The Simprentice

Catch the final installment of The Simprentice.

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The SimPrentice: Part 3

By Dave 'Fargo' Kosak

With The Sims 2: Open for Business hitting stores next week, GameSpy wraps up its look into the cutthroat world of Sim-Entrepreneurs.

In our continuing effort to stay on top of everything happening in the Sims world, over the past two months GameSpy has been chronicling the secret life of Grubbs, a Sim-businessman out to take over the world by running a hairstyling joint in his parents' garage. Part 1 of the SimPrentice looked at how he got his business started, while Part 2 examined the different types of businesses Sims can run. Today? Building a business on an empty lot, managing employees, and award-winning killer robot guitarists.

Fargo: Well Grubbs, the expansion pack is almost here, which means your time is up. Do you have a successful business yet? Your parents' garage is empty but for the remains of what looks like a keg party.

Grubbs: My career has only just begun, friend. I've taken my salon on the road, and I've moved the whole business to a community lot.

Fargo: Wow, how does that work?

Grubbs: Big Time.

Grubbs: I just picked up the phone, clicked on "Real Estate," and then picked an empty lot to buy. Starting a business on a community lot costs some serious coin -- it's a couple thousand simoleons for an empty field of grass, and then you've got to build your building. It's like buying a house all over again.

Fargo: That's pretty hardcore. Your business must be pretty successful for you to be able to throw down like that.

Grubbs: Well, I've got serious business savvy, and a financial secret that's the envy of real estate tycoons on either coast.

Fargo: What's that?

Grubbs: Money from Grandma!

Fargo: Okay, so let me see this community lot. Whoa! Grubbs, this place is huge. I wouldn't have thought a hair saloon would need two floors.

Grubbs: Well, to be fair, it's a two-story open atrium above the sweet stereo I bought. I went a little nuts with the new building tools.

Fargo: What are the new building tools?

Grubbs: For one thing, you can now build elevators. And awnings! And there's a new kind of foundation, one that you can put inside of individual rooms, so you can have a split-level sort of house. I built a stage. It was all part of my masterful business concept.

Fargo: A stage? What's this masterful business concept?

Grubbs: The idea is, you come to my boutique, and you have a drink, then you get your hair cut while my friends wail away at your face on their guitars.

Fargo: I should note that you need the Sims University expansion to play guitars. I should also note that that's a stupid idea.

Grubbs: So stupid... it just might work!

Fargo: No, just the regular kind of stupid.

Hiring Rats for the Race...

Fargo: [Stepping inside] Although I have to hand it to you, Grubbs. There's certainly a crowd in here. I can barely hear over the music -- those guys in the corner look like they're at a rave.

Grubbs: That's how my customers like to roll.

Fargo: And you've got people standing behind each of your salon chairs -- you actually have employees now?

Grubbs: I'm The Man, and like most Men, I let other people do all the work nowadays. To hire people, you can click on the phone to see all the available Sims and pick people with the appropriate skills.

Fargo: That sounds like a smart thing to do.

Grubbs: Or, you can just hire all your friends. Which is what I did.

Fargo: Do they have any useful talents?

You can hire qualified Sims for different positions.
Or, you can give jobs to all the dudes in your band.

Grubbs: Nah, they all majored in Philosophy, too. But check this out: when you hire people, you get to assign their work uniform! You can choose how they dress and everything. And you know what that means.

Fargo: I don't... and I'm afraid to ask.

Grubbs: Mandatory mullets!

Fargo: That's a little-

Grubbs: Even on the girls!

Fargo: Who's this chatty guy over here, next to the bubble machine?

Grubbs: That's Bennie. He's the key to my success. See? He's got a gold sales talent badge. He can sell a haircut to a bald man. Anyways, to get him working sales, all I had to do was walk up, click on him, click "Management," and then "Assign." You can assign Sims to work the register, work at salon chairs, restock the shelves...

Fargo: Look at him go. Sims walk in, and they stare at the chair wondering if they should get a haircut, and then Benny swoops in like a shark --

Grubbs: Do sharks swoop?

Fargo: -- and he chats them up until their sales bar goes all the way up, and then they sit in the chair. He's amazing. What happens if customers get a bad haircut?

Grubbs: Benny sells them another one.

Fargo: Your answer to a bad haircut... is to sell them another one!?

Grubbs: Benny is that good.

Robophobia...

Fargo: Now, I've been meaning to ask you about -- WHOA, what the hell is that thing?

Grubbs: Oh, him! That's Dr. Clinkyhead. He's not a real doctor, that's just what I named him. But he is a real robot.

Fargo: How did you get a robot?

Grubbs: If you get a gold badge in the Robot-Building talent, you can create one of these babies for the low-low price of 3,000 simoleons. Robots are just like Sims in that they have their own wants and needs and goals in life. And they can do anything a Sim can do, which includes pillow fights. I've hired Dr. Clinkyhead here to clean up my boutique, which he's great at, because all robots start out with max skill in cleaning and mechanics. He gets paid just like any other employee, despite the obvious limitations.

Fargo: What limitations?

Grubbs: No mullet.

Fargo: What else can robots do?

What Asimov failed to predict
is that all robots really want to party.

Grubbs: Well, they start out with a gold badge in toymaking. So you can put him right to work. And they never age!

Fargo: There are shades of Millennium Man here.

Grubbs: Robots don't have to eat, but they like to have fun, which is why I let him play the drums whenever he gets a break. You just have to be careful with robots that you don't [mumbles something.]

Fargo: That you don't what? What happens with robots?

Grubbs: [Mumbles something] go psycho [mumbles] destroy all the humans. It happens. You gotta make sure to keep his mood up. WHOA! LOOK OUT!

Fargo: [Diving under a table] Mad robot! MAD ROBOT!

Grubbs: No, not the robot, that guy by the door. See the guy? By the door?

Fargo: Who, there? That's just a normal guy. Benny's talking to him ... and just sold him ... one of those plastic pink flamingoes. Wow, Benny IS good.

Grubbs: He looks like a normal customer, but every so often you can see him scribbling in a notebook. He's one of them.

Fargo: ...a spy!

Grubbs: No dumbass. You think this is a game? He's a reviewer. Every so often a Sim comes in to review your business. If he has a good experience, you can get a good review in the paper, which will send more customers your way. If he has a really good experience, you'll win the coveted "Best of the Best" award, which you can hang on your wall. That drives MAD business, yo.

Fargo: Ohh. So what's your strategy for winning this guy over?

Grubbs: First, we keep him away from Dr. Clinkyhead, just in case.

Fargo: What else?

Grubbs: Second, I use my influence to convince my hot cashier to make out with him.

Fargo: I take back everything I've ever said, Grubbs. You truly are a master businessman. Look at how far you've come!

Grubbs: I'm like The Donald. But this is my real hair.