Staff can be hired (and fired, in an Alan Sugar-esque fit of pique), assigned tasks, and given stupid uniforms (the ninja and ape costumes are particularly fabulous). For an 80-year-old Patrizo Monty seemed very pleased with his dreadlocks, goatee beard and green sunglasses… Even kids can get in on the money making act, employing that tried and tested Middle American technique: the lemonade stall. My favourite has to be the salon chair, where you can dole out hideous makeovers to your neighbours for a sky-high fee.
Crafting stations for making toys, robots and even flower bouquets are available, plus you can also sell food made from your home kitchen. The nature of the business you choose to run is pretty much up to you, as plenty of possibilities have been provided. Other tools of the trade are shelves (that must be kept stacked) and a till, so you can actually relieve customers of their cash.
Starting a home business will result in just about every local Tom, Dick and Harry tromping through your front room, using your toilet and watching your TV (and not buying anything) at all hours of the day, unless you’re very strict about where you give people access to (the new lockable doors are useful here) and remember to put up the all-important Open/Closed sign. Unless you already have a well-established Sim family, you’re most likely to start running a home business, because buying a business premises (and the business contained within it) is prohibitively expensive for a family just starting out. Open For Business not only contains the inevitable extra hundred-or-so items for your polygonal people pets to spend their hard-earned simoleons on, but a plethora of new features and Sim-management options, which do significantly alter the way the game can be played. The expansion packs for the original Sims game were infamously content-light and all too happy to rest on the laurels of the core game’s brilliance, but not so here. Ironically, in Open For Business, EA want you to see if you’ve got any financial acumen, by giving you the chance to build your own burgeoning business empire. My favourite Bushism is the immortal “ The problem with the French is that they don’t have a word for entrepreneur.” Well, you can’t accuse EA of lacking an entrepreneurial spirit, because just over a year from the original release of Sims 2, here we are, already three expansion packs down the line.