Hey everyone, we’ve got some big news to share with you!
Today, we’re announcing the introduction of gambling, a major new game mechanic and additional revenue stream for your burgeoning criminal empire, which will be the central theme of our next major free update in version 1.2 arriving late November.
To coincide with this we are also releasing a new DLC! Set among the bright lights and boardwalks of ‘America’s Playground’, City of Gangsters: Atlantic City provides a showcase of these new gambling mechanics, and includes a range of additional alcohol types, bootlegging operations, crew skills to learn, a legacy goal to beat, a fresh new map to explore, and more!
Where the sand’s turning to gold
Gambling functions both as a lucrative means of gaining income, as well as a new source of opportunities and challenges. Through your fronts you’ll gain control of new establishments such as gambling dens, card parlors, and eventually even casinos. Then once under new management, you’ll be able to start up gambling operations, including slot machines, numbers games, poker tables, roulette wheels, and many more.
Some of these games will start attracting regular players from the neighborhood, the family members and friends of your local suppliers and customers. Regulars can spend a lot of time and money gambling in your establishments, and they can be a great source of income when they’re losing, but also a huge risk to your cashflow if they hit a lucky streak. Your floor manager will run the show, but you will have to monitor the cash situation in your various casinos and adjust accordingly.
Debts that no honest man can pay
As regulars spend down their own cash reserves, they might get into debt with you, and ask you to extend credit - which they might or might not be able to pay back. Outstanding debt can be a great investment, because people who can’t pay their debts can be forced into all sorts of unscrupulous forms of repayment, including giving up prized possessions or getting involved in things that they otherwise wouldn’t want to be involved in.
But watch out, because like every investment, there will be risks. Relationships matter, and as you push people around, remember that they will talk to their friends and family, who may be your key suppliers. And if you push them too far, they might panic and completely skip town, taking their debt with them. How far are you willing to go? How much credit are you willing to extend to somebody in order to get a really good hook on them and extract extraordinary repayment?
Meet me tonight in Atlantic City
We’ll be back next time to dive deeper into City of Gangsters: Atlantic City and the new gambling systems, and we can’t wait to see how you turn this new illicit activity to your advantage!
Matt & Rob
SomaSim
PS. Linked to this announcement, you may have seen that we’ve been patching the game twice a week for the last few months. We're now going to be reducing this to a weekly patch so that we can begin work on bigger systems, starting with this gambling extension, and then future DLCs and free content updates.