Season 2 Announcement: Top Billing

What happens on Tuesday the 20th

At roughly 7:40pm UK time (18:40 UTC) on Tuesday 20 October I will close Season 1, The First Pressing. The awards ceremony will be playable on the Awards page. Shortly after that I start Season 2, entitled "Top Billing". It runs for about three months, so the next ceremony is in January.

With the start of Season 2, everything below will be turned on, which means the game goes away for a minute or so while it restarts. Sorry in advance.

Why

A world that never resets still needs competition. The all-time numbers tell you who's been big for longest; whereas the current season tells you who's good right now. Season 1 was the first proper one, and it revealed and taught me a few things, which is what the rest of this page is about.

Awards for newcomers

Most of the bands in the game started this season, so every award except Label of the Year now has a newcomer version, just for bands that started this season. For example: Most Streamed Newcomer. They're handed out in the same ceremony as the main awards.

Newcomer of the Year now goes to the best band that started this season, on its season score (this season's tickets, sales and streams, the same score as Artist of the Year). Until now it went to the band that climbed the rankings the most, so a band that started during the season couldn't win it at all, which was my mistake.

A new band can still win the main awards too, so you might see a name twice.

Five new awards

• Collab of the Year. The collab that sold the most this season. Both bands take the trophy.
• Chart Regular. The band with the most records in the Top 10 this season.
• Critics' Choice. The best-rated record that sold this season. Singles, EPs and albums compete as one.
• Wave Rider. The band that topped the most wave reports this season.
• Market Leader. The most nights at the top of a market, where every market a band tops on its own counts. It starts counting on the first night of Season 2, so it's handed out for the first time at the end of Season 2, in January.

Additionally, Hitmaker now counts a collab's #1 for both bands on it, and Label of the Year joins the ceremony at the end of Season 2, now that labels are open.

Why

The awards mostly went to the bands that had been around the longest. Most of you started this season, and I wanted every new band to have something to win in its first season.

What changes

Up to 60 popularity nothing changes. Your popularity reduces by 2% a night as it always has. Above that, it slips faster the higher you are, and campaigns add less of their popularity the closer you get to the top:

However many campaigns you run in one market they can only boost your popularity so much per night. You get the first 6 popularity in full, then progressively smaller gains, up to a maximum of 9 before the slowdown above applies. So spending more stops helping well before you reach 100.

To retain your place at the top you need to keep playing. A gig in a country in the last 5 nights, or one of your releases reaching the top 10, takes half of the extra slide off there, and the two together take three quarters of it off. Notoriety works the same way above 75, and gigs no longer reduce it back down to 100.

So, for a country where your popularity is 100:

• If you do nothing: it drops to 94 by the morning, and falls to roughly 75 after a week.
• Campaigns, as many as you can: it'll drop to 96.
• A gig there every day: 96 every morning.
• A gig, a top-10 record and campaigns: 100.

If you have declared a rival then in every country where you're both above 60, the best of three is played again on the numbers in that country. The loser drops half a point there, but the winner gains nothing for it... so nobody can farm it ;)

Campaigns are now priced for one market. The price listed is for a single market only and each extra market you tick adds a quarter of it again. For example: two would cost ×1.25, five ×2 and all 15 ×4.5. The points it costs don't change, and the promotion pages add it up and show you the cost before you pay. Additionally, social campaigns now give the popularity displayed - rather than up to twice that!

Monitoring Popularity

Your popularity in every market is shown with an arrow saying how far it moved overnight: ▲ up, ▼ down, or steady if it moved less than 0.5. This is clearly displayed on your dashboard, your band's page and the tour and promotion pages. Your dashboard also tells you who's top in each market and for how long they've been there.

There's a new page: Market Leaders. The new page, which sits next to the rankings, details the most popular bands in every market and how many nights in a row they've been there. Bands on the same number are joint top... and for a while there'll be a few of those!

It will take a couple of nights to fill with data as the nightly updates happen. Market Leaders and who's top on your dashboard should appear after the first update. You'll be able to see that on Wednesday, and the arrows will start moving the night after that ready for Thursday.

What it means for you

• Under 60 in a market: nothing changes there at all.
• Sitting at 100 everywhere: Uh oh! You're going to slip and spending money on promotion won't prevent it. Now you get to play the markets you care about, or the ones that will benefit you the most. Keep your records in the top 10 and fight to stay popular and relevant... but expect to drop a bit in the ones you don't focus on.
• Chasing the top: for the first time in a long while, it can actually move. A band that focuses on a market can catch one that only pays for campaigns there.

Why

Well, by the end of Season 1 there were over a hundred bands sat at 100 popularity in every single market. Once you get there nothing really could move you. The campaigns gave far more each night than the decay ever took away. This is my fault and it made the game a bit dull once you had maxed out your popularity. I've been working on the new methods of decay for a while and have run real numbers through many simulations to ensure there is balance and fairness in the system. It should be a fight now to stay at the top rather than a parking space. Hopefully this makes the game more dynamic but if it doesn't, I'll keep tuning it.

What is changing

A gig has always kept 57% of its takings as profit. From Tuesday 20 October, a band whose average popularity across all 15 markets is over 60 (a market you've never played counts as 0) also pays running costs: the crew, the trucks, the production. The costs start trivial and climb steeply, up to 55% of the takings from an average of 90. Out of every £100,000 a gig takes:

It's worked out from your band rather than the room or the market. Playing smaller rooms doesn't dodge it. The tour page shows your share before you book.

What it means for you

• Averaging 60 or under: nothing changes. Every gig pays what it did.
• Near the top: a stadium night still fills the room and benefits your popularity. It just doesn't make you as rich any more.
• At the very top: a gig keeps 2% of its takings. You're playing to stay on top, not for the money.

Why

The popularity fight above means the big bands will be gigging a lot more to hold their popularity in the markets. If a stadium still paid more than half of its takings into the bank then holding the top would make the rich bands richer. As above (with the popularity fight) I replayed a month of everyone's real tours before picking these numbers.

Record labels were in the 2001 plans but I never managed to get them going! (See the history page). So this one's taken a while!

Running a label

A label is something a manager runs and other people's bands sign to. Founding one costs £1m of in-game money from your default band with that money becoming the label's treasury.

To start a label you'll also need the Founder's Licence. This is a one-off £5 (or $7) of real money. If you have made a donation before 20 October or are a patron on the day then you get it for free. Everything after it is in-game, with the same rules for everyone.

You offer contracts of 8, 16, 26 or 52 weeks (a night being an in-game week) for a cut of 5 to 30% of a band's sales and streams (but never their tour money). You can pay an advance up front, up to £1m (£25,000 for a band under 30 days old), and until it's paid back, half of what the band earns after your cut goes towards it.

Your bands get the label's support: a lift to their popularity every night in every market they're in (with a little more in the label's home country), and campaigns the label books and pays for with its own money. They don't cost anyone any points. They also run in their own lane, on top of the band's own campaigns, so they still help a band that's already maxed out its own.

Every signed band costs the label £2,500 a night and spaces are limited (for now) up to 8 bands. If the treasury can't pay then every perk stops. After seven unpaid nights in a row the label goes bust in front of everybody. Existing deals are void and the treasury is emptied. Signing your own band is allowed and gets you nothing (nice try). The next awards will feature the new Label of the Year category, for the label whose roster earns it the most money this season.

Getting signed

You can flag your band as looking for a deal on My Label and it goes on the Bands looking for a deal list. Every label owner can see it with the best band ranked first. Alternatively, you can apply to any label that's open for applications. A band can sign once it's 7 days old and an offer lasts 7 days. The terms are fixed once you sign (you can buy yourself out early, for what's left of the advance plus an exit fee).

What it means for you

• Plenty of money and nothing to spend it on: a label gives you something to spend your cash on. You can certainly lose it too. Labels aren't always profitable.
• A smaller band: a deal is a leg up: an advance, a nightly boost and somebody else's campaigns for a share of your record sales. Remember your earnings from ticket sales are yours to keep.

Why

Labels are the thing I promised most in 2001 and never delivered. They're also the first thing in the game that gives the big players' money somewhere to go that helps smaller bands too.

Hopefully you like the implementation! Feedback, as always, is welcome.

What is changing

Your band can own one of each item. These include somewhere to live, transport, instruments, a studio and live music equipment. Each one does one thing:

• Home: about 4 health and 3 happiness back every night, up to about 14 and 10 at the top.
• Travel: gigs wear the band down 20% less, up to 70% less.
• Instruments: every practice point goes 10% further, up to 50%.
• Studio: about 1 creativity back every night, up to about 5.
• Live rig: every gig rates 1 higher, up to 5.

None of it affects sales, streams, ticket money, campaigns, the charts or points.

Everything has a cost, taken every night with the update: from £250 a night at the bottom to £800,000 at the top. Each rung's bill is seven to eight times the one below while what it does only goes up a step, and from the third thing you own, each one adds 10% to the whole bill for the people who look after it all. The top of everything comes to £5.2m a night.

Buying needs the price plus seven nights of the new bill in the bank, so the cheapest thing, at £10,000, needs £11,750. Trading up takes a quarter of what you paid off the price of something bigger in the same slot, and selling gets a quarter back.

If the bank can't cover a night's bill, nothing is taken and nothing is owed, but nothing you own works until a night's bills are paid. After seven unpaid nights in a row the bailiffs take the thing with the biggest bill with nothing back for it. So yes, you can own a private jet you can't afford to fuel. It just sits there... for a while.

This appears under 'Home and Gear' in the menu where Band Upgrades used to be. Buying new markets is still there at the bottom. Your band page says where you live and what you travel in and there are two new achievements for the properly silly.

What it means for you

• A new band: the bottom rung is cheap and genuinely useful, once you've got £11,750 spare.
• A big band: this is where the money goes now. The top end costs a ridiculous amount for not much more... which is the point.

Why

Season 1 gave the biggest bands piles of money and nothing worth spending it on. Home and Gear gives it somewhere to go that can't buy a single chart place. I promised this as "Equipment" back in 2001 and never built it so it's only twenty-five years late.