When I last left off, I had acquired a Restaurant in dCity, but failed to provide any population to work it! Luckily, a hungry Homeless person came by and decided to stay.
And even though it takes 10 people to fully run the Restaurant, I noticed that I was receiving a small trickle of SIM bucks (the in-game currency) on a daily basis. I guess this Homeless person was doing some work in the Restaurant... presumably cooking for themselves, since there was no one else around? And somehow making a profit? I don't know. Things can get weird in a one restaurant, one person town!
Anyway, this wasn't something I would complain about. After a few days I received my Hive tokens and I was finally able to add some life to the town with an 'Apartment'. A whole building of them I assume, because it increased my population by 20!
Hooray! Now I was able to get the full income from my Restaurant! But wait, what's this? I now have an over 50% unemployment rate! And I'm losing a significant percentage of my SIM income to pay for Social Services!
While I appreciate that my local government is looking out for everyone, this just wouldn't do. I needed to find some jobs for them! So I browsed the available buildings in the Marketplace and settled on a Weed Farm. This bad boy has a decent income, increases my popularity, and generates WEED tokens on a daily basis!
I had now spent 18 of my 20 Hive, so I swapped the remaining amount into SIM tokens (~450 in total) so that I could bid on the in-game auctions that popped up every few days. And now I was all set for the next week. I just had to kick back and let my money and weed roll in!
The next morning I checked on my city and saw something shocking! Taxes! Lots of them! 21% taxes actually! WTF? What am I paying these taxes for!? After some poking around I found the government tab which explained what each tax section was used for. Unfortunately, none of them applied to my town! And even if they did, the percentage bonuses are clearly favoring larger cities. So my income was being taxed and those taxes were being used to help the rich get richer. Damn. I get enough of this in real life, I don't need the same in my fun, simulation game!!
I took my complaints to Discord and aside from one plucky fellow city owner who showed support (thanks BRO Guy), I was told by several people that I needed to purchase more buildings. And despite my limited efforts, they either were incapable or simply refused to understand how the current tax system in dCity places an unfair burden on new players and towns. They just seemed to assume that anyone new would immediately throw 100+ Hive at the game!
I just wanted to have quiet little town where I could grow some WEED in peace without THE MAN, bringing me down!
sigh
And to make matters worse, Gerber, the creator of the game, says that he is going to turn taxes up to maximum soon! Boooo! Boooooo! Taxation without representation!
Note: I do realize that this game is in development and my ranting about in-game taxes is partially for fun. However, I do think I have a valid point about the tax system disproportionately affecting new players and smaller towns. Not everyone is going to have a town like this one pictured below and if the game creators want to acquire and keep new players, they should put some thought into the new player experience.
So far I have spent 24 Hive on the game, which at its current price of about 25 cents, equates to a total of $6.
I have made a little over 100 SIM and have accumulated 0.957 WEED tokens.
I have another 20 Hive coming in later today that I will probably drop into my city. I guess I need to find a building or two that will benefit from the taxes imposed by our Imperial Overlord!
Here is my current city overview. I'll return next week with another update!
