Share your Game Dev Tycoon stories.

[triggrhappy94]

Share your greatest triumphs and loses, how you name your names, and combinations that some how managed to work.

I just spent the last three hours playing. It's great. I haven't managed to get past the SNES yet, though.

On my first play through I decided to name all my games after Tyler Perry movies. Diary of a Mad Black Women (shorten to fit) and Medea Goes to Jail sold alright. Medea's Family Reunion bankrupted me though.

In my next attempt, I'm going to name my company Bethesda and release my games filled with bugs.

 

[DoPo]

I started several times and utterly failed when I reached the second stage. And I kept naming my studio "Sunny Studios" (the default name in Game Dev Story for iPhone/Android). I decided to go for the Fan achievement, so I quickly tried to think of a name - first three that came to mind were EA, Activision, and Valve (so I was on the Escapist before I played it - sue me) - I decided against EA or Activision, and went with Valve. Made my character female and named her Gabriella Newell for the lulz.

And lo and behold, I actually succeeded this time. Valve became pretty successfull - I moved on from the second stage into the third stage, made an R&D lab, even released an online distribution system. After I started developing Large games, I really started to feel there was no way to fail - any game I released started getting at least 500k sales in the first week and 1 million in the second. Some even got a million in the first week.

I finished the 30 year "campaign" at that point and just continued playing. I released a Fantasy RPG MMO, had several expansions for it but then left it off to just run. I had the money, I could afford it - money fluctuated between 500 and 700 million at all times. I decided to just train everybody to level 10 and max attributes and also get all graphics technologies (I was stuck with 3D graphics V2 and even had a console released with that). I just couldn't bankrupt, so why not?

I bankrupted. The MMO I had started sucking money LIKE MAD! I mean, yeah, it was running at a loss for some time but sheesh - I had 500 mil last I checked, saved and quit, loaded the next day and started developing a game or something when I got a message from the bank "It seems you're in the red, do you want to give us an arm and a leg to not lose the game?" - I was at, like, -20 million or so. Yeah, must have been that, as the bank wanted me to pay them back 96 million the next year. I accepted but before I could figure out what drained my money (I didn't pause), I just bankrupted. I went to R&D to stop their funding, then to the hardware lab to stop theirs (the game dev stage screen popped up at one point interrupting me) and all in all, two weeks had passed which was enough for the MMO maintenance costs to suck out all my savings and put me in the red. Just as I realised what was happening (was just about to cancel it). So I loaded up and cancelled the MMO immediately. Then I continued to improve and all. Even got access to AAA games (I'm still not sure what the requirement is - I didn't do anything special to get them.

Now I'm 66 years into the game, of my staff only one is level 9, the rest are levels 10 and 11, everybody has 900 (or around there) Technology, Design, and Speed (training doesn't increase the stats, so that's probably the cap...sort of - some have, like 913 in a stat, others 901 or 905 or stuff. None of the stats advance past that point, though). I think I gave up on releasing games. Well, many games - I make one AAA game a year because why not, and I also have another MMO (Vampire/RPG) running, making a new expansion when the game starts running at a loss...but not immediately. Frankly, not actual game Valve develops is going to rake in as much dough as the MMO does - it's currently making something like 1500-1900 million a week with 600 million maintenance cost.

I am pretty sure everybody in the world is currently playing the MMO and are probably getting second copies. As proof, I tried releasing a Life Simulation AAA game that had, like...everything - reactive world, immersive storytelling, self-learning AI, the best dialogues possible, a VR headset, and so on. I created the Matrix. And got 6es and 7s for it. People still bought it but I don't think I managed to hook the whole world into it

Other than that, the total money I have is around 20 000 million, so it's sort of hard to bankrupt suddenly. My console (the first one) has the highest market share, however, I've not developed a single game for it, lol - I'm planning to release a new console that has everything maxed out.

Oh, and all my game names are the defaults - Game #14, Game #77 and so on xD It's pretty awesome, to be honest - I didn't expect Valve to live for long, so I didn't give any names to the games and when I finally made it, I decided I liked the sound of the news - something like "Valve, known for games such as Game #17 and Game #24, recently released Game #36, which is a sequel to Game #22"

 

[piinyouri]

Snipy snip

That is the best advertisement for this game I've seen/read.
Gonna go try the demo out right this instant.
That sounds fun as hell.

 

[DoPo]

Snipy snip

That is the best advertisement for this game I've seen/read.
Gonna go try the demo out right this instant.
That sounds fun as hell.

Here is a quick start up guide - try to grow but also don't try to overdo it. Don't worry if you lose a few times, you'll sort of get it at one point, at least that's what happened to me. Also, you might need luck. But basically - you start of small, with only one dev (you. In your garage ), then you move to stage 2 - when you can hire more people - get a second person as soon as possible, and when you get to three, research Medium games and start doing deals with publishers. Just try to break even, even though games through a publisher may even be quite lucrative. Your goal is to get more fans - the more fans you have, the more sales you'll get. When you get enough fans, you won't need a publisher, at that point, you start raking in the dough and you'll soon move over to stage 3 - get more people and access to Large games. And...that's it - just keep making games, you'll get even more options.

 

[piinyouri]

Snipy snip

That is the best advertisement for this game I've seen/read.
Gonna go try the demo out right this instant.
That sounds fun as hell.

Here is a quick start up guide - try to grow but also don't try to overdo it. Don't worry if you lose a few times, you'll sort of get it at one point, at least that's what happened to me. Also, you might need luck. But basically - you start of small, with only one dev (you. In your garage ), then you move to stage 2 - when you can hire more people - get a second person as soon as possible, and when you get to three, research Medium games and start doing deals with publishers. Just try to break even, even though games through a publisher may even be quite lucrative. Your goal is to get more fans - the more fans you have, the more sales you'll get. When you get enough fans, you won't need a publisher, at that point, you start raking in the dough and you'll soon move over to stage 3 - get more people and access to Large games. And...that's it - just keep making games, you'll get even more options.

Playing the demo now.
Made a couple of text based RPG's named Godslayer and rudimentary drum simulators to build up to the NES license.
Just made Crystalis on it and it's a smash hit.

X3

As much as I'm enjoying it, it seems a bit too easy were as long as you pick the right combination of genres and themes, you'll do well. (Though maybe over saturation as a mechanic is in the game and will turn around and bite you in the ass)
I hope so, this is amazing.

EDIT: Crystalis just made me a millionaire.
And now upon using that couple mil to refine and update my game engine, I go to make a sequel but see the NES doesn't have much market anymore. The GB has soaked most of it up.
This is fantastic, do I make an inferior version of the game knowing it will probably sell well, or keep my values since my character doesn't see the draw of this new hand held device?
Especially interesting considering Crystalis HAD a very lackluster GBC adaptation.

I'm already thinking of companies to 'roleplay' as.
Bethesda - Make super ambitious games, don't fix any bugs
EA - Start off decent then sequel, sequel, sequel.

 

[DoPo]

EA - Start off decent then sequel, sequel, sequel.

My flatmate tried that He kept making Military Action games until he went bankrupt. Then tried it again a couple of times. It was hilarious. Although, weirdly, he did start getting higher marks for the games eventually - went from something like 3-4 for the first game, to 2-3 for the second, then 1-2, 1-2 and they started rising a bit.

I told him he missed making the sport simulations (FIFA and the rest) as well as Racing (NFS).

And the first stage of the game is easy - stage two gets harder, as your monthly costs increase, especially when you pay your staff, but you still won't have a steady income. It's going to be a lucky break that gets you 1-2 million (so far it has always been for me) and you have to invest them wisely, otherwise you'll just see them dwindle and disappear. Continuing making small games won't cut it, making medium games is an investment of money and effort (aside from choosing the levels of different stuff, like engine and AI, you also have to assign team members to each, so two people will get easily overworked) and so on. And you need good reviews, too - if you make several mediocre games in a row, you probably won't get enough sales to stay afloat.

Oh, and by the way, at some point in the game, I got an email from a representative of a Nigerian prince. Apparently, the prince wanted to invest 2 million in my studio but the money was held by the bank and I had to pay something like 100K to clear the fees for the transfer.

Spoiler

I paid because I was really curious what would happen if I did. Turned out the Nigerian prince was a SCAM! Imagine that! Who does that? Who LIES on the internet? But when the 100K got deducted from my funds, it was labelled "Gullibility tax" xD

 

[piinyouri]

EA - Start off decent then sequel, sequel, sequel.

My flatmate tried that He kept making Military Action games until he went bankrupt. Then tried it again a couple of times. It was hilarious. Although, weirdly, he did start getting higher marks for the games eventually - went from something like 3-4 for the first game, to 2-3 for the second, then 1-2, 1-2 and they started rising a bit.

I told him he missed making the sport simulations (FIFA and the rest) as well as Racing (NFS).

And the first stage of the game is easy - stage two gets harder, as your monthly costs increase, especially when you pay your staff, but you still won't have a steady income. It's going to be a lucky break that gets you 1-2 million (so far it has always been for me) and you have to invest them wisely, otherwise you'll just see them dwindle and disappear. Continuing making small games won't cut it, making medium games is an investment of money and effort (aside from choosing the levels of different stuff, like engine and AI, you also have to assign team members to each, so two people will get easily overworked) and so on. And you need good reviews, too - if you make several mediocre games in a row, you probably won't get enough sales to stay afloat.

Oh, and by the way, at some point in the game, I got an email from a representative of a Nigerian prince. Apparently, the prince wanted to invest 2 million in my studio but the money was held by the bank and I had to pay something like 100K to clear the fees for the transfer.

Spoiler

I paid because I was really curious what would happen if I did. Turned out the Nigerian prince was a SCAM! Imagine that! Who does that? Who LIES on the internet? But when the 100K got deducted from my funds, it was labelled "Gullibility tax" xD

Yeah, you gotta get the sports and racing games in there!

Oh wow. It seems like things just bust wide open later on, totally changing everything. (If I sound noobish it's because I usually don't play this genre of games)

That Nigerian prince thing is just hilarious. Reminds of something similar in an old SNES called Vegas Stakes.

Finished my demo, I'm buying this ASAP.

 

[Ickorus]

For me it was when my studio was very nearly bankrupt and I got a loan from the bank to keep it going a little bit longer, I decided at this point that I needed a real hit to get anywhere so I developed my own advanced engine which brought me to my knees again and then developed the game 'Lore' for it (My TES ripoff), by the time development was over I was once again in the red, the scores came in..

The reviewers LOVED it, 10's across the board but I wasn't out of the woods yet, I had the loan repayments coming up in two months and one more tick of monthly payments would make me bankrupt, I had only a couple of weeks before that happened, luckily the sales started literally seconds before I went bankrupt and my worries over the loan were washed away in 10 seconds as I broke 5 Million in my first week of sales.

My friend was in much the same position as me previous to my predicament but he was unlucky and went bankrupt just after the highly positive scores came in, poor git.

 

[DoPo]

Finished my demo, I'm buying this ASAP.

Good, good!

You can also try Game Dev Story if you have an Android device or an iPhone. It's a very similar game although it does have it's differences. It's also easier (I've not really found a reliable way to go bankrupt unless you really want to) but I found it fun as hell. It has a demo - just give it a spin if you can if only to see where Game Dev Tycoon took inspiration.

I had the loan repayments coming up in two months and one more tick of monthly payments would make me bankrupt, I had only a couple of weeks before that happened, luckily the sales started literally seconds before I went bankrupt and my worries over the loan were washed away in 10 seconds as I broke 5 Million in my first week of sales.

I had a similar situation once. I just missed my shot - got 5-6 for the game which ruined my studio as the publisher deal asked for a minimum of 6 D: The penalty fee bankrupted me.

 

[Ickorus]

I had the loan repayments coming up in two months and one more tick of monthly payments would make me bankrupt, I had only a couple of weeks before that happened, luckily the sales started literally seconds before I went bankrupt and my worries over the loan were washed away in 10 seconds as I broke 5 Million in my first week of sales.

I had a similar situation once. I just missed my shot - got 5-6 for the game which ruined my studio as the publisher deal asked for a minimum of 6 D: The penalty fee bankrupted me.

I haven't ever done a publishing deal myself, indie4lyf.

Kinda funny and sad at the same time that even in a game I have absolutely no trust for publishers.

 

[DoPo]

I had the loan repayments coming up in two months and one more tick of monthly payments would make me bankrupt, I had only a couple of weeks before that happened, luckily the sales started literally seconds before I went bankrupt and my worries over the loan were washed away in 10 seconds as I broke 5 Million in my first week of sales.

I had a similar situation once. I just missed my shot - got 5-6 for the game which ruined my studio as the publisher deal asked for a minimum of 6 D: The penalty fee bankrupted me.

I haven't ever done a publishing deal myself, indie4lyf.

Kinda funny and sad at the same time that even in a game I have absolutely no trust for publishers.

They aren't too bad - publishing a game through them would still net you more money than doing it on your own (while you have small amount of fans, that is) even when they give you, like, 10% of the income. Still, you have to pick the deals - a publisher may want a particular genre, type, platform, or target audience - any of those, combined in any way or maybe even none. They still want a minimum score for the game, though - some are reasonable at, like 5 or 6, others want an 8 (not sure if any want a 9). And sometimes their request is just birarre - I took a deal to develop a Racing Strategy game for the Gameboy (yeah, really) and, surpise, surprise, not only did it score low, it also didn't sell well because it was a dumb idea.

But some deals are quite sweet for a still small developer - make a medium game on a platform of your choice, genre and type of your choice and score a minimum of 4 on it, for example.

 

[DoPo]

I think your staff training killed you.

The forums have a lot of people being pissed off 900 stat staff are actually worse at making games than the noobs due to how a game MUST have a 2:1 ratio of design and tech.

900 staff do a 1:1 ratio.

Hmm, didn't know that. Well, I'm making billions of...whatever the currency in in game[footnote]it says "Cr" - does that stand for "currency"? I always think of it as "Krone" when I see it.[/footnote] every month. It's hard but it's a living. I'll keep it in mind for my next company, though.

 

[Sassafrass]

I've played past 100 years on one of my saves.
I...kinda broke the game and made millions of millions, making it impossible to fail.

Spoiler

Seriously, I can release a game that gets 4's and 5's and still rack up about 3 million sales in the first week and turn a profit.

And yes, I name my games after real ones because I'm a lazy prat.

And yes, that is a Deus Ex based MMO and it costs me 5 trillion a week to maintain, so that's why I have convention research going. Helps keeps the interest in the MMO and pumps in a few more users for the four weeks after the convention is done.

Also the company in the above screen is a PC only company. It's not as hard as people think it is to go PC only, at the moment the PC is second only to the MBox Next.

 

[piinyouri]

Got the game, transferred my demo save, got to the second stage and I'm getting BEAT.

Nothing has gelled with reviewers and I'm one faulty bank repayment away from being out the door.


On a different note, in my opinion every gamer should play this. The perspective it can give you, along with the dialogue and choices it will generate really shed light on the other side of our favorite hobby. (I know the game isn't super realistic, but it does enough to immerse me)


EDIT: The game is still fun, but far from perfect. It needs work still, a lot of things are very unquantified and a lot of the times I kind of feel like I'm stumbling in the dark.

The names for the staff training tell me almost nothig of how they will actually affect my stats.
And stats themselves level, but I can't see any real tangible benefit from this in my results.
Sometimes it all just seems random in the worst way.

It also seems to be designed to actually punish unique and different ideas, which is quite ironic if true.
I'd love to make crazy, quirky type games like a school themed strategy where the students are fighting each other with the different cliques as different units.

Or a hunting RPG. But from what I've seen if you try stuff like this, you get shot down.


*sigh* Not hating here, it's still very fun, but I do hope the dev has plans to add-on and touch up the game post release, funds providing of course. (That means buy it you gits )