Game Dev Tycoon

Have you ever wanted to create your own game studio? If you’re a gamer, the thought had to go through your head at least once. Have you ever wanted to make your games, based on the genres you love, for the consoles you love? Or maybe you wished you were a developer back in the olden days of the video game industry, making games for the retro consoles you still love? Hey, it’s alright, we’ve all had those dreams. Especially for those of us who saw the start of home gaming and wished today’s industry was more like it was back then. Less cutthroat, less dependent on insane budgets and less greedy with new ways to make more cash, like with microtransactions and lootboxes. That’s alright, the industry is a bit crap at the moment, especially on the AAA side of things (which might be why I mostly play indie games lately).

However! Would you like to play yourself as a young developer, growing a studio throughout the history of the gaming industry, with all the attention to detail when it comes to the consoles, their rivalries, their market shares, the genres that work well and not-so-well on them, the target audience options, the dozens of possible topics, and see your games being either hailed as masterpieces, seen as average, or torn to shreds by reviews, all while you manage your budget, create new engines, research the newest developments of the industry, and try to survive in a market that grows more and more competitive by the year?

Phew! If your answer is “…Huh?”, I’m sorry, that question was really way too long. If the answer is yes, welcome to Game Dev Tycoon. If it’s no… well, give it a try anyway. Released in 2013, Game Dev Tycoon is the creation of Greenheart Games, who really “get it” when it comes to understanding gamers. They even give you an achievement if you name your in-game company Greenheart Games! Or if you name one of your projects Game Dev Tycoon. Well, okay, it’s not all perfect, but they’re improving!

The game starts in the simplest of studios: An average Joe or Jane, making games in his or her garage, on an oldie computer, with… Okay, either they had the budget for a car that favored cool looks over performance, or this new game developer’s family name is Brown and they’ve got an uncle named Emmett.

I don't think there's much I can do for now...
This selection sucks.

So we start with almost nothing – a computer to develop games, four topics to pick from, and the most basic engine one can afford. At first, all you can do is make a game, then learn new topics or create a game engine of your own. However, for a truly effective engine, you need to implement a few more video game advances into it, and these have to be researched as well! Until then, just keep making games from the four topics you have at first.

Oh yeah, have I mentioned that the four topics are picked at random among 51 different subjects? There are quite a few stinkers in there that only work well with one genre. Topics that work with many (more than 2) base genres are quite rare. Oh, and there’s one base genre (Casual) that you must unlock through research, too! This limits your creativity. Researching topics takes away valuable time as well, especially at first when you’re a single developer.

Not pictured: The casual genre.
Also not pictured: Everything behind this window.

I can see a Game Boy up there.
Oh wait, "GameLing". Right.

Oh, and of course, much like how not every topic works well with every genre, not every genre works well on every console. As you progress through the growing industry, more consoles appear on the market, starting with the PC and G64, the arrival of the TES from Ninvento (obviously they couldn’t use the trademarks, so they had to parody them instead), the creation of the Playsystem from Vony all the way to modern day. Ah, nothing better on a cold winter day than to have a Mestlay Speed hot chocolate while writing this review on Micronoft Text, then bringing it into Blablablaggur to edit and add images, maybe a can of Bepis for the road before I go out in my Tatayo Corona car to work for the night at Supergas.

Later, a target audience system is introduced to the game, letting you make games for young or mature audiences, or for everyone. It’s up to you to figure out what works well as a combination (genre, topic, system, audience), to rack in the most money. Older gamers will love Cyberpunk or Horror settings, but kids will hate them. Meanwhile, kids love Fashion (??) or School (??????) games, but mature audiences won’t. Actually, I don’t know why kids would love those genres either, really. And what do you mean, kids don't like horror? How do you explain Goosebumps? Or Roald Dahl, for God's sake!

You can look back at your various projects and see the score they received.
6.25? Not horrendous. You should see the hatred the sequel received.

You see, one of the main parts of the game is how these elements work together, which means the two developers at Greenheart Games had to imagine these combinations and judge whether they actually do mix well. Now, the gaming industry has been going on for about four decades, so most possible combinations have been made and many have actually been quite popular. Many combinations, however, will not work so well in Game Dev Tycoon; as an example, an action or adventure game will work poorly in the City topic, even though there are dozens of examples in the real world. Beat’em-ups frequently take place in a city… though maybe that’s not what they meant with the topic? They eventually patched some of the combinations they thought didn’t make sense, when fans pointed out successful examples of said combinations. Can’t blame them for making a few mistakes along the road, that’s normal in the creation of any game.

Same goes for the combinations between genre and console. The starting systems, PC and G64, are decent for most genres, but hate casual games, while the first home console, the TES, absolutely loves them – just a shame you unlock the research for the Casual genre a while after that console pops on the market! In fact, most systems don’t like strategy games (meaning you’ll usually release them on PC, the only system that will still support them over time), while simulation games will work on almost every console or system.

And like I said: you have a bad starting selection of four topics? Tough. You waste time researching, and you can only research one topic at a time. Some of the more dedicated players will restart the game until they get a decent starting selection. The Random Number God has ways of screwing you over here too. That’s always been an element of tycoon games, admittedly.

I'm gonna have to remove a few bugs before release...
But dammit, that Finish button is so tempting!

Oopsie! I forgot to give my game a name!

But wait! What happens when you make a game? Well, after you’ve picked topic, genre, system and target audience, your character starts working on their project. They gain points in four categories: Design, Technology, Research and Bugs. Your character gains experience for each point in Design and Technology, once the game has been completed - more points, more experience. Meanwhile, the player gains points in Research, which they can then use to research topics and features, such as new topics, better 2D graphics (and later 3D), a level editor, multiplayer options, better dialogues… everything, really. Sure, you need to make a new engine to actually use that stuff, but it pays off (you also gain more Research points while creating an engine!). Then there’s the Bugs. When the game is ready, that category has been increasing a bit during production, and that number will go down by one as your developer patches their game. Your best bet is to wait until all the bugs are gone, but be wary that more can be added sometimes during patching. Even then, removing all the glitches won’t guarantee a great score – it will, however, have a bit of an impact on the game’s review score.

"I hope Neverending Fantasy does well. I am putting my
all into this one. My company will be in trouble if it fails.
And hey, if it's good enough, we might make 15 more
sequels to it!"

During creation of a new game, you go through three phases of development. On every phase, you adjust sliders to determine the amount of effort put into each of 9 elements of the creation (Game Engine, Gameplay, Story/Quests, Dialogues, Level Design, AI, World Design, Graphics, Sound). All six genres have different requirements when it comes to these elements – an action game requires nearly no dialogues, especially in the early days. Designing the world is almost unnecessary in a Casual game. An RPG will focus a LOT on dialogues, quests and the world the player visits, however. Don’t keep all the sliders at the top, if you want to make a great game – putting the same amount of work in every element is counterproductive. You just gotta find the right balance for everything. Use a guide, if that part is too difficult. During the three phases of development, we can also turn on or off elements from the game engine used for the creation. Many of these will add to the cost of development, but you can eventually come out with a better product thanks to them. Just remember what you need and don’t need.

I give this set of reviews a 6/10: Acceptable, not amazing.

Once a game is out, it will receive reviews from the four main publications. The reviews will be a number from 1 to 10, with a little comment next to it. Sometimes a reviewer will say that the combination of Topic X and Genre Y is good, or say the same about the combination of Genre Y and Console Z. Did you give your game a title? No? Well then, it’s gonna be noted by reviewers that your latest output is just named “Game #X” and, if it’s mediocre, they’ll say stuff like “The name says it all” or “As bland as the name”. Hmmm, that’s some good snark. As a reviewer, I approve. And yeah, sometimes it can be disheartening to see a game you worked on getting horrible reviews, but it happens. Similarly, you can put less effort into one game, yet see it reap wonderful scores. If a game gets great scores, it’ll start selling like crazy, improving your profits. Then you can use that money to make bigger games. If you make a stinker, though, it won’t sell quite as well. However - if you produce a groundbreaking game, one reviewer might give a 10 and say they'd give an 11 if they could!

In Game Dev Tycoon, sequels aren't accepted and are, in fact,
utterly hated by reviewers until you actually research the
option to make sequels to games you've made before.
That's not okay.

Why "PAArcourse"?
PAA is acronym for Planned All Along.

The final aspect of the game is – of course – the story. As a tycoon game, the point is to improve your resources constantly in order to make more money. You start in your garage, then once you’ve got a million dollars in the bank, you can move on to an actual studio, where you can hire employees who will help in the making of games (and you can split research with them, so you’ll unlock new topics and game engine elements faster). Having employees means paying them, so as you go from a small one-person venture to an actual studio, your expenses will increase quite a bit, and you must always keep track of the amount of money that is available. Meanwhile, we follow the story of the gaming industry, starting with the first computers, followed by the arrival of home consoles, portable consoles, and so on. The creation of the big-name studios, the partnerships that fail… It’s mostly in broad strokes because telling the full story would be too complex, but you get most of the major events in the gaming industry. You will always, always be reminded of the disastrous one-day-only partnership between Nint-er, I mean, Ninvento and Vony for a new CD-based game console. And as the technology improves, so do you. Going from 2D to 3D, going from simple sounds to Stereo, going from little projects to big releases.

"Law/Adventure"? Maybe I can finally make that
Judge Dredd platformer I always wanted to do!

Speaking of big releases, once you unlock the ability to make medium-sized games, you discover the “wonders” (note the sarcasm) of using a publisher to make your game available to a wider audience. That’s a neat feature, but many are morons who request topic/genre or genre/platform combinations that just don’t work. A publisher will demand a payment and the guarantee that the produced game will get a certain score from reviewers or better – and if you fail at delivering something of the required quality, you’ll be penalized by the publisher and lose money. When every collar counts, you can’t afford to lose that much money. As a result, you need to be extremely careful when picking a publishing contract, as a bad forced combination can screw you over. You may choose… but choose wisely.

Present your big project at the gaming convention!

Or, y’know... keep self-publishing small games, but never get the wider scope and distribution made possible by a publisher. See the risks and rewards? Take the risk, reap the rewards if you succeed… or lose money if you fail. Tough choice. You win if your studio manages to survive and avoid bankruptcy for 35 in-game years.

I bought a legal copy. I ain't seeing this happen.

As a final hurrah to this game, which is fantastic, I should note Greenheart Games’ attempts at deterring piracy. They’re a two-person studio, and piracy tends to hurt indie developers far more than it hurts the big-name video game companies. They found a particularly clever, nasty and ironic way to get their message across: For starters, within the game, you’ll often get random events where fans of your products will pirate your creations, or create fan versions. You can be lenient towards these people, or react strongly against them. Greenheart Games made their own pirated version of their game, and released it on torrent and piracy sites. In that version, once the player character’s studio has gained enough recognition, in-game piracy starts going at full speed, dropping the studio’s revenue and making it almost impossible for the player to win in the long run. You heard right: The pirated version of the game becomes unwinnable… because of in-game piracy ruining it. Brilliant.

Because seriously, fuck pirates, they deserve all that's coming
to them if they're too fucking cheap to buy a little indie title
that doesn't even cost 10 bucks.

And then some pirates had the sheer gall to go on forums and ask if there are any ways in the game to prevent pirates from taking money away from them… apparently not realizing that’s exactly what they were doing in real life to Greenheart Games. As an indie title, it’s not even that expensive: 8$ USD! A product that offers hours of entertainment costs less than a single meal at the nearby fast food restaurant. You gotta be a cheap bastard to pirate a game like that. Hopefully the commentary didn’t go over the pirates’ heads, and they decided to buy the actual game instead of pirating it.

I actually agree with the method taken here. The makers of Game Dev Tycoon raise a solid point, and have added another statement that cements their stance on the matter.

Although the message doesn’t hurt those who bought a legal copy of the game, which I did, because it’s only 8 dollars. And it’s actually a pretty great game! Yeah, I enjoy it. It’s not an easy game, but it’s fun. As with any tycoon game, there’s a lot of variables to take into consideration, and you need to manage your money very wisely. The gameplay is basic, as everything is done with the mouse (outside of naming games, obviously). Most of the action is about making the right games, using good combinations, and picking the right contracts when the time comes to make bigger games. You also need to take dozens of variables into the equation, such as the current market trends, the consoles’ market shares, how much work to apply to every element of a game’s production, and the charge of work of every employee you have.

That’s about all there is to the gameplay. There’s a level-up system through which you become better with the various elements of game design. Your employees also level up and receive better paychecks as they go. As a result, with time, your expenses increase, which mean you eventually have to keep making successful bigger games in order to make enough money and repay your employees. It’s tough!

"Surgery"? That's a viable genre?
Back in the days of 8- and 16-bit graphics?

I haven’t beaten it yet, but whenever I can, I go back to it. I really want to beat this game. It’s a pleasant experience, though I’m afraid the game is too difficult if you don’t rely on a guide. I’ve been personally using a guide found on the Steam community to get anything done in the game, because the failures are very penalizing and you can’t really tell the best combinations unless you experiment a lot, which would involve trying and failing repeatedly, and after a while you can’t allow yourself to have too many failures. Because failed games don’t bring in enough money to pay your employees, and if you go under… Let’s just say that I now know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of unfavorable reviews. No wonder I try to remain positive.

The graphics aren’t all that particular, outside out the various studios you work in. Your garage, the small studio, the improved studios, and so on. The decorations on the walls, and the various items in the studio, make for a nice touch. Every employee you hire has a unique design and skills. The music’s okay, nothing spectacular, just something to accompany the tycoon game. I do enjoy the Easter eggs we can find in the game, whether it’s the message from Dave Johnson (yes, yes, from Portal!) or the various figurines in later studios.

Really, I like this game. Now I just gotta beat it, but I have more bad luck than should be possible. Seriously, do NOT pirate it; buy it. Buy it, this game is worth your money. Although I swear, if this game taught me anything, it's that I am happy to be on the reviewer side of things, because I ain’t ready for the cutthroat game dev side of things. I’ll stay where I am, thank you very much!

Next week, something completely different!