Want to increase your fame? Then buy ads for your games, or make a splash at the annual E3 stand-ins. Running short on cash? Then, as you did in Game Dev Story, you can take on extra contracts to top-up your bank account. Your goal in both games, ultimately, is to find the right combinations of genres on the right systems, and to sell as many copies of your games as possible. On the whole, though, the experience is basically identical.
Most noticeably, Game Dev Tycoon looks significantly nicer, though this is to be expected when you consider we’re talking about a modern-day PC game versus a three-year-old iOS game that itself was a port of a Japanese game from the late ’90s. Game Dev Tycoon has a few more systems available - including not only the PS4, Xbox One and Wii U, but also iDevices, Microsoft Surface and the Ouya - though this is probably because some of them weren’t around when Game Dev Story came out a few years ago.
In Game Dev Story, eventually you reach a point where you can build your own console in Game Dev Tycoon, the opportunity to build and license your own game engine comes much, much sooner. In Game Dev Story, you annually buy Red Bull to keep your employees fresh and motivated, while in Game Dev Tycoon, it’s vacations that keep your employees’ spirits up. In Game Dev Tycoon you’re given news from…something, rather than Game Dev Story’s ever-present secretary.
There are some minor changes here and there, I guess. In both cases, you start out creating PC games, and over the next few decades you get an opportunity to develop games for very thinly-veiled analogues of every major system since the NES. Both are essentially journeys through the history of video games from the perspective of a game developer.
Anyone who’s ever played Kairosoft’s Game Dev Story on their iOS or Android device (which should be everyone reading this, since that game is awesome) will find that the similarities between the two games are about as extensive as you could possibly imagine. The irony of it all - or brazenness, or chutzpah, or whatever you want to call it - is that Game Dev Tycoon is, itself, one giant rip-off of another game.
Anyone playing a cracked version of Game Dev Tycoon’s would eventually find their in-game game studio hit by pirates, who would illegally download all the studio’s releases and eat away at its profits. After all, they gained some fame a few months ago when they revealed that their game’s anti-piracy measure was…well, piracy. Every little bit about the game can be changed with mods, even turned into something else entirely if the modder's skill and patience allows them.I’ll say this for the makers of Game Dev Tycoon: they’ve got chutzpah. Story mode, four extra campaigns, a freeplay mode, and the ability to randomize various aspects of the game at the beginning of a playthrough make for greater replayability.įull modding support via Steam Workshop. Good games will make a platform more attractive to gamers and change its market share for the better. Games you release influence the fate of platform manufacturers for which they're made.
Give them a taste of their own medicine and buy them out when they go under! Your rivals are on the lookout for talented developers just like you are, so get ready to fight off their attempts to lure your employees away with higher salaries. Show your rivals who's boss of this industry. Hype it up! Advertise your games through a multitude of ways: invite reviewers for an interview, start a mass advertisement campaign, contact online personalities to create early playthrough videos of your game, hire agencies to shill your game online, and even bribe reviewers!
Make game engines, update them with new tech, and revamp them when the code gets too messy!
Just don't forget that you won't get to keep your employees forever. Employees have their skills, attributes, traits, interests, and knowledge on topics.Ĭreate multiple teams, work on multiple game projects at once, or reach for the stars by focusing all your workpower on one game. Fill the empty spaces in your office with any objects you wish, and when you run out of space, buy a new building to continue expanding!įind the best employees for your studio. About This Game Welcome to your own Game Dev Studio!How will you run your own offices and ascend to greatness in the gaming industry?