There are lots of tycoon games out there, but very few let players run a movie studio. I instantly think about Lionhead Studios’ The Movies whenever someone brings up that concept, but we haven’t really gotten anything on that scale ever since, which is why indie studios like Aniki Games are trying to fill that gap.
The Executive is an indie management sim game that allows you to be a powerful movie tycoon who can make big mistakes and keep their job, just like IRL. Its visual presentation is quite simple, and the vast majority of your play time is spent inside menus, figuring out budgets, who does what, and whether to sequelize or reboot that one movie project that became a surprise hit a decade ago. I’d say it’s a game for the movie industry sickos first and foremost; the people who follow every new development in Hollywood and the biggest releases’ box office hauls in order to try and predict what every studio will do next. It’s me, I’m the sickos.
Things begin simple: You’re a nobody with big dreams getting a few million bucks from your rich parents, investors, or banks. This starting choice will define the overall difficulty of the game moving forward (the money you owe and the conditions to repay it). Getting the first small-budget movies made is also simple. Making an actual profit out of them? Not so much!
For the most part, The Executive is a ‘numbers go up’ kind of game. It’s not very dynamic. You do your thing, try to come up with a winning formula, read the market, convince the distributors to get a fair deal, etc. Rinse and repeat. It takes a while to get into the proper movie-making business and work on bigger productions, but it’s just a matter of cracking the numbers and learning how to make the most of the current trends and very wobbly market conditions.
Alternatively, you can just stick to your guns and bankrupt your entire movie business because you wanted to make a franchise out of Night Freaks, a low-budget horror flop that struggled to find an audience even in international territories. You don’t get to direct and watch the actual movies; you’re just running a damn business. Still, this game has some powerful role-playing tools, and being forced into making a sequel to the half-baked ‘robot drama’ idea that you came up early on is pretty funny.
The biggest negative is that, as off-beat and systematically compelling the game’s core concept is, fighting for financial survival in the movie business as the decades go by and the industry evolves can get repetitive pretty soon. Random unfortunate events aside, there’s barely any variance to the loop. You can research new stuff and techniques to put into your movies and expand your operations with new, more specialized workers, maybe even get some sweet new DVD deals for the back catalog. But you don’t really experience a tangible change in how the game plays out.
Does this mean The Executive isn’t worth your time? Well, it depends on what kind of player you are and how much you care about the movie business. There’s some depth to this management sim, but it’s rather crude in the way it presents itself and doesn’t really evolve in meaningful ways besides the targets you set for yourself. In my case, I care enough about the basic premise to continue to check achievements off the list. Past that point, I’d rather be doing something else.
There’s also some value in it as a ‘generator of funny anecdotes’ with names that sound familiar but not quite being snubbed at the Romys (not Oscars) while the biggest award of the night goes to the prequel of a reboot of a fantasy series you kickstarted like 40 years ago only because you landed an amazing screenwriter. There’s a tint of absurdist comedy in such moments which you can’t find in many games. I just wish this game reacted more significantly to my wins and losses. Otherwise, I’m just fighting against myself and looking for ways to break the system before losing interest.
The Executive is now available on PC (GOG and Steam).
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