A post from game player marley209: Anybody new to the game should read... PLAYING TIPS Read the rules. It's been stated before, but you must understand that to compete in this game, you need to know that it's an ongoing process. You don't just buy the movies you think will do well and then sit back and wait until the end of the game to see how you did. This requires the small commitment of checking into your studio after each price change (and before the next) and deciding what movies to sell from your studio (i.e., those that have negative buzz or are likely to decrease in price before the next change), and what movies to purchase for your studio (i.e., those with positive buzz or are likely to increase in price before the next price change). *This is for speculation purposes only.* It's for earning extra funds for your studio so that you can purchase additional movies as the game progresses. As notcattle and others have written, the idea is to buy low and sell high, just like the stocks. You may buy and sell any movie for speculation purposes until the day the movie opens. If you keep it after that day, it remains in your studio for good and its grosses are added to your overall score. It's worth restating: Just because you want a movie in your final portfolio DOES NOT mean you buy it up-front and keep it for good. This ties up speculation funds and results in lower overall scores. Always decide on the day a movie opens if you want to keep it for your final portfolio or not, never before because you never know what its final price is going to be. On the other hand, just because you wouldn't dream of keeping a movie for your final portfolio doesn't mean you stay away from buying it for speculation purposes before it opens. I earned a lot of funds during the last game from movies I had no intention of keeping in my portfolio. This is not as straightforward a concept as some people believe -- many new players have trouble with this. You are encouraged to ask questions here in the lounge if there's anything about the rules or how to play that doesn't seem clear. Not to beat a dead horse, but here's a very simple example from the last game. Most of the players kept Anger Management on the last day of its availability in the Marketplace. However, we all bought and sold Anger Management up until that last day. Personally, I bought and sold it 8 times during the game before deciding to buy and keep in on the last day. As a result, I earned an extra $6M in funds from this one movie, plus I kept it to enjoy its grosses in my final portfolio. If I'd held onto it for the entire game, I'd not have gained that extra $6M, which helped build my portfolio. There are many more dramatic examples of this (for instance, in the old Mr. Showbiz game, Austin Powers 2 netted me about $27M in extra funds before I finally kept it for my final portfolio that summer), but there it is.
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