Wrestling Tycoon

Wrestling Tycoon is a professional wrestling management simulation game developed by the Subarashi Gaming Concern. The game involves the player running their own wrestling federation. This involves signing talent, booking shows, and playing as wrestlers to have good matches. Rather than have a standard fighting game approach to the wrestling aspect, the in-ring wrestling is a much more realistic and choreographed style which involves a system of "calling spots," selling, taking bumps, and making sure the predetermined winner actually wins. The game involves many real wrestlers to help give the game a more realistic nature. It is for the PC and available on Steam.

Gameplay

The player takes control of both the head of a wrestling company and the wrestlers themselves in the ring. As head of the wrestling company, the player is responsible for signing talent, booking shows, managing finances, arranging meetings, hiring stage crew, commentators, referees, and other necessary workers, and dealing with any issues backstage. Inside the ring, the player takes control of both wrestlers. The player has to "call spots" using a playbook-style system of moves that the wrestlers know. The player then has to perform a series of buttons and joystick movements to perform moves, take the impact, and sell the move. The number of motions that the player must perform depends on the difficulty of the maneuver and the talent of the wrestlers. For example, two wrestlers that excel in brawling would have one or two motions to perform in a series of punches. However, the number of motions would quadruple for them to perform a hurricanrana off of a ladder if their agility is lacking. It is important for the player to make sure the risk of injury is as low as possible while putting on an entertaining show. Just like in actual wrestling, injuries can take place and wildly affect how the rest of the match will go. A wrestler who breaks their arm after a botched move will have a difficult time trying to perform a military press slam as the finish. The outcome is determined before the match and it is an ultimate goal for the player to perfectly perform the finish, but injury and ego could change the match ending by making the series of motions to finish a match harder to perform.

Backstage, the player is responsible for making sure the day-to-day operations of their wrestling company go smoothly. The player must first sign wrestling talent to their company. They negotiate salaries, creative control clauses, and whether or not the talent can appear in other companies. Along with wrestling talent, the player must also sign referees, commentators, ring crew, backstage interviewers, road agents, trainers, managers, writers, assistants, legal consultants, financial instructors, talent scouts, medical staff, catering staff, and vendors. Next, the player must find venues to showcase the talent. They can either host shows in smaller venues such as bingo halls and high school gyms or try to host shows in larger venues such as arenas. The player can also try to open training facilities and developmental territories to help train wrestlers. Training facilities take in aspiring wrestlers to train them as new talent to be used or can be used to improve the skills of wrestlers by improving their skills in certain areas or training them to learn new spots. Developmental territories can either be started from scratch or created by making a deal with a much smaller wrestling promotion. These territories help improve the skills of talent and gain revenue. Once all the pieces are set in place, it is time to book the show. This involves creating the storylines, setting the rivalries, making the matches and determining their outcomes, scheduling the angles, interviews, and promos, and choosing which stars will perform. After the show, a rating is determined by the quality of in-ring action, crowd reaction and attendance, television ratings (if this is a televised show), pay-per-view buys (if this is a show on PPV, iPPV, or an event on a specialized wrestling network), quality of segments, and work by commentators and referees. Great shows that have huge crowds and eyes watching the product will be more successful in the long run.

Backstage, the player is also responsible for arranging meetings. These meetings are meant to bring any key figures in the company together to discuss issues in the company. These figures include road agents, writers, executives, talent scouts, trainers, top stars, and anyone else the player decides to invite to the meeting. In these discussions, the figures discuss what is working and what is not working, how to improve the product, backstage incidents, talent morale, opinions on certain talent, and other important issues. It is up to the player to determine what advice to take with them to improve their product. Sometimes the advice is extremely helpful, but sometimes the advice is ill-advised.

Players are also responsible for finances, merchandising, advertising, and legal issues. The player can hire financial instructors and legal advisers to give advice, but just like meetings, it is up to the player to determine what advice will come in handy.