Media Mogul (2004)

A Machiavellian game of media rivalry, Media Mogul thrusts players into the role of international tycoons seeking to spread their own operations over the globe.

Winning over audiences with your television, radio and newspaper media with quality content is a key element, but it won't directly bring you victory. Lucrative advertising contracts are needed for you to profit from your media operations, but they bore and repel your audiences, requiring you to balance profit and sustainability at all times

Each turn is divided in multiple phases: the business phase, the media phase, the advertising phase, the boredom phase and the mogul phase.

In the business phase, players must select two actions to branch out into new media outlets, break into new continents and secure advertising contracts. They may purchase a media outlet, draw a media card, invest in their outlets or confirm advertising contracts. Once every player has chosen two actions, the process is repeated twice more. In the media phase, players bid for the attention of patrons on different continents and receive awards according to their global and specific media performance on each continent. Bids are made using permanent content bought for each player's office in the first phase (investment) and temporary content from media cards. To maintain an outlet, players must meet minimum content requirements. In the advertising phase, players earn revenue through advertising from patrons they've attracted. In the boredom phase, players lose patrons from their office according to a pre-determined pattern found on the turn order track. In the mogul phase, the turn order marker is advanced, face up cards are changed and the leading mogul marker is passed to the next player.

The game ends once the media deck has run out twice or if the turn marker reaches the end of the turn track. The winner is the player with the greatest media value.