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MCAC and Playboy (PLBY) merger. Why I think Playboy has a bigger future.

As I am sure a lot of you know, Mountain Crest Acquisitions (MCAC) are in late-stage talks with playboy to take them public currently at a valuation of ~$425M meaning we should see the MCAC ticket convert to Playboys ticker, PLBY, within a matter of days, if not weeks. A lot of the people I have seen talking about the Playboy acquisition have argued that Playboy is a dying brand and are far beyond their prime, which is no doubt true, in terms of selling sexy magazines that have all but been made redundant by online pornography. However, this company and its newish CEO (of 2017), Ben Kohn, have given it a new lease of life and are changing the globally recognized brand's direction to be more of a lifestyle and sexual wellness brand. They have been seeing huge year on year growth since Kohn's appointment in 2017 across almost all revenue streams, Kohn has been a part of Playboy for many years and initially helped privatize them in the early 2010s. He is highly regarded for his marketing and sales abilities.
WHY PLAYBOY?
First of all let me offer you CEO Ben Kohn the chance to convince you: Here is his investor presentation. The numbers are extremely impressive.
If you would rather hear it from me, for whatever reason, my take is below:
For me, one of the most notable things about this deal is its the extremely rare opportunity to buy into one of the world's most known brands at such a low valuation. How many SPACs currently on the market would you be able to ask your typical man or woman on the street about the company they plan on buying and almost everytime get an answer about who they are and what they do? Playboy had a WHOPPING $3bn annual spend on thier brand across 180 countries worldwide last year!
Playboy are taking huge strides moving away from the sex negative and very 20th century ideals they built their original empire off, and closing in on an increasingly empowered and sexually liberated young demographic. The sexual wellness market is seeing massive growth among people both young and old and is expected to reach $125 billion by 2026 with an expected anual growth of 12.1% YoY, now think about the size of this market in context of how many brands do you know that are key players in this sector? It should be somewhat obvious that Playboy is in an extremely unique position to capitalize on its massive recognition in a growing market otherwise lacking recognized leaders, they plan on doing this with a strategy of M&A which are outlined below.
First, I will talk about what they are doing now to fit themselves into the market we see today. Playboy has begun a plan to increase growth via acquisitions, and started by buying leading sexual wellness reatiler Yandy at the end of 2019, and have driven direct sales up from $3.7M in 1H 2019 to $29.7M in 1H 2020. On top of this, they are working to make their own playboy.com website into a retail destination, and across Yandy and their own store they were seeing 70,000 orders a month with a AOV of $72.
During the stock redemption period Stockholders requested redemption of a total of 8,842 shares, less than 0.2% of Mountain Crest’s issued shares. As a result, Mountain Crest anticipates that approximately $58.7 million will be released to PLBY Group immediately following the closing of the transactions, with further PIPE investments of $50 million. Ben Kohn, CEO of Playboy, said, “We are delighted with the overwhelming support for this transaction, which at closing is expected to inject more than $100 million of gross proceeds into PLBY Group, so that we can aggressively capitalize on our well-defined and exciting organic and acquisition-led growth plan.”.
On top of direct sales increases, Playboy continued to capitalize on their brand recognition by increasing licensing revenues YoY, with ~$400M currently in forward-booked cash flow. Note licensing is one of the most cost-effective way brands can earn revenue, with 80% cost margins and being able to create such licensing demand is a rare feature only attributed to truly globally recognized brands. I read somewhere which I now cannot find that Kohn has said (I am sure somewhat jokingly) that he believes the Playboy Bunny Logo alone is worth a billion dollars, and I can see some truth in it, the Playboy bunny is close to the levels of recognition of the Nike swoosh or the McDonalds M, even among young people who have probably never seen a playboy mag before, myself included (i have never seen it sold in the UK).
As breifly mentioned above, playboy Revenues are growing rapidly. 2020 Projected Revenues is expected to be up 75% year over year, and Projected Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be up 112% year over year, they have projected 2021E revenue and adjusted EBITDA of $166.8M and $40.3M, respectively, with an goal of $100M EBITDA by 2026.
They already have a number of CBD-based products and have plans in place to grow into the legal marijuana industry when it is eventually legalized at the federal level.
They are looking to increase their positions in the gaming industry and have recently opened a poker house in Houston, on top of their London Casino, with further plans to add more casinos in the US, and looking for sports betting partnership opportunities.
Playboy are already an established producer of apparel and maintain a realtively large presence within the market, particularly in China, where their items are sold in over 2,500 brick and mortar stores, and 1,000 online stores across the nation. In the western World they are stocked at household retailers such as urban outfitters, and have done many collabs with well regarded and in fashion millenial brands such as Supreme, Anti Social Social Club, and Alpha industries (all 3 of which have seen extraordinary growth among young people all within very short time). For me this stands out massively and shows promise on both sides of the table; These trendy and modern brands want to associate with the Playboy logo and lifestyle, showing a level of interest from consumers, but more importantly it shows that Playboy is tapped in and aware of the youth culture, an area in which they have the potential to capitalise massively on through all of their revenue streams.
One of the things i think people are most underestimating about this merger is that the current trajectory Kohn is taking Playboy along is very 2021, and is extremely focused on growth. I believe the brand to be undervalued already, and when taking into consideration the trends in Millenial and Gen Z society, I think this brand is ready to once again become a market leader in its new sectors.
A comment I saw on another DD put it well: "If Kylie Jenner thinks its cool, it probably is". It sounds stupid, but the power of social media in conjunction with its recognized logo and brand mean you cannot underestimate this companies value and potential for both short term and long term growth. Coupled with the large cash injection of over $100M and a new focus on M&A, the upside really is potentially enormous. Personally i think it is somewhat criminal this company does not have a current valuation of close to a billion USD considering its recognition, and i think Kohn is the man to enable playboy to capitalise on their extremely unique position in a rapidly growing market.
The above stats are all taken from the Playboy investor presentation given by Ben Kohn here, (as said above I would encourage you all to look at this, it is very impressive), and from MCAC press releases that can be found here.
submitted by jonooo674 to SPACs [link] [comments]

State of /r/poker and the app situation

‘Where can I play online poker in the USA?’
There has been an enormous influx of people asking where to play poker online over the last few months. There has also been a massive influx of people advertising poker app clubs on this subreddit (we remove these posts otherwise the top 20 posts on the sub would be spam for clubs). Before the quarantine, it was mainly just Americans asking where to play, but now that live poker has shutdown worldwide there are people all over the world asking where to play poker. Our policy so far has been to remove the ‘come play on my club’ spam and to direct everyone to the quarantine mega thread. Despite this I know users are being spammed with offers to play on ‘Super Big Action Gamble Bluff Special’ club (in part because I get these same PMs).
So generally the answer to ‘where can I play online poker in the USA’ has been ‘IDK maybe play on ignition or global poker or ACR, or try some pp poker club that a friend of a friend is an agent for.’
If someone asks ‘which app poker club should I play on’ the current policy is ‘we won’t answer that question’. Some users then give up, but I think the vast majority just ask elsewhere (or are messaged) and find a club to play on. Some of these people are playing on incredibly sketchy clubs where they have no clue who is running the club and they get scammed in various ways.
I know a bunch of people both online and IRL from the London poker scene who are either playing in these clubs, running clubs or acting as agents for these clubs. The main benefits are the ability to play from any country in the world, the ease of moving money around, and the soft player pools.
Reddit poker has two options at the moment regarding the club situation:
1) Ban promotion of all app clubs. If someone comes to the sub asking where to play we just ban anyone who comments with an answer. This is what we are doing at the moment. 2) We could start our own club. I am making this post to gently float the idea of starting a club for reddit poker users. This is absolutely NOT a diktat where I tell the sub that you should all play here, this is me offering an idea and seeing what the community thinks.
There are a few things that a lot of the clubs get wrong
1) They don’t protect the player funds. 2) They don’t care about running a fair game. 3) They ban winners simply for winning. 4) They take ages to withdraw money. 5) They extend credit to players, which inevitably causes problems when people don’t pay up. 6) They rake a ton. 7) They are run by people who have no clue how poker works and are just trying to make quick $. 8) They get involved in unions which causes inevitable problems. 9) The club manager is isolated from the players. You cannot contact them and have to deal with them through a network of agents and subagents.
Most of these things are easily remedied:
1) There has to be a trusted person running the club who safeguards the player funds. 2) This person should be experienced in both live and online poker. 3) The in app settings to prevent cheating and collusion should be used. Allegations of cheating or collusion should be investigated and dealt with appropriately. 4) All player types should be catered for. 5) Nobody should get credit. If you want to play in the game, you have to have the funds on deposit. 6) The rake should be reasonable. 7) There should be a way to directly get into contact with the person running the club. 8) Eliminate agents as far as possible. 9) The club should be standalone and not become involved in unions.
I think I would be able to provide this and I will go ahead if I have the backing of poker
Wait, didn’t we have an Poker mod set up a club before? How did that go?
Yes back in the day a fellow mod named Stixx set up a club and it did not end well.
I have never met Stixx, we aren't friends on FB and until the club he was involved in tanked I had messaged him maybe twice lifetime to clear up minor mod issues. I never played on his club or had any involvement in it whatsoever. When Stixx set up his club back in the day that was him running on his own. He did a few things that I think were awful mistakes. He essentially speculated with depositor funds on crypto and lied about it, which is a terrible terrible decision. I cannot really stress enough how stupid this was. Also when crypto dropped he just decided to delete his accounts, cease contact and bounce, which isn’t the GTO approach. He also was shy about telling people who he was, so you were dealing with a SN instead of a human.
Who are you and why should we trust you $?
You might ask, ‘Why should you run this club, what makes you special?’
Below is all my personal and poker info, so you would know you are are dealing with at the source.
Here is a link so you know who you are dealing with:
My name is Conor Nocher aka myimportantthoughts. I play on PS as ‘TheRedRascal’. I play on Sky as ‘EmmaWatson’. Here is my Hendon Mob page with my name and picture so you know who you are dealing with: https://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/player.php?a=r&n=700945
I am a professional poker player based in London. I am 26 years old. I have played thousands of hours of live poker in London, mainly at Empire where I am very well known. I have played live poker, online poker, app poker, private games, casino poker and homegames at everything from 0.01/0.02 up to 10/20. I have coached people playing microstakes online and ½ live. I have done business with various people including buying and selling action, buying packages, swapping currencies etc. and I have never had any issues with anyone.
I have blogged for Grosvenor, which is the biggest UK casino brand (it owns the Vic Casino in London). Before I got into poker I studied management at the London School of Economics. This reddit account is 7 years old and I have moderated /poker for years and made 0000s of comments and posts over the years.
I am posting all of this information not because I am trying to be famous but so that everyone knows who they are dealing with. If you think a random newly created account that messages you asking for $ is a better bet, by all means hop into their club.
Wouldn’t a reddit poker club be super tough?
Would a reddit poker club be insanely tough and full of sickos? I know everyone in this thread is basically a GTO bot who beasts 5KNL and is taking lobbies off Linus, but we get quite a few posts on this sub with some guy asking why his 22 lost to A3 on TT994. Further, the number of visitors /poker is getting has more than doubled over the quarantine period and I think it is likely that this mostly represents more casual players. So I think there will be value.
Conclusion In summary: For Americans, we could offer a club that gives them the freedom to sit at home in their underpants playing online poker, just as the founding fathers intended. For players in the rest of the world we could offer a club where the majority of the playerpool are Americans sitting at home in their underpants.
Let me know what you guys think about this. If you like this idea then I will get the ball rolling, if not I will just scrap it and the current policy on app clubs stands.
submitted by myimportantthoughts to poker [link] [comments]

UK side hustle live poker performance - year 1 results and thoughts

UK side hustle live poker performance - year 1 results and thoughts
This is about 9 months out of date but I wrote this to help consider my results and then couldn't decide where to post it. Having recently got myself a Reddit account, this seems the place.
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A little history:
When I was 20 I considered dropping out of Uni and becoming a poker player. I had earned £18K profit across the previous year, and that is a lot of money for a student! Especially in the UK, where because poker is classed as a game of luck there is no tax on the winnings of gambling, it felt more like £25K. A significant “salary” for any 20 year old.
Then I started looking at the data behind that and realised that I was averaging almost 70 hours a week grinding 6 tables simultaneously at small stakes to make that profit. In fact my income per hour was just £5.37. Not awful, but hardly worth dropping out of Uni. Suddenly that profit didn’t feel so great anymore.
I tried moving up in stakes, from $20 buy-in’s to $50 buy-in’s, but in a month I lost £3K. The next level contained professionals, and the UK Government can pretend all it wants, but when you’re playing many thousands of hands, skill starts to overcome the short term coin-flips and variances. It was brutal. It was humbling. I wasn’t good enough, simply put, to do it full time and make decent money… so I decided to focus on graduating.
When I was 30 I decided I would try a bit more seriously again, but in casinos. I’d played in casinos sporadically over those 10 years (actually ended up in one with the woman who is now my wife, after I “accidently” missed my last train home when I saw her in a London pub), and although I felt I was a profitable and solid player, you need to be mindful not to kid yourself. So I approached things systematically, recording data for 12 months to see what stood out and lessons I could learn.
​
The results are in!
· I am indeed profitable. The data told me I had made a total of £8,279 in profit.
· I am fairly consistent, achieving a winning session 53 times from 77 visits, or 69%.
· I played 337.75 hours, meaning an hourly profit of £24.51, or annualised a take-home salary of £48K after tax, which is £68K before.
· I earned on average 14 “big blinds” an hour, a key metric for cash game players. At small stakes, anything over 5 is respectable, over 10 is great. I’ve heard it said 80% of small stake players are loss making, which seems a bit high to me, but I can easily imagine 60% are.
Better still, my graph has very few swings. Interestingly though, I only had 2 amazing nights where I won >£1500, which probably means I played slightly too safe. I confess I did seek to minimise variance where possible, feeling that I was better than 80% of the players I was against, so I didn’t need to take 50-55% marginally favourable coinflips.

Now because my sessions were of different lengths, it’s not immediately obvious if a £100 profit is good or bad. I mean if I’ve played 4 hours, it’s average, 2 hours, it’s fantastic, and 8 hours, pretty meh.
So I took another look and blended the sessions instead across number of hands played, producing the below graph, showing a level of consistency I am genuinely proud of. Roughly speaking, I make £1 per hand played.
​

OK Great, but what did I learn from this? Data is lovely and all (as is £8K!), but really you want insight from that data you can action to improve performance.
​
Wait, I did better at larger stakes?
Well firstly, there are a few things I found counter intuitive. Take the below, which shows the stakes I played at. In theory, you earn less the higher your stakes go as competition increases, but I didn’t see that at all.
​

Playing at stakes 50% higher (£3 an “orbit” versus £2 an orbit – more significant than it might sound), my hourly was a whopping 600% higher. Put another way, I played just over twice as much £1/£2 as I did £1/£1, but made 13x as much profit! Surprising indeed, and massively unexpected.
I am planning on playing some £1/£3 and £2/£5 once I grow my bankroll this year, it’ll be interesting to see if this trend continues, or if there’s something else going on not immediately obvious to me.
​
Day of the week – weekends are worse?!
Another unexpected development was found when looking at the days I was playing. I had expected that I’d be much better on Friday and Saturday when more amateurs would play and I’d be able to target them, but I found the opposite. Friday’s I made £2.47 an hour, Saturday’s £12.52, both way off my average, and across quite large sample sizes too (>55% of sessions between them).
Meanwhile Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday all had ~10%+ of sessions, but saw hourly profit doubling my averages. My best hourly is Sunday, although I have never lost money on a Wednesday, so a close call as to which is my best.
​
https://preview.redd.it/v10rt8fkgod51.png?width=600&format=png&auto=webp&s=8f3b3c4e57acd27dd00a70c1bc6fe05276270c38
After reflecting on these trends I started to realise something. Poker is essentially a game of knowledge and imperfect information. A key part of that is “position” (where you sit in each hand), where being later to act means you have access to more information, and “ranges” (what hands your opponents are likely to have), where depending on the position somebody plays a hand in and how they play it, you can start putting them on a range of cards. Nobody sane would bet with 7 players to act behind them with 2 7 off-suit, literally the worse starting hand, for example.
More experienced players play more predictably, and I was much better at sparring with them because I have a good grasp of the fundamentals. I think my fairly conservative playing style is also more suited to regular players, as I tend to take fewer risks and so don’t punish mistakes as harshly.
Finally, my risk adverse approach also fooled regular players into thinking I had weaker hands than I did, so I was able to mess with their attempts to put me on a range. Likewise I tended to just call, and rarely raise, any hand I wanted to play pre-flop, so I could disguise my hand and out-play after the flop. Again this isn’t traditional at all, but many of my bigger pots came about this way.
​
Central casinos have easier competition
​

Less surprising was my split in where I made the most money. Tellingly, Empire and Hippodrome are based in central London and are tourist destinations. I find the competitors objectively worse than I am, as a whole. The Vic and Aspers are less central, with the consensus being that Aspers was the toughest £1/£2 in London, consisting almost entirely of regulars and semi-pro’s. I mean, who wants to go to East London as a tourist? There’s way more glitz and glamour in Leicester Square and so much more appealing. The Vic is West London so less extreme, but a similar situation, it’s pretty out the way compared to central two.
​
Length of session
Lastly, something that was unknown to me was that I would see such an obvious split in hourly profit based on the amount of hours I was playing in that session:
​
https://preview.redd.it/m9cs1n0xgod51.png?width=600&format=png&auto=webp&s=e23b60a18ef1f3cb6f77b32c92e12626f8450f3e
Here, we see a jump in profit after 4 hours, and really between 4-8 hours is my sweet spot, running at 50% more than my average. I think after I have played at the same table for 4+ hours, that I am observant enough to spot certain patterns. One of my favourite tricks is to identify regulars targeting tourists, and re raise them. You know their range will be wide to target the less good player, so you take advantage of them trying to take advantage. This is especially good if you have a good position (so act after them), so that if they do call you can play the hand with more information.
The drop-off at the end likely indicates that after 8 hours I start making bad decisions. Reviewing this, not only am I probably a bit tired, but I think those sessions I am on “winners tilt”, and I must be winning or else I wouldn’t be there after 8 hours. But when you’re up and doing well, you tend to play hands you shouldn’t and make bad decisions that cost you, it can feel like there’s less cost in getting it wrong because you’re still in profit, even though it can cost more in terms of £s. Once I became aware of this in myself, I started seeing it in others. There’s a regular at the Hippodrome who is a dangerous and good player, but becomes reckless and likes a gamble when they are up. If he has lots of chips, I always try and sit at his table, and look to get it in when I am a 60-80% favourite, and hope my luck holds.
​
What’s next?
I’ve taken 2 months away from the casino’s to make sure I don’t have a problem and focus on a work project, and I’m looking forward to starting this year on the 29th November. I suppose starting on a Friday isn’t ideal, but it aligns nicely with my wife’s office Xmas party, so oh well! That said, I will make sure I play the £1/£2 at the Hippodrome for 4-8 hours. As it will be a Friday I’ll look to punish mistakes more aggressively and make fewer assumptions about the other players and their cards if they seem less experienced.
Let’s see if I can take the lessons learned across this year, and drive further improvements to make more money, improving on my operational performance, the real purpose of data in my opinion.
submitted by Hubbyhog to poker [link] [comments]

[EU-PT] [H] OVER 800 PS1/PS2 Games - Drakengard, Vagrant Story, Xenogears, Point Blank and more.. [W] PayPal, Bank Transfer

https://www.flickr.com/photos/189498870@N03/albums/72157715276319253
Unfortunately I have to sell my game collection due to some urgent issues. Hard for me to say goodbye, but I have to. I'll leave a Flickr album here with pictures of all the games.
I'm asking for 5150€ for the entire collection, no game will be sold separately.
This is a honest collection from a game enthusiast. Shipping cost can be discussed.
PS1
PS2
EDIT: Games are mostly PAL, some are NTFS
EDIT 2: added list of games!
submitted by SladeWilsonPT to GameSale [link] [comments]

MAME 0.213

MAME 0.213

It's really about time we released MAME 0.213, with more of everything we know you all love. First of all, we’re proud to present support for the first Hegener + Glaser product: the “brikett” chess computers, Mephisto, Mephisto II and Mephisto III. As you can probably guess, there’s an addition from Nintendo’s Game & Watch line. This month it’s Mario’s Bombs Away. On a related note, we’ve also added Elektronika’s Kosmicheskiy Most, exported as Space Bridge, which is an unlicensed total conversion of the Game & Watch title Fire. If you haven’t played any of the handheld LCD games in MAME, you’re missing something special – they look superb with external scanned and traced artwork.
On the arcade side, we’ve added The Destroyer From Jail (a rare Philko game), and alternate regional versions of Block Out and Super Shanghai Dragon’s Eye. The CD for Simpsons Bowling has been re-dumped, resolving some long-standing issues. With its protection microcontroller dumped and emulated, Birdie Try is now fully playable. Protection microcontrollers for The Deep and Last Mission have also been dumped and emulated. Improvements to Seibu hardware emulation mean Banpresto’s SD Gundam Sangokushi Rainbow Tairiku Senki is now playable, and sprite priorities in Seibu Cup Soccer have been improved.
In computer emulation, two interesting DOS compatible machines based on the Intel 80186 CPU are now working: the Mindset Personal Computer, and the Dulmont Magnum. The Apple II software lists have been updated to include almost all known clean cracks and original flux dumps, and the Apple II gameport ComputerEyes frame grabber is now emulated. We’ve received a series of submissions that greatly improve emulation of the SWTPC S/09 and SS-30 bus cards. On the SGI front, the 4D/20 now has fully-working IRIX 4.0.5 via serial console, and a whole host of improvements have gone into the Indy “Newport” graphics board emulation. Finally, MAME now supports HDI, 2MG and raw hard disk image files.
As always, you can get the source and Windows binary packages from the download page.

MAMETesters Bugs Fixed

New working machines

New working clones

Machines promoted to working

Clones promoted to working

New machines marked as NOT_WORKING

New clones marked as NOT_WORKING

New working software list additions

New NOT_WORKING software list additions

Source Changes

submitted by cuavas to emulation [link] [comments]

MAME 0.213

MAME 0.213

It's really about time we released MAME 0.213, with more of everything we know you all love. First of all, we’re proud to present support for the first Hegener + Glaser product: the “brikett” chess computers, Mephisto, Mephisto II and Mephisto III. As you can probably guess, there’s an addition from Nintendo’s Game & Watch line. This month it’s Mario’s Bombs Away. On a related note, we’ve also added Elektronika’s Kosmicheskiy Most, exported as Space Bridge, which is an unlicensed total conversion of the Game & Watch title Fire. If you haven’t played any of the handheld LCD games in MAME, you’re missing something special – they look superb with external scanned and traced artwork.
On the arcade side, we’ve added The Destroyer From Jail (a rare Philko game), and alternate regional versions of Block Out and Super Shanghai Dragon’s Eye. The CD for Simpsons Bowling has been re-dumped, resolving some long-standing issues. With its protection microcontroller dumped and emulated, Birdie Try is now fully playable. Protection microcontrollers for The Deep and Last Mission have also been dumped and emulated. Improvements to Seibu hardware emulation mean Banpresto’s SD Gundam Sangokushi Rainbow Tairiku Senki is now playable, and sprite priorities in Seibu Cup Soccer have been improved.
In computer emulation, two interesting DOS compatible machines based on the Intel 80186 CPU are now working: the Mindset Personal Computer, and the Dulmont Magnum. The Apple II software lists have been updated to include almost all known clean cracks and original flux dumps, and the Apple II gameport ComputerEyes frame grabber is now emulated. We’ve received a series of submissions that greatly improve emulation of the SWTPC S/09 and SS-30 bus cards. On the SGI front, the 4D/20 now has fully-working IRIX 4.0.5 via serial console, and a whole host of improvements have gone into the Indy “Newport” graphics board emulation. Finally, MAME now supports HDI, 2MG and raw hard disk image files.
As always, you can get the source and Windows binary packages from the download page.

MAMETesters Bugs Fixed

New working machines

New working clones

Machines promoted to working

Clones promoted to working

New machines marked as NOT_WORKING

New clones marked as NOT_WORKING

New working software list additions

New NOT_WORKING software list additions

Source Changes

submitted by cuavas to MAME [link] [comments]

Ten Cities that Make an Empire: Archetypes for Hamlets, Towns, and Metropoles

Adventures (probably) don't exist in a void. They happen in a world, and that world should be logically consistent and directly affect the adventures that play out in it. On that note, I'm hoping to start writing posts about large-scale world building, starting at one of the "smallest" large-scale units: settlements.
These are ten different types of cities, each with different architectural layouts, personalities, and potential quest hooks. These ideas can help guide your city creation, hopefully inspiring you to implement some of these cities into your own world. I've included an example of each type of city from fiction, just to make sure the idea is clearly presented. (While most of these examples are pretty clearly Western fantasy influences, these city archetypes can work just as well for any campaign style I can imagine).
Before starting, it's important to note that these cities can be created as cross sections– a Seatown might have both a thriving economy and a shady part of town, or a Holytown might also be a nation's capital. One thing to always keep in mind, however, is that these cities do not generally stand alone: they are part of a larger, collective nation, and should reflect the beliefs and ideas you want to stress in that part of the world, be it racial, religious, or class conflict. And, of course, these are all just suggestions.
Without further ado, the archetypes:

The Town

King's Landing
This town has all the rooms where it happens: the capital, the shining jewel of the Commonwealth, the home of the head– or heads– of government. The entire nation is ruled from this city, and it can stand as a paragon to the themes you want to express in that nation. Those themes could be, to name a few, security, corruption, or democracy, but more on that in another post.
The Town is basically built around the central government building– either a domed, marble fortress, or a high wizard's tower that stands menacingly above the populace. When creating the layout of this settlement, it's important to keep in mind who is in charge, and how they would want their capital city to look and feel. Aristocratic nobles may have physically elevated homes, above the peasants who live in fear of flood and foreign invaders. Or perhaps the bureaucratic government has a strict and ordered layout, predetermined and incredibly organized. No matter what, the city's map should be emblematic of the structure of government, and demonstrate how and whether the government works.
The populace of this town are likely divided into the rulers and the ruled, and these two groups can have a mixed bag of attitudes towards one another. Maybe the democratically-elected government is hated by people who don't believe in the legitimacy of the process, or maybe the people see the dictator as a necessary evil to protect against invading foreign armies, while he sees them as a means to a greater end. One thing is probable: the common folk, who live so close to the political center of the nation, are going to feel its influence every day. This can be expressed with newspapers, town criers, and the presence of royal guards, which can all show that this city is one belonging to the powerful. And they exist on the flip side of the coin: the powerful, with a variety of differing opinions among them. Some seek to protect the people and uphold justice, while some are willing to do anything just for an extra taste of the good life.
These two groups can offer very different types of quest. Oftentimes, the peasantry offer any typical quest one would expect from any other town, though there may be some merchants and lobbyists trying to sell their wares to the nation with a government contract. The real quests come from higher up– there is opportunity for court drama, assassination attempts, policy changes affected by the PCs. This is also a great place to lay out and describe the geopolitics of the world, and to stress the ambitions of the most powerful people in the nation. Maybe the PCs need to prepare for war, or resolve a dispute between the City Patrol and the Royal Guard. No matter what, the politics are sure to come out in full force in The Town– and politics is a great source for both conflict and character development.

Schooltown

Arkham, Massachusetts
Built around a Bard's College, a School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, or another form of university, Schooltown is filled to the brim with students, alumni, and faculty from across the world. It may be a goal or destination to some, representing opportunity and success– to others, it may be a symbol of elitism and pseudo-intellectualism.
The university itself likely predates the rest of the town, which has been constructed as a result of the school. Because of this, it may even have a completely different architectural style, with gargoyles and stone towers juxtaposing the log cabins and dirt roads of the rest of the town. Perhaps a generous but suspicious donor has recently offered to renovate a wing of the school, so long as it's eventually named after them. The shops in this town will have merchants selling textbooks, spellbooks, components, and papyrus. In fact, many of the buildings in this town service the university, either directly or indirectly. One great example of this is the taverns, where various students may gather to get away from the hard work they've been doing.
The patrons of these taverns are often young students looking to shirk responsibility. They may be fascinated by a githzerai from the Outer Planes, or interested in an arm wrestling contest to prove their worth. Schooltown is also full of intelligent, occasionally eccentric professors. Some of them may actually perform secret, nefarious experiments, while others may simply shuffle from class to class, teaching and eating and sleeping. Still other members of the town may be alumni who chose to stick around (for whatever reason), and regular townsfolk who could be resentful about the university's unwanted effects on their lives, possibly including dropouts who have sought to go their own way, academically.
While students may turn to adventures for menial tasks (like finding a very rare, particular flower for a class crush), it's the professors that have the really high level quests. Who knows what such intelligent people would need from a group of bold adventurers? Professor Jean Swan may be suspicious of the research of his colleague, Aergol the Alchemist, who claims Swan is just trying to slander him. A team of archaeologists might seek protection as they excavate the Narwhal Catacombs, a week out from town, offering uncovered treasure to any adventurers that accompany them. And if your players are looking to gain more knowledge about the world at large, they can't complain when that knowledge is almost at their fingertips in the university's libraries.

Holytown

Val Royeaux
Remember the monks from Monty Python and the Holy Grail? Chanting runs through the streets as a wisp, reaching the ears of most of the citizens of Holytown. This city may house a large cathedral, or religion may play a central role in its functioning. My personal favorite conception of Holy Town is as a pilgrimage site– a place where one must travel to become a true believer in the faith.
The level of holiness here is really up to the discretion of the DM, and will affect the way the city is meant to be built. An all out holy city may be entirely constructed around the faith– every brick laid with care by devout priests, and the seat of the cardinal high above the rest, with many roads leading into the church. Maybe the city itself is the world's largest temple, a shining beacon dedicated to the Celestial Pantheon. Or maybe the city is just built around a cathedral, and the pastor has a lot of power in the town's local politics, with higher ambitions. The specific religion is important, but building religions is, again, an idea for another day. As usual, the effects of religion should be felt throughout the town.
Priests and nuns are common here, often interacting with the townsfolk. In turn, these townsfolk are often supportive of the clergy, either with offerings or simple conversation. Most citizens in town are members of the religion, and it's impossible to not be aware of it. Holy days are celebrations thrown almost weekly, and the town falls silent when it's time for mass, save the few foreigners and atheists who grumble about the iron grip of the religion over their town. These people provide the greatest source of conflict, though they may come off as a little bitter because of the place they've had to live in.
There are a few things members of the clergy particularly love asking adventurers to do. There's the purging of unholy creatures from nearby areas. The reclamation of holy artifacts from museums in foreign nations. Improving attendance of church, or converting those who still aren't convinced. This is a great time to work on the character's relationships with the gods, assuming they exist in some form in your world. Everyone is a politician, even Garl Glittergold, god of the gnomes, and Holytown is a great place to learn more about the gods, their relationships with one another, and your characters' relationships with them. Maybe the town is ruled by a manifestation of an evil god, who threatens dissidents with violence. Maybe the gods do not make their presence known to mortals, and the citizens of Holytown latch onto anything that they see as a sign of a deity's existence, leading to different factions and sects– think Life of Brian's shoe vs. gourd schism.

Funtown

Canto Bight
A site of vacation for the rich or gambling for the reckless, Funtown is a place for games and relaxation. It might be a traveling carnival village, with a variety of ~wacky~ characters. It might be famous for its casinos, which are well-known to be run by the halfling mafia. This is a place where adventurers can have a good time– though everything may not always be as it seems.
This is the layout I'm least certain about, honestly, mostly because of how varied Funtowns can be. There could be a large pavillion, surrounded on all sides by various music halls. The town may feel like a maze, almost impossible to escape– wanna try your luck at gambling for a map? Think about how people make money in this town– hopefully that informs further development. Merchants have jacked up prices, taking advantage of tourists, and the wares of some of the seedier shops may include loaded dice and stacked decks. You have to be careful with these kinds of goods, though– you don't want Four-Ear Fzordrin to hear you've been causing problems in his establishment. He's got four ears, you know. Allegedly.
Townsfolk here are generally just trying to live their lives, surrounded by annoying tourists who think that everybody speaks Common. Their attitude is one that likely ranges from ambivalence to hostility towards these out-of-towners. The tourists will also play an interesting role in Funtown, adding to the liveliness- or drunkenness– of the town. Additionally, the people in charge of the games are some of the town's more important members– whether they are simply trying to make some cash, or whether they have malicious intent behind their games, is up to you.
While this is a good place for adventurers to unwind and have a session of goofing around, Funtown should still feel like a real place that offers conflict to the PCs who come across it. There may be a competitive, covert operations, high-stakes poker tournament that can lead to more information on the mind flayer the sorcerer has been pursuing. One of the PCs may find themselves battling to the death in the town's gladiatorial arena. Maybe a tavern owner offers gold rewards to anyone who can work their way through his elaborate, trap-filled obstacle course. This should be a time for players to show off what their characters do when they finally get a change to have fun. What does a paladin even do with her break? And how wild can a dwarf really get?

Fort Town

Sparta
Every town needs some sort of police force, and every nation needs some sort of standing army. Sometimes, these two coincide in Fort Town. Originally built as a military base, the fort's favorable location has encouraged some local farmers to move closer and try their hand at smithing, selling weapons and tools to the soldiers for a small markup. Fort Town is a center of operations, a border patrol station, or a site for the construction of weapons of war, or any other function a fort may serve.
Ballistas line the thick stone walls of this hexagonal city, with hot oil prepped not too far away. Security is of the utmost importance, and this is reflected in the city's design. Roads are built for efficiency, as the army could be called upon to fight at any conceivable moment. There aren't many houses, as soldiers generally live together in the barracks, and the houses that do exist either belong to generals, veterans, or citizens who live outside Fort Town's carefully protected walls. All the standard military trappings are part of Fort Town's environment– stables, training grounds, and the constant sound of a drill sergeant barking commands at her bowman squad.
Military fervor varies at every level of command. Citizens are likely not too involved in the goings-on of Fort Town, except perhaps supplying the soldiers with moonshine, company, or games. The soldiers, accordingly, are really just pawns in a greater game. They're constantly aware of a looming threat of death, even if their nation has the strongest army in the Eastern Kingdoms. Despite that, however, these soldiers are very real people, with a range of ambitions, opinions, and mentalities. Higher up, however, and one realizes that there is a purpose to all this– generals know that they affect the politics of the entire world, and their operations must be kept closely under lock and key. Though, surely, someone would pay a pretty penny for those battle plans...
Adventurers don't just "end up" in Fort Town. Whether they've been conscripted or are following a lead, they will be looked at with a seemingly excessive amount of scrutiny by military commanders. The best way to gain their trust may be through helping carry out a small scouting mission to the north, or discovering whether or not the Rasskin Elves are planning an offensive in two weeks. Maybe the military is a closed group with very specific barriers for entry, such as winning a barefisted fight or being able to win a drinking contest with one of the more alcohol-driven members of the infantry. Some officers might be above paying mercenaries to do their dirty work, while others seek victory by any means necessary. Fort Town can emphasize and flesh out a character's relationship with authority, really pushing the idea of what words like "lawful" and "chaotic" mean.

Seatown

Port Sarim
Shanties strike up, oak planks creak, and seagulls and seals compete to be the loudest creatures for miles. Seatown is built right on the ocean, a port and point of access into the nation. It's home for pirate ships and sailor's guilds alike, a bustling hub where you might not even get the time of day from the often rude travelers you may encounter there.
Seatown, despite the name, does not inherently have to be on the water. Really, it should serve as a commuting hub, such as a roadhouse or airship port. It's not a final destination for most people, but a place to stop along the way. Seatown has plenty of taverns, some often filled with brawls, and may even have some seafood restaurants to attract the "just visiting" crowd. The docks themselves are key, and players should have an idea of what they're in for as soon as they step off their ships. Pirates curse and throw fish at each other, and merchants order the careful movement of crates onto their ships– "except that one. My people will take care of that one." The atmosphere of the docks should represent the atmosphere of the town, and here, everything is built around travel and the voyage.
Seatown attracts a huge variety of people, from pirates to merchants to sailors, and these groups don't always get along. Citizens of Seatown tend to recognize frequent visitors, and may be excited or wary when they see the adventurers' fresh new faces. They are certainly a motley crew– the dragonborn barkeep with a peg leg, the blind rope merchant, the half-elf twins who claim they can make sea water drinkable– "really, here, just try it!" The people of Seatown have seen their fair share of outsiders, and very little can really surprise them any more.
Since Seatown is only a stop along the way, adventurers are unlikely to spend a lot of time there. However, there are always ship captains looking for odd jobs, or pirates who are trying to get into trouble, fighting the first formidable foes they see. These may even get out of hand, and the high seas may become a much more dangerous place for the adventurers after they anger the Princess of Pirates. Merchants may seek help in locating stolen goods or protecting their wares as they continue their journey. Seatown should serve as an entertaining stop along the road for the adventuring party, but, as with Funtown, should still function as a living, breathing environment completely outside of the adventurers.

Tradetown

Ankh-Morpork
Tradetown is a center of trade for individual merchants and guilds alike. Some very expensive things can be found here, and money is the dominating factor that drives the function of the town. In terms of your entire nation, it's important to understand why Tradetown is where it is– it should exist at a nexus of roads, with trade easily facilitated between neighboring cities. Tradetown is as rich as it is, at least in part, because of its accessibility.
A financial capital is a center for business, and that means plenty of stores and merchants selling wares. There might be stalls and markets all over the place, or a large trading building where stockbrokers exchange price points for eyes of newt and battleaxes. This is where the economy starts and ends, and that should be very apparent. Gold exchanges hands with frequent, well-heard clinks, and the hustle and bustle of the city is a result of the huge amounts of people that have moved there in search of wealth and power. Tradetowns are among the biggest cities in an empire– possibly even larger than The Town, mostly because more people are motivated by greed than a lust for power.
Guild bosses and small time merchants are both in pursuit of the same thing: wealth beyond their wildest imaginations. Some are certainly more lucky than others, and the apparent wealth disparities are felt in the conversations PCs have with citizens. There may even be different accents for different social classes, like in London or the dragonborn Finankal district. However, the people of Tradetown might not all be trying to turn silver into gold. Some of them are honest workers who, like in every other town, are just trying to live, oftentimes brought here by their parents seeking the Tradetown Dream, an idea which some of the citizens may view as fallacious.
Merchant's guilds are always competing with one another, and this can sometimes get brutal, with adventurers needed to step in to either mediate or pick a side. The government might be more prone to corruption here, and the adventurers might want to do something about it. Guild bosses might need goods delivered safely, or new markets investigated. And, of course, in a city filled with the richest of the rich, a heist isn't out of the question! Let your players know about the role money plays in your nation– maybe in some countries, it doesn't matter as much. But to other, greedier nations, money changes everything.

Worktown

The Valley of the Wind
Something has to make the world go 'round. Whether Worktown is an agricultural hamlet or a massive, steam driven city, it is a key cog in the machine of the nation, providing raw materials for the rest of the country's people. It is often more out of the way, not in a central location, and a nation should consist of a lot of Worktowns if it is to function properly. As such, these towns are often among the smallest in an empire, though they still have their fair share of interesting characters and neighborhoods.
In an industrial Worktown, towers of smoke from coal plants billow high into the sky. There are mineshaft openings every fifty feet. Escaped livestock runs through the streets. Worktown is not a clean town, nor is it an organized one. It's a very spread out region, without any real cohesion to it, unless it's an incredibly efficient smithing factory. Clangs of metal and brays of goats are often heard all around this town, creating a blue collar symphony. It's crucial to know the function of the Worktown– a town based around mining for copper is very different than one that grows carrots. These ideas can shake up the way residents act and the type of town a Worktown comes across as.
The people of Worktown are, more often than not, simple and humble. They have large families, and may be resentful of people from Schooltowns, Tradetowns, or The Town. They're the "don't take too kindly to strangers" types, mostly because strangers don't typically come to town without some ulterior motive. Some are incredibly friendly, of course, like Gran and Yollsworth Twindly, but these talkative types are probably few and far between. The person in charge of the town is likely a lord or noble whose family got the short end of the stick generations ago– she may try and spin her position to increase her power in the region.
This is a great place for low-level adventurers who need a townsperson to tell them to go clear the goblins out of the mines or find their lost cattle. Again, the type of Worktown is incredibly important– a lumbering operation may require the disbanding of a pack of wolves, while a mining operation may be crippled by the recent appearance of rust monsters in the mines. These quests can also serve to show adventurers what kind of people the common folk are– so often, high level adventurers find themselves so utterly separate from the average Joe, it's important to remind them that these people exist, are normal, and can be good, kind people. People worth protecting. What's the point in saving the world if you don't even care about the world being saved?

Crimetown

Gotham
Not a great place to be. The Thieve's Guild might rule this town, the police force might be corrupt, law and order might be a thing of the past. Oftentimes, Crimetowns are what happens when Worktowns take a turn for the worse. Whatever the situation, Crimetown is a wretched hive of scum and villainy, an oftentimes frightening and dangerous place to live.
The buildings of Crimetown are likely left in disrepair, with broken windows and derelict wood structures. The only people who have anything are the people with the best security or the people in charge of the criminal organizations– often one and the same. Not everything has to be all doom and gloom, of course– there may still be friendly faces to be found, and buildings don't have to all look like ancient ruins to create the desired aesthetic.
Anyone will tell you that the people of Crimetown are not to be trusted: everyone has their own motives and interests in mind, and you can get stabbed in the stomach over a few gold pieces. For the most part, they're right. Again, that's not to say everyone is chaotic evil here– the town still has to function in the overall society. People might not be overtly murdering each other on every street corner, but there are still plenty of shady drug dealers and scummy con men that can fill the role of a murderhobo NPC. Some citizens of Crimetown will complain about members of Tradetowns who came in, sucked up all the natural resources, and left Crimetown to rot. Others might call this a mindless conspiracy– it's really up to you, the DM, to decide how much of it is true.
Cleaning up the town is a noble goal, but a difficult one. Crimetown has been like this for a long time, and it's kind of foolish to pretend one adventuring party that came out of nowhere can fix everything. Still, maybe with the right allies, anything is possible. Alternatively, players might actually find themselves giving into temptation and joining in on the available selection of crimes, carrying out heists and assassinations at the behest of Bozzok, the half-orc leader of the Thieve's Guild . Maybe they skirt a line in between, looking to reform the guild from within– but how well can that work? Players can explore the darker side of their characters in Crimetown, and see what happens when they are thrust into a dangerous urban setting– one that still has good people in it, though they may be doing the wrong things.

Hometown

The Shire
A place worth fighting for. My inclusion of Hometown may feel like a cheat, but I'd say it's anything but. It's one of the most important towns in the world– at least for the characters in the story.
A character knows the layout of the town. Where he played as a kid, the Temple of Pelor Ma used to force him to go to. He recognizes Livry Ward, the neighborhood where his childhood friend, Salaa, lived with her warlock father. Characters were shaped by this town, and it might be wise to actually let them have a hand in making it. If you plan on taking characters to Hometown, ask them if there are any places they remember from childhood.
Additionally, ask about people they remember. How will the townsfolk react to hearing the deeds of one of their own? Will they be impressed by the blue dragon she slayed in the Leaf Mountains? Or will they be concerned about the tabaxi that always hangs around with her? These people shaped the character in question, and so their attitudes and beliefs should, at least vaguely, be similar to hers.
Hometown is a perfect place to dig into a character's backstory. It might represent everything they hold dear– or everything they're still bitter about. Either way, putting it in danger should evoke a strong reaction– maybe it turns out that a group of paladins have began enforcing martial law in town, and the townsfolk are scared of stepping even slightly out of line. The people here are important, even if they've never been seen before. Don't let just one character have the spotlight, though– this is a great place for dynamic interactions across the table. For example, a fling for one of the characters may be a longtime rival for another, or something may be discovered about one of the characters that had been kept secret for a long time...
​
TL;DR: Cities are very important please consider these archetypes next time you're having trouble making one
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