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[scrdest]

Good try on explaining it, but I tested this in the garage by loading a save and doing the exact same thing again.

Oh, OK. So something must be randomized, probably it uses a new seed each time. Or, it is random and sliders just multiply it or weigh it or something.

[Knight of Fools]

I think the sliders are just a time allocation, since some games supposedly don't need quite as much story line development as others. I just jacked all of the sliders to the maximum. If anything, it'll give me better experience for later games.

The beginning of the game seems as dependent on making good genre/setting combinations as luck, though. Expect to spend the first five years struggling to earn enough to make your own engine, which is the only thing that's going to get you out of the basement.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

I don't know about this game and GDS. They're not the same as GameBiz. I mean, in reality, we're just watching some overpriced employees spit out numbers to hope a reviewer rates it high. I dunno. It all feels rather... Hollow, long term.

Possibly a commentary on the develoment industry, but I find it to be too grindy and less fun after restarting multiple times to try and have more 'fun.' I'm thinking I'll just go back to GameBiz 3..

Also, even with this speak of games affecting consoles, my Platinum/9.5 rated games never effect any sales on any console. Try it. Make only AAA games for the PC and the number will only go up by the same amount year to year [about 1%], Linear-fashion.

[FritzPL]

So I gave this game a try. I tried to name the games I developed after real games, but changed the names around a little bit.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Yes.

I sold Fallout 1 in 400k units for 2.6M dollars.

I love this game to the bone.

[Sensei]

I will say, I got GDS, and I don't feel like it's a waste of $2.50. I feel like I CAN influence the game even though it's mostly employee management. I'm sure repeated playthroughs could get pretty dull. I did kind of enjoy deciding the "direction" of the game, and looking for good combinations of genre and theme. Even if a few of them don't make any sense- like, I tried to make a Historical Racing Game (is "cars" a theme option? I never got it) and apparently historical can't mean racing history, because everyone was saying I was insane. ^{_{I mean, I'D play a Tesla VS Edison kart racer...}}

It DID bug me that apparently the only PC ever used for gaming is the Commodore 64, since PCs behave just like they're one kind of console and only have the virtue of being what you start off with- they apparently only ever sell 700,000 copies of PCs and eventually end up being less than 1% of the market share. 

Anyhoo, I went and tried the Game Dev Tycoon. People who say it's similar to GDS... really aren't kidding. From basic design to interface to specific wording in dialogue boxes, it's clear that the people who made Game Dev Tycoon are apeing GDS. Whether or not it's better, on its own, is up in the air but the similarities detract from it if you've played GDS.

[Vel]

The game is rather vague about the sliders and what they mean exactly, but they do seem to be 'time allocation' or 'budget allocation' in a sense as a poster above noted. Once you've unlocked several engine features in various subdevelopment types, placing a lot of features on a single sub development type will cause a percentage to show up next to the name of the development type if too little of the bar is allocated to that subtype in relation to the other -- which very much seems to be affected by 'game size' ( from S -> AAA, with larger game sizes requiring less of the bar in relation to support more features without showing the percentage -- I assume the percentage means it's however that much less 'effective' than 100% due to lack of time/budget)


edit - by extension, this means that playing the 'long game' is neccesary to later game success; focusing on making engines that stack engine features that benefit one or two game types ('action' and 'rpg' have very different weights on what sliders benefit them, for an obvious example) and training staff to specialize in the engine features that most benefit the particular type(s) of games you want to create at the end of the game (the maximum staff -- and thus number of specializations you can have -- is 7, while there are 9 types of specializations).. otherwise, your games don't keep up and once you get to the 3rd office, your games stop making enough money to support their development costs and the monthly flat costs.

[hemmingjay]

Great and accurate breakdown Vel. I have found that specialization is certainly the key to late game success in GDT as well as real life.

[scrdest]

The game is rather vague about the sliders and what they mean exactly, but they do seem to be 'time allocation' or 'budget allocation' in a sense as a poster above noted. Once you've unlocked several engine features in various subdevelopment types, placing a lot of features on a single sub development type will cause a percentage to show up next to the name of the development type if too little of the bar is allocated to that subtype in relation to the other -- which very much seems to be affected by 'game size' ( from S -> AAA, with larger game sizes requiring less of the bar in relation to support more features without showing the percentage -- I assume the percentage means it's however that much less 'effective' than 100% due to lack of time/budget)


edit - by extension, this means that playing the 'long game' is neccesary to later game success; focusing on making engines that stack engine features that benefit one or two game types ('action' and 'rpg' have very different weights on what sliders benefit them, for an obvious example) and training staff to specialize in the engine features that most benefit the particular type(s) of games you want to create at the end of the game (the maximum staff -- and thus number of specializations you can have -- is 7, while there are 9 types of specializations).. otherwise, your games don't keep up and once you get to the 3rd office, your games stop making enough money to support their development costs and the monthly flat costs.

They ARE time allocation - you can even see it on the development bar on the top - the lower you set the slider, the less time that feature will be developed. Also, I am doing pretty well in 3rd office with RD working at 2M/month by building a robust all-round engine then only scrapping it once it becomes obsolete, and training the employees once in a blue moon, except when a Design Specialist was needed, and even then I simply hired a 650+ Design skill lady by applying ludicrous amounts of sweet monies at applicants.

[werty892]

THe only better DRM than this one that I have seen is where if you pirate the game(don not remember which) all the text would be changed to comic sans

[Canisaur]

Maybe I don't frequent the right places, but I'd never heard of this game before all the articles about their "clever DRM" popped up around the internet.  Maybe their sales are so low because their primary form of advertising was posting a cracked version on well-traveled torrent sites.

[krisslanza]

Not a bad game, though for the sliders I'm not sure if it's good to max them out, or you should just tweak them by the game genre/topic or whatever. I think making my own engine early on totally killed me too, hahaha.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

How I long for GameBiz 4 after this whole experience.

[scrdest]

Not a bad game, though for the sliders I'm not sure if it's good to max them out, or you should just tweak them by the game genre/topic or whatever. I think making my own engine early on totally killed me too, hahaha.

If you max all sliders, it's as if you left them all midway to the top, or all at 0. The exact same amount of time would be used for each of the three. There WOULD be a difference between decreasing two bars from the max and decreasing two bars from the middle though.

[Ultimuh]

Bought the game, seems fun so far, but I tend to lose more money than I generate. :p

[Absolute Niro]

Oh, never mind what I said about trouble progressing earlier, I just beat the game. Currently sitting on a 2 billion cash pile. I got really close to going bankrupt but managed to pull back impressively, earning over 10 million dollars on one last second game, and then just continuing from there.

Currently on year 60, 30 years after the story ended. My console, the Grand Orca, has about the same market share as the Wuu, and my alien/action MMO is earning me millions.

I like this game. Screw you, GDS, and your portable ways.