The Art of the Burger Deal

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WARNING:
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 I've heard that burger farming does not work as well as it used to. You can still use the techniques listed below, but the burger deals don't exceed 20 burgers at a time. However, I have not confirmed this. Please leave a comment below if you've tried it recently.

Now back to the original post
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"Burger deals", "Coin deals", "Burger farming". I'm not sure what exactly to call it, but there's a secret method of making money that has become the "Fight Club" of SC BuildIt.

"The first rule of burger deals, is don't talk about burger deals." 

The theory has been that it's such a great method of making money, that if word got out...everyone would start doing it. If everyone starts doing it, the developer would then rid the game of this method of earning money. I've never fully agreed with that theory and meanwhile I've seen people hinting at it and talking about it more often. I've even seen a youtube video on it.  So here you go: I'm breaking the First Rule.

Many of the top players are using multiple methods to earn their cash.

  • They manufacture goods 24/7, selling everything off for pure profit.
  • They trade away rare items for greater than max value.
  • They make multiple "feeder cities" using separate accounts/devices thus allowing them to make and sell even more goods.
  • Shhhhhh..... They supplement their income with "burger deals"

OK. So what is a burger deal?

If you click on the coin icons that pop up on various buildings, you will be offered to sell off some random items. You've probably become accustomed to just dismissing them because you don't want to sell off your rare items. If you do the calculations you'll notice that the offers vary in price, from a bad deal (less than face value) to an ok deal (slightly over face value) to great deals (30%+ profit).

Most of the time, these deals seem completely random, but more often than not, it's items that you have in stock. Thus, if you'd like to force the game to give a specific deal, you could sell off everything but that one type of item. The next piece of the puzzle is the fact that the selling price varies. By waiting for a good deal, you can earn up to 30% above max value. Then you take into account that burgers are the most expensive item that you can manufacture in the game. Adding these three things together the picture becomes more clear. So the steps are:

  • Sell off everything but your burgers.
  • Buy all the burgers you can find.
  • Wait for a coin icon to pop up
  • If you see an offer for $900-$1000 above max value per burger: Take it!


Additional things to keep in mind:

  • Burger deals only originate from police precincts.
  • If you don't see a deal pop up, buy a burger at the Trade HQ. 
  • Keep repeatedly buying burgers until a deal pops up
  • Dismiss deals that you don't want to take.
  • The more you take burger deals, the more difficult it will become to find burgers at the Trade HQ. Once this happens you're better off going back to your regular gameplay of making and selling goods. Once you start seeing burgers in the Trade HQ again, you can sell off all your items and try the burger method again.
This deal netted me over 500k in profit



43 comments:

  1. Thanks so much for explaining. I was at a quandary seeing the phrase thrown around, but no one would explain. The latest upgrade (04/25/16) apparently took off the possibility of "burger farming". So the word got out to the developers and I heard that they had put an end to that method of making money. Oh well. There was a time where all you saw was burgers in the HQ. Now that is not prevalent.

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    Replies
    1. The rumor of the demise of burger farming was just that, a rumor. It still works perfectly fine.

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    2. Does this still work after the Omega update?

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    3. People would start to complain if they had changed it, and so far I haven't heard anyone do that.

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    4. It also mentions that the bubbles appear only on police precincts. That means I should have more of those or 1 works?

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    5. As long as you have one you should be ok.

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    6. Yes it seems to still work and it works for ice cream sandwich as well

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  2. Does this still work after the Omega update?

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  3. How often do they appear? Seem to take forever to get any bubble at all!

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  4. Just tried. Still works, but u have to sell off everything but burgers. For me bubbles appears in 5-20 minutes

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  5. Does this mean if you're doing the burger deal you can't really play the game because you cannot buy or produce anything in your storage but burgers?

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    Replies
    1. Pretty much, yes. If you have anything other than burgers, you'll be offered deals on other items, which just slows down the process. When I do it, I stop everything and focus on burger deals until I hit my money goal. I like to do it as fast as possible to get back to my typical game play.

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  6. I adore SimCity! I've been playing so many hours and did my best! I even manages to overcome budget problems! By the way, I played this new game, called Urban Empire. It's a great strategy too, and they stole zoning principal from SimCity I guess. Anyway, if you are interested here is my Urban Empire Review

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  7. So do you only purchase burgers from HQ to have in your storage, or do you also make the products and manufacture the burgers? Does it only work if there is NOTHING else in your storage except burgers?

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    1. It doesn't matter where you get the burgers from. You can make them or buy them.

      If you have other items in your depot, you'll still be offered burger deals, but you'll also have to wade through offers for those other items as well. The process is much faster if you get rid of everything but burgers. It's a way to force the game to make a burger offer. Then of course, you have to wait for the *right* offer i.e. one that gives you about a $1000 profit per burger.

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    2. Okay, I'm working on trying to build up my supply of burgers and then I'm going to empty out my storage of everything else. Because I keep getting offers for other items in my storage. Also, when you said that the offers only come from "Police Precincts" do you mean that none of the other police stations offer it? Just the "Police Precinct." Thank you so much for all your help and for this website!! I'm so happy I found you!

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    3. My understanding is that it's only the precincts have the coin appear above them. I don't think the smaller stations do it.

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  8. And you say that the offers will only be through the police precincts. Does it matter that I only have two?

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  9. Hi, i am wondering if the burger farming is still working now?

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    Replies
    1. I believe so. I haven't heard anything about it not working.

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  10. Replies
    1. Yes. It will work for any one item. People usually do burgers because it nets the highest profits.

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  11. Is it possible to keep just a mix of two or maybe three highest price items in your storage like burgers pizza and cheesecake and get offers for just those three making the process last longer? It would make buying them faster too.

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    Replies
    1. I've never tried it, but I would imagine that would work too.

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  12. I'm not 100% certain, but I think the Burger deals have been nerfed as of last patch. I usually do it in between contest periods to make money for upgrading an epic for the contest. However, it now seems you will not get a deal for more than 20 burgers at a time. Top that off, I think I'm getting poor offers more often than I used to.

    Kinda sucks, cause at the rate I find a deal to even break even the contest will be nearly over and I won't have a chance to get into the final league.

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  13. I find it too. No only burgers are limited to be sold more then 20... Try to find what can we do now to earn some money. Hope someone will find something else. Regards

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  14. Just tried it. WORKS!

    Left only Burgers (and had some War stuff).
    - First deal was not good 19 burgers for $3K each.. lol..
    - next was 1 Burger for $3900.
    - 3rd deal - 20 for $86946 which is over $4300 for burger - around 17% profit.
    - 4th deal (right after I did 3rd and purchased more burgers) was $80,272 for 20 burgers (around $4,000/burger).
    - then I was worried. Nothing was appearing for at least 15 minutes, I kept buying burgers. Reached 46 and still no offers... I put few burgers in my Depot, then bought few more.. and.. deal #5 came in..

    POLICE STATION KIND. I do have 2 Police Precincts, but all deals appeared on Basic Police Stations so far.

    MATERIALS. I did have "cooked" basic materials in their factories (metal, textiles, etc).

    ITEMS. Although I sold all items, I had some "cooking" in factories (coffee, fridges, etc). Also while visiting cities and getting Freebies, I was putting them on the market

    PROPOSALS. After first 4 Burger proposals, I had other regular (for 4 planks; for 1 tape; for 8 cheese)

    DEAL APPEARANCE. Initially I was excited. As I started this thing, the first 4 burger deals popped quite fast. Deal #4, was right after I did deal #3, then went on global and got more burgers and came back to my city. I got miscellaneous proposals not relevant to burgers.. and then finally proposal #5 15 burgers for $52,356 (lower than price, but still offers are coming!)

    Safe to say it's working. Just will see how profitable it is when it comes to Time vs. Simoleans you are making...

    ReplyDelete
  15. Just tried it. WORKS!

    Left only Burgers (and had some War stuff).
    - First deal was not good 19 burgers for $3K each.. lol..
    - next was 1 Burger for $3900.
    - 3rd deal - 20 for $86946 which is over $4300 for burger - around 17% profit.
    - 4th deal (right after I did 3rd and purchased more burgers) was $80,272 for 20 burgers (around $4,000/burger).
    - then I was worried. Nothing was appearing for at least 15 minutes, I kept buying burgers. Reached 46 and still no offers... I put few burgers in my Depot, then bought few more.. and.. deal #5 came in..

    POLICE STATION KIND. I do have 2 Police Precincts, but all deals appeared on Basic Police Stations so far.

    MATERIALS. I did have "cooked" basic materials in their factories (metal, textiles, etc).

    ITEMS. Although I sold all items, I had some "cooking" in factories (coffee, fridges, etc). Also while visiting cities and getting Freebies, I was putting them on the market

    PROPOSALS. After first 4 Burger proposals, I had other regular (for 4 planks; for 1 tape; for 8 cheese)

    DEAL APPEARANCE. Initially I was excited. As I started this thing, the first 4 burger deals popped quite fast. Deal #4, was right after I did deal #3, then went on global and got more burgers and came back to my city. I got miscellaneous proposals not relevant to burgers.. and then finally proposal #5 15 burgers for $52,356 (lower than price, but still offers are coming!)

    Safe to say it's working. Just will see how profitable it is when it comes to Time vs. Simoleans you are making...

    ReplyDelete
  16. This still working for anyone. I sold everything except war items and went all in on burgers—I have about 56 of them—and have had no offers yet. Been about an hour.

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  17. ... well I spoke too soon. Looks like it’s working. The first offer was for 20 of my 56 burgers at below the max market price. Second offer was for the same number of burgers at above the max price so I took it. Made a nice profit and went out and bought some more burgers.

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    Replies
    1. Sorry I wasn't able to get back to you earlier. Thanks for confirming it still works. Like I said at the top of the page I've heard that they limit the size of the deals now. Glad to know it works, even if at a smaller scale.

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  18. Is this still working? It seems that deals from the residents are not appearing

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  19. Yes, burger flipping is still alive and well. Right now I have 122 burgers in storage, and nothing else. I just received an offer for $100,532 for 20 burgers ($28,132 profit). I do this every now and then when I’m low on coins. It takes me about a week to get $1M coins. When I’m satisfied, I then sell all my burgers in the store and net that profit too. Every gift I collect, I sell it right away so that the precinct doesn’t make me a deal on anything except burgers...

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  20. It is a whole lot slower now and sometimes not worth the time and effort. I've done burger farming after the change to only 20 per deal and it took me about 3 weeks to make $1M coins. I suppose it is determined by your level. I am in level 77 and everything is quite complicated, complacent and difficult. So much so that even participating in the Contest of Mayors is rarely a moment to win, not so much as get a small prize. Either way I am not starved for Simoleons at the moment.

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  21. I'm nowhere near burgers, donuts, or any fast food or donut shop buildings (well 2 levels from the donut shop). Will this work with any other product?

    I have 1 police precinct and I have 1 feeder city that I Would rather use to store items I don't want to sell such as storage upgrades and land expansion items. The rest of the products I can put in the trade depot.

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  22. Still works today? Whats the update?

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  23. i just did the burger deal buh the pop ups are very few and little or high money and am still geting pop up from other items is there something i am not gettiing right

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    Replies
    1. Sounds about right. If you read the entire article. The percentage of return is random. You will get a range from below value to above value. It's up to you to accept it or not. You just have to keep doing this until you get a price you want.

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  24. I play this game with an rpg mindset, so I imagine the characters and things in game are somewhat “real”
    After reading this post on burger deals and the comments, it felt like everybody had a horrible obsession with burgers.
    It’s pretty funny if you ignore the fact that everybody is just trying to maximize their profits.

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  25. i say make them from scratch and sell them to daniel... pure profit

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  26. make them from scratch and sell to Daniel

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  27. This game is very fun until you reach the level that the hamburger is appear Hahaha.

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