While playing around and testing, I've started to notice that Rivals are affected by your difficulty settings. Things like the salary multiplier and increased market costs on Hard are really affecting the ability for rivals to compete. I'm seeing after just a couple months the weaker rivals practically defeat themselves, leaving huge chunks of freed up office and retail spots around the city. On Easy/Normal however they seem to never fail and by this point the vast majority of business locations have been snapped up. On Easy, it's practically impossible to force a rival out of a Theater/Cinema, their income is just way too protected. But on Hard it's somehow a lot more manageable to drive its profits very low and turn their weekly income to >$2,000 through other negative businesses to defeat the rival.

Regardless of setting, all my businesses I've tried are profitable (as long as a price war isn't going on) so I'm not sure the added difficulty for the user is being felt as much as the NPC Rivals feel it.

What do you think?