The Origins of Bidness

An interview with Giuseppe Maldoni

We are speaking today with Giuseppe Maldoni, chief game designer and alter ego at Maldens Universe.
Bidness is a fun and interesting game. How did you come up with it?

Like countless families in 2020, we spent a lot of time at home playing board games. At one point we even dug up our old Monopoly set and played a few rounds.

I have always loved Monopoly, but mostly because I like thinking of new rules for it. I starting thinking it would be nice to have a modern business game without some of the drawbacks of Monopoly.

Such as?

Monopoly is a classic, but we are all very familiar with it. After the first few turns you generally have a good idea of how the rest of the game will play out.

So the idea of Bidness?

The idea was to have an economy based on companies that make and sell things. It quickly settled into the stylized idea of engineers, marketers, and lawyers — these represent the main activities of a modern business.

I see. How does this economy work?

The players are the founders of companies. Companies make money by selling products. The better their products are, the more people pay for them. Companies sell products by marketing them. The more marketing a company does, the more products it sells.

In Bidness, the quality of your products is determined by how many tech points your company has. These represent the inventions, technologies, and whatever other magic goodies that go into great products. Engineers create tech points — the more engineers you have, the more your products will sell for. Engineering requires investment — it takes time for your engineers to build up your stack of tech points...

So you need to plan ahead if you want to build up your company's tech. What about marketers?

Marketers bring you more immediate benefits. Every marketer you have on your staff generates one marketing point. The more marketing points you have, the more products you sell.

And you make more money the more products you sell.

Yes. The money you make from selling products is simply your marketing points times your tech points.

I see. Sounds like I have to do some math.

Not too much. Tech points are used in multiples of ten, so you simply have to multiply a small number by a multiple of ten. If you can play cards, you can easily handle Bidness.

Engineers get you more money for your products and marketers help you sell more. What about the lawyers? What are they up to?

Lawyers serve as equalizers — they help you take other players to court where you may be able to take money, technology, or marketing from them. Lawyers also protect you when the other players come after you. The key thing about lawyers is that it does not really matter how many lawyers you have, what matters is that you have more than your opponent.

Sounds like a race...

Yes. If nobody hired a lawyer, the game would go on just fine. But as soon as the first lawyer is hired... well, things can start to heat up.

And lawyers' salaries?

Lawyers' salaries go up as you hire more lawyers. If you want the top legal team it can get quite expensive.

I get the general idea. This is a business game based on investing in your company and selling products. Why is it called "Bidness"? Where does the bidding come into play?

I like auction-based games — you don’t have to sit around while someone else takes their turn— you’re always involved. Also, I like the idea of the players setting the prices for things — let them decide what an engineer or a government contract is worth.

The down-side of an auction-based game is that you are bidding with play money — there is nothing to stop players from paying too much for things. Just like in the real world, this overspending can lead to a recession — there is not enough money left in circulation and things get stagnant.

How does your game address this?

Bidness has several mechanisms to make the auctions work smoothly. First of all, when you sell something by auction and another player is the high bidder, they pay you, not the bank. This keeps money in the game but more importantly, it provides a check against players bidding too high for things — they may want the item but they don’t necessarily want to see you get the money.

Another mechanism are company IOUs.

IOUs? Explain.

At the start of the game, you are in debt. Your company has a number of IOUs that represent this debt. If you get stuck for cash, you can always borrow more money, up to a limit. Borrowing, however, increases the number of IOUs you have.

The goal of the game is to pay off all of your debt — the more IOUs you have, the harder it will be to win the game. This is one of the things that makes the game interesting: it can be difficult to grow your company if you borrow some money, but if you borrow too much you may have a hard time paying it off in time to win. Every game is different in this regard — you have to pay close attention to what the other players are doing.

How do the government contract cards fit into this?

Government contracts are another mechanism that keeps the game economy on track. A contract pays you a guaranteed stream of cash for the remainder of the game. This keeps money flowing into the game economy.

There are a limited number of these contracts, so they can be very valuable — especially early in the game when you know that they will be paying out for a number of rounds. Theoretically, if you acquire enough contracts, you can earn enough money to win the game without have any employees in your company; some refer to this as “coasting”. In practice, it is not so easy to win this way, but the possilbity of someone doing this keeps the other players on their toes and keeps the game moving.

You decided to make this a card-based game. Why?

Card games give you variety and variance in a controlled fashion. Using cards to determine which actions players can take means that every game will unfold differently. This keeps the game fresh. Because you choose what cards to play from your hand, and because most everything is resolved via auction, there is also a good amount of strategy involved in playing.

What other issues did you consider in the game's design?

Creating a game that is fun and interesting to play requires some balance — you need a good mix of luck and strategy. You want to feel that your decisions matter but you don’t want every game to end the same way.

The game environment should be rich enough that you can get into it, but simple enough that you can make decisions quickly and easily.

Also, you should be able to recover from early mistakes. Nobody likes to play a game that feels hopeless after the first few rounds.

How much "politics" is in the game?

Well, any game with more than 2 players has some degree of "politics". In Bidness, players are not allowed to make side deals — loans, sales, that kind of thing. Every interaction is via an auction. That keeps people from blatantly ganging up on others.

Like other games, when a player pulls ahead they make themselves a target. You don't necessarily want to build up a pile of cash or jump to too big a lead too soon or you will find yourself in court. Many times it pays off to stay with the pack and wait for the right moment to move ahead.

Do you have any tips for players?

One nice thing about Bidness is there does not seem to be a single winning strategy — you really have to adapt to the circumstances of each game. The main advice I would give to players is to remember the goal of the game — your objective is to be the first player to pay off your debt, not to make the most money or have the biggest company. It can be easy to get carried away with building your company and lose sight of the prize.

Well, our time is up. Thank you and good luck with Bidness.
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