human and a computer) can buy the rights to such a film.
PLEASE NOTE: computer players can also bid to purchase a license for our film that is not marked FOR SALE.
Human players can also make offers to computer players for movies not marked FOR SALE, but not always a computer player will be willing to sell us the rights to their best productions (and vice versa, they will not want to buy the rights to all our "junk").
The license price depends on the estimated profits from a given production. So the moment of purchase is important. Licenses are purchased for a specific film (not a series). Therefore, the film must already be completed (the license can be purchased after the release of the film).
Taking into account the fact that the profit algorithms generated by movies take into account other productions of players, it can be assumed that if a player makes good movies, his next movie will also be good, so they will positively affect the profits of his previous movie. Which will result in the fact that this film will bring more profits ... as a consequence, the price of its license will also increase. This should be especially visible when a given film wins an award or a nomination at a festival. On the other hand, buying a license too early may turn out to be a blunder, because the original film may not pay off and the sense of making its sequel may become a big question mark.
Buying a license does not affect the profits of the original movie you have licensed (in the sense that all profits from the movie go to its original producer). i.e. If we bought the film rights Avengers 3 all profits from it still goes to its original producer. We can however, create Avengers 4, from which we will receive full profits.
Remarks and comments
Here are some interesting situations that may occur in the game.
A computer player creates a script for a sequel to his film. Unfortunately, it didn't quite work out for him (or he lacks cash) so he decided to sell it on the open market. This scenario is bought by another player. And right now, he can make a movie based on it. What's more, it can also create continuations of this film (because the rights apply to films, not scripts). So it seems that the computer player "for free" got rid not only of the script but also of the rights to the film (he will no longer be able to create sequels, because another player will have the script of the sequels). The solution to this particular case could be to sell sequel scripts for a higher price (such as a movie license). However, on the other hand, it is an interesting flavor that allows perceptive players to hunt for such deals!
Another interesting case is when a player (this time a human) creates a scenario but finds that he didn't do it well enough (scenario level is low). You can't also improve (corrections don't work) so it looks like the player is stuck. He cannot throw such a scenario in the trash and create a new one (there is no such option - it would be too easy from the point of view of game mechanics, too inexpensive for the player). Therefore, in such a situation, he has two options: make a sequel that is of problematic quality (which is often practiced in reality) or sell a failed script.
By selling it, however, he will be exposed to the fact that one of the other players will buy it ... and in this way he will take over the rights to the film priceless. On the other hand, scenarios disappear from the scenario market from time to time (they are simply forgotten - mechanics introduced to have scenario rotation). Thanks to this, the player can count that such a scenario will disappear in some time (if no one buys it), and thanks to this, he will be able to create a new continuation of his original hits, this time applying more to the work on the script :). Risky but interesting, isn't it?
Perhaps you will ask why introduce licenses if you could get a similar mechanism by trading scenarios? First of all, the licenses do not require the creation of a sequel script (and even at the time of creating the script, the option to trade the license of a given film is not possible). Thanks to this, the computer can hunt for players' opportunities (if the player has not created a sequel scenario, it means that he is not interested in continuing a series, perhaps considering it not very prospective). On the other hand, it is another form of getting cash (or saving the player when he is in trouble). And it creates the possibility of further interesting “flavors”.
An example of such a "flavor" is a new random event that may appear during the game. It is a "scenario leak". Well, the scenario of any player can suddenly "leak", i.e. appear on the scenario market. In fact, it will be his exact copy (if it's a sequel script, it will have the same default cast). So everyone will be able to buy it and create a movie based on it ... and then its sequels. In this case, however, the player who originally owned this script and has a license for the series will still have this license, i.e. will be able to create a continuation of this movie. Here we are dealing with a situation where the "leaked script" begins to live its own, independent life. In the game it will look like this.
- Player A has a scenario: Deadpool.
- This scenario is leaking: Deadpool (Leaked)
- Player B buys such a scenario and doing on the basis of the film.
- Player and still could do a continuation of his original film: Deadpool 2
- Then player B begins its series of independent Deadpool (leak) 2 -that is, in short, does a fake original:).