00:00Hollywood Animal. A box of spiders disguised as a tycoon game.
00:07It's easy to think Hollywood Animal is a pretty traditional management game.
00:12Sure, there's the splendors and miseries of old Hollywood,
00:16maybe a chance to tempt the leading man with the delicate taste of human flesh.
00:21So the game stands out a little from the crowd, yes,
00:24but otherwise it seems like what you'd expect from the genre.
00:27You place your buildings, hire employees, research upgrades, and climb your way to the top.
00:32Pretty standard, right?
00:34But here's where Hollywood Animal really stands out.
00:37And not just because of its maniacal attention to detail or its endless variation.
00:43The key thing is, the competition is playing the same game as you.
00:49In tycoon games, we're used to competitors being abstractions in the background.
00:54But not in Hollywood Animal.
00:56Every studio is an independent player in this cruel industry.
01:01You'll be facing off against a corporate monster,
01:04an assembly line of cheap products with mass appeal,
01:07and even some upstart intellectuals naive enough to believe they're making art.
01:12Everyone has their own ideas about what makes good cinema and successful business.
01:17But they all agree on one thing.
01:20There's not enough pie to go around.
01:23Your competitors are fighting over the same talent as you,
01:26the same viewers, the same advertising space,
01:30and the same covers of the major magazines.
01:33You're about to give a brilliant director his very own driver plus a maid
01:38when your rivals offer him a villa on the coast.
01:41You planned a minor attack on an actor to disrupt someone's film schedule and clear up the calendar.
01:47But your rivals respond with contract killings.
01:51You invested in cutting-edge technology and colossal sets to shoot your very own Gone With the Wind.
01:58But then someone calls in a favor and the police raid your studio.
02:02Time to call your friends from the mafia and hide the heroin.
02:05What? Does the moral compass mind you working with the mafia?
02:10What about Hitler or the Ku Klux Klan?
02:13No problem. There's plenty of less squeamish businessmen than you in Hollywood.
02:19Or maybe you'd have your new star dramatically rescue a drowning tourist
02:26who you yourself threw in the water. The press will love it.
02:31No? Too risky?
02:33The competition won't think twice about drowning anyone, the tourists and you along with them.
02:39The fight doesn't let up when you sit down at the negotiating table.
02:43In Hollywood Animal, the studios are united under the alliance, but don't let the name fool you.
02:49They're not your allies.
02:51Want to hurt a major studio? Use your influence. Push through a rule that limits how much they can pay their actors.
02:57Own a lot of movie theaters? Push up those ticket prices.
03:01Hate pirates? Ban movies about pirates.
03:04You can always mold the cruel world to suit your own ends, but take your eye off the prize
03:09by suiting someone else's ends instead.
03:12Or just tell everyone they can go to hell.
03:16Don't join any alliances. Don't accept anyone's rules.
03:19Reject all standards of decency.
03:22Choose the path of the trashmonger.
03:24Combine just the right elements in the devil's cauldron and create the ultimate protagonist.
03:29The girl with the talking vagina.
03:32With Tourette's Syndrome.
03:34Build your sets from scrap. Hire illegal immigrants.
03:37Shoot the whole thing in a week. Send it out spliced with a film about a robot rapist.
03:41And you're a grindhouse pioneer.
03:44But even then, your competitors won't leave you alone.
03:47They've already tasted blood.
03:49You can't hide behind your high fences and quietly tend your garden forever.
03:54Because in Hollywood Animal, you're a businessman.
03:57And every business is a struggle for power.
04:01And real power isn't when you can do good for yourself.
04:05Real power is when you can do bad to the other guy.
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