Fibre Tycoon Game Lets You Play as an Alternative UK Broadband Network
The owner of comparison site BroadbandSwitch.uk, Dr Alex J. Martin-Smith, has clearly been channelling some of his inner love for the retro video game Transport Tycoon because he’s just launched a new game that anybody can play for free called Fibre Tycoon. Yep, this lets you play as an alternative network trying to roll out a new full fibre network across the UK, albeit interspersed with plenty of comedy.
The game itself, which adopts a very retro aesthetic, is played through your web browser and adopts a tongue-in-cheek approach to representing the current market. But this is not a spreadsheet style experience and the visual mechanics have been cleverly designed to simplify how you build the network, manage your money and the challenges you’ll face along the way. Suffice to say, it’s easy to get started and quite good fun.
During the course of building your fibre empire you’ll also encounter plenty of spoof news articles and unexpected market developments – all of which seem to have been designed to mirror many of the actual problems that altnets have already had to experience, albeit handled in a significantly less serious way. In this world you won’t find Openreach and Virgin Media, but you will find OpenStretch and Virtue Media O3 etc.
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Clearly a lot of work has gone into this love letter to the original Transport Tycoon, and it’s all the better for it.
Play Fibre Tycoon in Your Browser
https://broadbandswitch.uk/games/fibre-tycoon.html
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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This is a brilliant idea for a game. Now I can overbuild everyone else, invest cash in my own infrastructure and then slash prices to the bone. Just like a real alt-net.
Glad you enjoyed it Ben. A lot of fun hours (days!) went in to build this. Version2 is now available – with many new features. I’ve only been in the sector for a couple of years, so if there are features you think need to be included, please let me know. Enjoy: https://broadbandswitch.uk/games/fibre-tycoon.html, Alex.
Thanks for wasting my lunch time with this game. I nearly have total domination, but i didn’t have time to eat lunch so i’m now hungry.. oh well.
Sorry about the missed Lunch Mark. Version 2 just landed so you’ll have to go hungry again today! Would really welcome your feedback on what could be added, changed or improved. Thanks, Alex.
https://broadbandswitch.uk/games/fibre-tycoon.html
this is brilliant, i reach out to the guy who made this Alex to say well done and he came striaght back to say version 2 in the making – this is very adictive. Some time and effort has gone in to this, the level of detail is unbelievable. reminds me of good old days of Tycoon games. Worth a play.
It was great that you reached out Dimebar – Your suggestions have made it in to version2: https://broadbandswitch.uk/games/fibre-tycoon.html – keep the fantastic feedback coming. Your industry experience is hugely appreciated. take care and thanks again, Alex.
I am Beacon Networks and currently winning. Please join so I could buy your businesses and become a isp tycoon.
Beacon Networks just performed an aggresive take over of CityFibra, YooFibre and Virtue Media 03 to become the UKs first telco company to be valued at over £500billion. HAHAH love it! All possible in the game: https://broadbandswitch.uk/games/fibre-tycoon.html, keep having fun and please do share your ideas for new features. thanks, Alex.
I’ve had so much fun with this lol. Would definitely love to see this develop into something more serious!
Version 2 has landed ‘insertfloppydiskhere’ – hopefully you’ll see some of the new features you wanted – i would love to get your feedback on what we can add or improve next – seriously, drop your thoughts here and we’ll pick it up. Enjoy https://broadbandswitch.uk/games/fibre-tycoon.html
thanks, Alex.
Thanks for letting me know, I’ve just played the latest version lol. Noticed a few new towns were added. What sort of towns constitute making it into the game? You don’t have places such as Frome for instance but then you have tiny little places like Portmadog
Typo: “retro astatic” – aesthetic
Okay that was pretty fun lol
Thanks Retro – really appreciate you playing. If you have any improvement suggestions please let me know- Version 2 just landed, play through a thunderstorm, set to auto mode and watch as your strategic decisions at the start determine your success, god i love this game! Have fun. https://broadbandswitch.uk/games/fibre-tycoon.html
Is the winner the one with the largest debt pile in 2030?
Love this! If that is your intended metric, then its definitely achievable haha. Version 2 just landed so set your competitors to aggressive, game made to brutal, and burn cash – you’ll get there. Enjoy Winston – appreciate you playing. Please do seriously share your feedback for version 3. Over 100 people playing at the moment and growing. V2> https://broadbandswitch.uk/games/fibre-tycoon.html thanks, Alex.
petition to make a mobile network version
I’m on it Nyoxy, give me a few weeks and I’ll get a small screen responsive version. I’ve built and deployed apps on Apple/google and without much funding for this, responsive mode will be the best I can do at this stage. So pleased with all this positive feedback on the game – please do keep your feedback coming – it will help to shape version 3 – thanks mate, ALex.
V2: https://broadbandswitch.uk/games/fibre-tycoon.html (in view, select weather and then select thunder and lightning – its my favorite way to play now).
Fun game, I took over the country and rammed my prices down….debt free but fined £20million by my lenders was interesting!
Got stuck in remedies and couldn’t buy beyond the 25% stake i had in cityfibra annoyingly….or lower my prices further because i had enough money (terrible business man that i am)
Thank you for sharing Mark 🙂
Hi ianh, thank you for this, and I have been looking forward to replying because your comment quietly shaped the last three versions of the game.
The £20m fine while debt free was a real bug, exactly as daft as it sounds, and your report is what got it fixed: since version 2.1 the lenders only come knocking if you actually owe them money.
The remedies wall you hit now has a door. Version 3.1 added Divest a region in the Company menu: sell a nation, bank the cash, watch your national share drop out of the formal zone, and the regulator eases off. And once you are clear of remedies, version 4, live now, lets you buy the rest of CityFibra outright from that 25% stake, with a year of integration costs and a choice about whether their brand survives. The consolidation endgame you wanted is in.
On prices, open the Budget window and try the introductory offer: four quarters of discounting below the normal floor. Fair warning though, a network that owns the whole country running that offer tends to attract a predatory pricing investigation, which I suspect you will treat as a challenge rather than a deterrent.
Continue where you left off: https://broadbandswitch.uk/games/fibre-tycoon.html and keep the ideas coming, yours made the game better. thanks, ALex.
I’ve gone bust already?!
Hahaha – were you playing in ‘Brutal’ mode? Give it another go and rival GigaClarity and Nexafibra to conquer the world of fibre. Have fun and thanks for playing – v2 just landed, already have emails with updates and improvments waiting so v3 will be in the works soon. https://broadbandswitch.uk/games/fibre-tycoon.html thanks, Alex.
Managed to get to a be a virtual trillionare, only took a 100 or so years ..
On easy, with 4 competitors, will give it a go with a challenging competitive landscape and harder level.
good addictive game, for a lunch break.
Fantastic Shaukat – love this! Trillionaire Tycoon – that would have been a good name for the game. Version 2 just landed Shaukat, please do have a play if you have time. I’m getting a little worried about the number of people that have missed their lunch playing this – Access version 2 in the same location: https://broadbandswitch.uk/games/fibre-tycoon.html have fun and please do share your feedback for what should be included in version 3.
Hi. Alex here, the one who built it. Thanks first to Mark Jackson for the write up, and to everyone who has had a go, I really appreciate it.
A quick bit of honesty: I am new’ish to telecoms having only worked in the sector for a couple of years. I built Fibre Tycoon partly to understand the industry I have ended up working in, because the fastest way I know to understand something is to try to model it and watch where it falls over. So if I have missed something fundamental about how this actually works, please say so and I will build it in. A fair bit of version 2 came from things people in this industry have told me.
Version 2 is live. The main changes:
1. Community and trust, plus budget and privacy. You now decide what your company actually stands for. Rock bottom prices, high customer service, the most reliable and stable network, your societal contribution, or the expert mix of all of them.
2. Advanced analytics. See visually how you are performing at any point in time.
3. Over 50 more UK towns and cities. And if yours is not on the map, you can plot it yourself and set its size. Make your home town the first fibre connected place in the UK, or the largest city in the world. Have some fun with it.
4. More real world subsidy from the last 20 years.
5. ‘Autopilot / Simulation Mode’. Play at full speed, or watch the intricate movements made by your automated altnet. I recommend running the market at an accelerated rate, to see how the UK might have changed based on the strategy you set back in 2010 (cost, service, growth by acquisition).
6. Weather and wildlife. You can control the weather, and there is more wildlife to spot. My recommendation is ‘Thunder and Lightning’ mode with sound on!
7. Conquer the market by acquisition. Be bold, max out the borrowing, but be warned: get too large and the regulator will step in. You can also rescue failing altnets that have not quite got the recipe right and are about to hit the wall.
8. Upgrades and sales boosts through the listings on BroadbandSwitch.uk, wink wink, alongside things like social tariffs and whole home wifi kits.
9. Relaxing retro music while you play across the new and improved map of our amazing country.
10. Over 50 tips added, to help you become the king or queen of fibre.
Oh, One more thing. From 2022, keep an eye on the sky and see if you can spot the Starlink satellites passing over.
Continue to play it here: https://broadbandswitch.uk/fibre-tycoon.html
Remeber please comment with what you want to see added, or tell me if I’ve not quite got something right. Reach out to me here or on linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexmartinsmith/
Thanks – this is a wonderful little game. I’m not sure where the last two hours went, but I’m not mad and after 130 years of pumping 200% in to support and maintenance – because a network isn’t any good if it’s falling over all the time – I’ve retired.