Ok, so the RL corporations that have the best bids on being actual megas are terrifyingly far from the public eye. Myriad holdin companies separate the highest level companies from brands people know. Sure Disney, Microsoft, Google, etc are huge and have brand recognition, but they have all gotten about as large as there current model allows, and it's no where near mega status.

My question is: do IC customers associate Ford with Ares, and SoyCaf with Aztechnology? We know that a lot of the car and electronic manufacturers are still around at least in name. Does Sony still get press around the PlayStation e^PI*i, while MCT gets press like Viacom ... which is to say it doesn't.

We need to get together sometime man. Forbidden Island Alameda? Perhaps on Zombie Sunday?

First, its all up to the GM. Second, it all depends on the Mega. The Korean Megas of today like singular name recognition. You can buy Daewoo everything. From Cars, to guns, to electronis, it says DaeWoo and thats today.

In game, I have some players whose characters try to buy everything Ares. They worship Ares as some new savior. So, they know its Ares but out of want.

I guess the short answer is: Like any other market, its diverse.

Some of the BIG things people will associate one to the other (like CNN and Time-Warner). Most of the little ones they don't, and they don't care. You're about as likely to know that Ford is part of Ares as you are to know Jeep is part of Daimler-Chrysler now (if you didn't know that, well, there you go).

Interestingly though, Nestle is one of the closest examples of a megacorporation in the modern day, and it's right there in the public eye. It's one of the biggest corporations in the world. But most people when they hear "Nestle" think of chocolate and nothing else. Check out their product list:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nestl%C3%A9_brands

It would be interesting to know who the major share holders are of BP, Exxon Mobil, and Sunocco. One problem with anti-trust rules in the US and Europe is that other countries don't have similar restrictions(Da Beers comes to mind, but since Russia opened its diamond mines their monopoly on the market was weakened). Also, I wonder if Ford still owns stock in Toyota?

Bck to the OP: It really depends. Sometimes they want the recognition with the parent corp. Sometimes they don't. Aztechnology might own the Nuke-it burgers and Stuffer shack franchise, but that does not mean they advertise it as an Aztevh Subsidary (talk about loss of sales in the CAS).

Brand recognition is indeed dependant on the Mega. Aztechnology, for example, has next to no brand recognition. As they specialise in consummer product, of the average joe's comsumption, maybe 90% of it goes back up to AZT. But he has no clue.

Other corps are different. Ares likes more brand recognition, for example.

So just as today, it's a corporate marketing choice wether you want lots of branding or less.

About 15 years ago, I was working for a company that got purchased by Matsushita corporation. I'd never heard of the company before, but learned that here in the states, they called themsemselves Panasonic. Doing a little digging ended up revealing that they were one of the largest companies in the world at the time, in terms of holdings. They owned (had majority stock in) Coca-Cola, Paramount Studios and a whole slew of other, smaller companies.

Now, Matsushita/Panasonic is not a Megacorp, by any stretch of the imagination, but the anecdotal evidence should show how easily obfuscated the true monetary situation in 2070 could be. The only thing that makes it even halfway transparent to the average investor is the existence of the corporate court and the constant jockeying for key positions on it. Or, that may just be me speculating.

Well the question is the ostridge syndrome. How up are the citizenry of the world actually trying to fact find or see what is really going on. Rumors and disinformation are probably prevalent to the point where people might not be able to really find the nuggets of truth. Although something tells me the way Shadowrun is set up most citizenry that matter (aka the ones with SINs) are set up in a way that they don't really have to think for themselves. They have their job, their trids, and their sim sense. Punch in punch out and who gives a crap about the rest of the world as long as their little nitch is protected. If they suffer from this I would think it would be up to the corps to decide if they want to brand the crap out of their other owned corporations. There are really no rules anymore when corps are basically their own soveren nation.

I think that while any given company might not advertise its ties to a parent mega, savvy runners should be able to dig up that information. If they can't, that's probably a bad sign for the runners.

a lot depends on what the corp wants. Ares or Wuxing seem to want recognition. in the book 2XS the hero dicovers who masisve Yamatetsu is, a AAA corp he'd never heard of.

In RL do you think of 'Ford' when you think of Landrover or Jag's?

In RL in the early 1990's most Americans do not know that Xerox-a well known corp name-was the major importer of Russian vodka. Office equipment met the Xerox corp image. hard liquor did not so that was kept very quiet.

That is crazy. I knew Nestle was big, but I didn't have any idea that they were that large!

I'm sure the transition from the fifth to sixth world gave way to mega-corporations, as there were no governments that were able to maintain control and "order" among their nations.

Its kinda like how things are now. Everybody knows that Viacom owns a ton of television stations, but they don't realize how big Viacom is until they lose access to them because of a dispute with their cable company.

Everyone knows the megas are big and have their fingers in lots of pies, and the info, for the most part, is out there, but most people don't realize just how big.

right, they might not want you to know how big they are. There are a lot of food companies like that, they own a lot of the common brand names you know but you don't know they're attached.

I think it's been sold off now, but for a while a great many fast food chains in the US Bruger King/Taco Bell/ KFC were all owned by the same corp. I suspect that might be how Aztechnology is. People know the name but don't know how pervasive it is in their homes

Your go to resource for this topic is Corporate Download (Corp Guide should be useful when it hits).

In general it's going to vary from Mega to Mega. Ares have a tendancy to slap their name on everything; see all the Ares branded weapons in the gear list. They have subsidiaries like Ares Arms, Ares Space, Ares Small Arms, Ares Global Entertainment, and so on. This is largely because they have a great corporate image (bolstered by huge publicity stunts like "clearing" Bug City), so there's a definite brand recognition going on. However even Ares has a lot of subsidiaries that aren't associated directly with their name; General Moters, Hard Corps, Leviathan Technical, Lifescape, Mostrans, Osprey Technical Publications, Weapons World (who will stock a range of product, but will get preferential prices on Ares products, which will get the best shelf space), National Broadcasting Service, and Apple Computer Products are just a few of those listed. Starting to see why they're so huge in America?

Now in comparison it's specifically stated that the problem with Aztechnology is that they carefully obfuscate all of their holdings, so you never know where they are. The lists in Corporate Download are stated to be just a few "known" subsidiaries, and don't even include all of the multitude of brand-names that they own.

Horizon isn't covered by Corporate Download, but we know from the material available that they've been making big pushes to get their name recognised. The stunt with Pulsar and the Technomancers was a huge PR play. Their subsidiaries are problably fairly open about being connected to Horizon, so as to benefit from that same publicity (since Horizon is pretty small they can't really afford to have both open and quiet subsidiaries the way Ares seems to).

A good yardstick seems to be having a browse through the various gear lists and seeing what jumps out at you. Evo (who used to be the afforementioned Yamatetsu of course) have this huge rep for Meta friendly products, but how many "Evo" branded items can you find? This really matches up with the 2XS stuff about them being this invisible corporation with huge holdings. To the ordinary consumer they're not really obvious; but all of the brand names that they own will have a great rep as "Meta-friendly" products, even if people don't connect one with the other. Same goes for Seader-Krupp, another corp well known for being pretty devious about it's holdings, and no surprise there: Joe consumer is still going be twitchy about buying from a corp run by a dragon. SK really benefits from disconnecting themselves from what they own.

you got to be kidding me...

I don't know about that. Something must be going right over at Nestle marketing department as they are continually brought up as a modern day example of a mega-corp, when in reality, while big, they really aren't that big on a global scale. They don't even make it into the top 50 of the worlds largest companies. If you want a good example of a modern day SR style mega-corp, you should look no farther then GE. Just barely out of the top 10 in terms of corporate size, and vastly diversified corporate holdings (the own a huge chunk of NBC for example). GE is mostly likely the direct inspiration for Ares in SR.

Sorry to but in, but I guess one of my pet peeves is people who assume that some random corp is actually a big mover and shaker, dwarfing the likes of corporate giants like Wal-Mart or Exxon-Mobile (not saying you are guilty of this BTW) when in reality the worlds largest corps are your usual suspects, Wal-Mart, Oil Corporations, and Big Finance companies.


Not sure about Burger King, but the other two (along with Pizza Hut and some others) are owned by Yum! Brands which was spun off from Pepsi Co. some time ago. In SR this would likely have been a clever ploy of some sort and Yum Brands would still be entirely owned by Aztechnology or whoever. In reality even their relationship with PepsiCo remains very tight (they have a lifetime contract for Pepsi contracts for example). PepsiCo also owns the FritoLay brand which makes Fritos Doritos and Cheetos.

Not just Doritos and Cheetos, FritoLay make pretty much all the major brands of chips out there; in addition to those mentioned they have Lays, Tostitos, and the Walkers brand, which completely dominates the UK snack market. That's not counting all the other companies they supply to, who just buy up the product and stick a different lable on it. Just think about the collosal market coverage there; now imagine that their parent corporation, PepsiCo (who also own Gatorade, Quaker and Tropicana), is in turn owned by Aztechnology, and you're starting to see how inescapable the Big A's reach is.

Actually, I suspect the brief run of "Kentaco Huts" sort of illustrated that connection




Nestle is often picked on because of the whole starving African babies fiasco. Wal-mart has as of yet to get tied up in anything quite so damning, and everyone already knows bankers eat babies. Plus the example of big corporations we are looking for isn't necessarily those with the most money, but those with the most consumer products under their umbrella that we don't recognize as such.

its like a inverse chinese box or something...

btw, while i was looking into something on a unrelated subject, i bumped into a entry in runners companion that indicates that ares may have some japanese holdings

check table on page 150...

Ares have been trying to break into Japan for a while now. It's tricky, because the Japanacorps are fiercely protectionist, but there's been no shortage of effort according to the fluff.

Sorry but I don't get it.
Does docomo mean something in japanese?

Check out wikipedia for an answer.

News Corporation
Disney
GE

Those are the heaviest hitters I can recall. The book "Free Culture" is an excellent resource for info on current-day "megacorp"-esque corps. You'd be surprised how much Disney owns...

Edit: List of News Corporation holdings: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_Corporation#Holdings

Another Edit: List of global conglomerates: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conglomerates

one start to wonder that, if people are not aware of it, news corporation can fabricate something by having its diverse holding reinforce each others reports...

They wouldn't even need to own the other news companies, simply be considered sufficiently reliable that other news distributers take their word for it.

I used to read papers for a living, and the lack of actual investigation for many stories was astonishing. Most stories were just repeats of a bulletin released by AP or Reuters.

You can't take anything you see or hear at face value. Everyone has an agenda.

and if one really take that path of thinking to the extreme, one end up on some hilltop with a shotgun in hand, making sure others stay at an acceptable distance...

Isn't this what's more or less happened the first time Bush run for president (against Gore)?

How obvious are the Megacorps? As obvious as they want to be.

What does a 10'000 years old dragon do?
How obvious are the corps?
Whatever it wants however it wants.

(It means I agreed)

Yet since the advent of the Matrix 2.0 the information flux is less controllable by the big boys so there might be a little more trasparence than before, not much but a little more anyway.

Everybody is correct insofar as the public's lack of detailed understanding; everybody knows that Horizon is a multimedia conglomerate, but they probably don't have the slightest clue how many outlets they own. There's also a difference on the back-end. Average joes have a level of corporate knowledge that scales between minimal and none. Most corporate drones probably have a picture of their company's structure, with a resolution that gets sharper the higher in the management ladder you get. Corporate leaders (above high-management) would obviously have a crystal-clear understanding of their house's structure and holdings, minus anything considered sensitive or restricted. Professional runners probably can't see the whole picture without significant research and insiders, but know that blowing up an Ares launch facility will hurt the bottom line of the space division next fiscal year.

Joe Sarariman, even if he works at Horizon, probably does not even know about the Dawkins Group. Though, of course, I am sure everyone who works at a location with the big Aztechnology Logo knows: Mess up, and being fired is the least of your worries..though they probably do not(necessarily) know that it involves having your still beating heart ripped from your chest!(Then again...maybe they DO know...)

Well, nobody knows about the Dawkin's Group because they're a top secret social engineering project / industrial espionage wing. You don't really advertise that sort of thing.

True, ATN; but it still boils down to spin control.

What does a 10,000 year-old Dragon do? Whatever & whenever it wants, as long as he/she can get away with it.
(News-title: "Apparent Dragon Attack Explained As Unfortunate 'Mating Ritual' Badly Timed.")
How obvious are the Megacorps? As obvious as they want to be, without getting into too much trouble.
(News-title: "Megacorps' Recall Of Faulty Dietary Supplement Blamed On Mislableing Of Materials.")

I would have to disagree with this. Going from a classic Cyberpunk reading, the corporations have evolved to the point where they almost have a life of their own. Damien Knight doesn't know that the CEO for Creyon Petrochemicals has recently bought a significant part of Mission Ops. drone production, or that in turn, that La Cosa Nostra has bought a controlling portion of Creyon through their own shell corporations. In fact, the second crash seems to indicate in part that trading happens so quickly, it outpaces people. Computers will buy and sell investments automatically and regularly, following the market. It would be a full time job just keeping up with the current holdings of a single arm of Ares, muchless the whole beast.

The CEO would, in theory, know (or have access to) all of the permanent or semi-permanent holdings, and have a general understanding of the temporary or anticipated holdings. But he'll never understand the whole picture.

While it makes for a nice conspiracy theory, it doesn't hold a whole lot of water in real life. It's actually quite a task to get various corporate holdings in line even if they're under the same corporate umbrella, like News Corp. If you want a hilarious example, Fox News wanted to sue Fox Entertainment for a rather unflattering parody of their typical anti-Democratic rhetoric in an episode of The Simpsons. From that example it leads me to believe that trying to keep all of your corporate assets in line is like herding cats.

heh, thanks for reminding me. iirc, sony ones sued sony, this however was indirectly as a member of two organizations, one suing the other...

Kraft is the other big one in this industry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraft_Foods#Brands

To me 'megacorp today' can be summed up with one company Berkshirehathway Some people recognize the name, for those of you who don't, this is the company that Warren Buffet runs. It is one of the richest and most divested conglemrate companies in the world. It owns: Dairy Queen, GEICO, Enron (Which is now a holding company holding several key electrical generation companies in the US, accounting for ~30% of the US electrical output). it is one of the largest share holders of Coca-cola and Disney, it grosses over one hundred billion dollars manually, and companies live or die based on what it does (Wrigley was recently acquired in a join move by BH and Mars, Inc)

Edit> Yet in general they do not advertise themselves, when they own a company (Acme Brick for instance) They let it run itself.

Edit2> And then there are single market companies who are ridiciliously large, but are never directly heard about, like De Beers. De Beers is responsible for over 80% of diamonds in the world (Down some from two years ago due to Russian and Canadian interests), yet they didn't focus on their name and instead made diamonds an Engagement/Love related item. They rarely sell directly to the public instead selling to brokers who sell to importers who sell to jewelers. But if you have bought anything diamond in the past decade odds are, the De Beer company made money on it.

Oh and on the issue of food companies: ConAgra and General Mills take my nod for largest/most secrtive style. Especially GM. I mean everyone knows the cereals, but the list of products General Mills makes is nigh on endless.

It's not about how many brand names they control; it's not x offices in x cities in x countries that makes a megacorp. A megacorp is more than a "really big" corporation; it is a nation, a country unto itself. It doesn't just have its own army: it has its own currency. A megacorp is a place, a world, a way of life: where you can be born a Renraku citizen in a Renraku hospital delivered by Renraku doctors to Renraku parents and grow up going to Renraku preschool, primary school, graduate school, all the while pledging your alligence to the Renraku flag. With the right grades - or connections - you choose one of the many Renraku colleges or technical schools to finish your education before working in a Renraku office, spending your nights watching Renraku simfeeds or dancing at Renraku nightclubs, vacationing at Renraku resorts during your allotted time. Everything you buy, eat and breathe is stamped with the Renraku fractal, and its sight fills you with pride. Finally, you retire to a Renraku eldercare facility before being buried in a Renraku cemetery or burned in a Renraku furnace, all the time praying for an afterlife in Renraku heaven, where Uncle Aneki hands out Renraku toys to his good little children.

*

*

external capitalism, internal communism

And just think there are people out there that actually own major stock in not just one but several of the megas. I.E. Dunkelzahn.

Wheels within wheels.

enough wheels to give a super-jumbo a run for the money...

Major as in like 1% (i.e., millions of dollars)? Or major as in controlling interest? Because I suspect anyone owning a controlling interest in a megacorp is very, very rare. I'm betting even Lofwyr has sold off his controlling interest (and why not? He's CEO, not to mention, CED (Chief Executive Dragon), and he can just eat whoever disagrees with him. Better to invest that money elsewhere now.)

Controlling interest is the rule, rather than the exception among Triple-As, IIRC. Some are even wholely privately owned, such as Shiawase.

Saeder-Krupp is also Private.

Lofwyr owns 100% of SK and I don't think that will change as long as he is still alive and kicking.

The stock dreck that went down in System Failure seems to hint that Shiawase shares are aviable on the stock market.