Hello everyone!
This is just another weekly update, for 9/25/17 - 9/29/17. For the majority of this week we have been playing "Game Dev Tycoon", which is a simulation game where you own a gaming company. (It is similar to other "tycoon" games, like Rollercoaster Tycoon.) You have to balance the cost of producing games, the cost of living and monthly expenses, employees and game licenses along with (hopefully) getting high ratings on your games, which results in profit! It is meant to simulate the first ~35 years of gaming, with the industry milestones inserted into the game, with comically changed names. For example, there is the mBox, Ninvento, Vena, and Playsystem. It also follows the ups and downs of the companies and popularity trends.
Other real life things in the game are publishing deals, employee salaries and raises, training employees, publicity conventions, opportunities to sue and sabotage your competitors, and to make your very own games. Whenever you create a new game, you get to choose its audience, the genre, the topic, the platform, the graphics, and which Engine to use. You then get to decide how much time is dedicated to: engine, gameplay, story/quests, dialogues, level design, artificial intelligence, world design, graphics, and sound. After a game is released, you get 1-10 ratings, and hopefully profits. You can also generate a game report, which lets you know some insightful information, such as if some combos were good, great, or bad.
To me the hardest part of the game was creating successful game combinations. I think that this is due to me not having played a lot of games, so I'm really bad at making the combinations. I feel like I also have really bad luck, because even if I have a really good genre/topic combination, I might have not given enough time to sound, and then I get a 4 rating. With low ratings (which I got a lot of), profits are few, if any. This was central to my failures, because I would keep going in debt to create games, with hopes of it being successful and creating profit. Unfortunately, most of the time I would just break even, so I would continue to be in debt.
The debt would keep growing, and once you're 100k in debt, you have to take a loan from the bank or go bankrupt. When you take a loan, the bank will give you around 1 million dollars to get back into the game. They will then take ~1.4 million back a year later. Hopefully, this influx of cash would allow you to make a profitable game, where the 1.4 million pay back wouldn't be difficult.
For me, it was detrimental. With the cash, the games I created still wouldn't be successful, and then when the bank asked for their money back, I was forced into bankruptcy. I have had $-1.1 million and $-1.4 million in my bank account.
I have gone bankrupt three times, which has really killed my spirits. I feel like every decision I made was wrong, such as making a licensing deal, training my employees, installing solar panels (maybe not the best decision, but I wanted to be green), and the game combinations.
The goal for my class is to reach 35 years, and I'm around 15 years. I will try to keep working, maybe incorporating some "helpful guides" to help me make more successful games.
I will be writing a longer review of the game later in the week, so stay tuned for that. It will most likely be all about all the bad decisions I've made.
Oh well, I was trying really hard and wanted to be successful, but now I know that game developer is most likely not my future career.
-Mimi
This is just another weekly update, for 9/25/17 - 9/29/17. For the majority of this week we have been playing "Game Dev Tycoon", which is a simulation game where you own a gaming company. (It is similar to other "tycoon" games, like Rollercoaster Tycoon.) You have to balance the cost of producing games, the cost of living and monthly expenses, employees and game licenses along with (hopefully) getting high ratings on your games, which results in profit! It is meant to simulate the first ~35 years of gaming, with the industry milestones inserted into the game, with comically changed names. For example, there is the mBox, Ninvento, Vena, and Playsystem. It also follows the ups and downs of the companies and popularity trends.
Other real life things in the game are publishing deals, employee salaries and raises, training employees, publicity conventions, opportunities to sue and sabotage your competitors, and to make your very own games. Whenever you create a new game, you get to choose its audience, the genre, the topic, the platform, the graphics, and which Engine to use. You then get to decide how much time is dedicated to: engine, gameplay, story/quests, dialogues, level design, artificial intelligence, world design, graphics, and sound. After a game is released, you get 1-10 ratings, and hopefully profits. You can also generate a game report, which lets you know some insightful information, such as if some combos were good, great, or bad.
To me the hardest part of the game was creating successful game combinations. I think that this is due to me not having played a lot of games, so I'm really bad at making the combinations. I feel like I also have really bad luck, because even if I have a really good genre/topic combination, I might have not given enough time to sound, and then I get a 4 rating. With low ratings (which I got a lot of), profits are few, if any. This was central to my failures, because I would keep going in debt to create games, with hopes of it being successful and creating profit. Unfortunately, most of the time I would just break even, so I would continue to be in debt.
The debt would keep growing, and once you're 100k in debt, you have to take a loan from the bank or go bankrupt. When you take a loan, the bank will give you around 1 million dollars to get back into the game. They will then take ~1.4 million back a year later. Hopefully, this influx of cash would allow you to make a profitable game, where the 1.4 million pay back wouldn't be difficult.
For me, it was detrimental. With the cash, the games I created still wouldn't be successful, and then when the bank asked for their money back, I was forced into bankruptcy. I have had $-1.1 million and $-1.4 million in my bank account.
I have gone bankrupt three times, which has really killed my spirits. I feel like every decision I made was wrong, such as making a licensing deal, training my employees, installing solar panels (maybe not the best decision, but I wanted to be green), and the game combinations.
The goal for my class is to reach 35 years, and I'm around 15 years. I will try to keep working, maybe incorporating some "helpful guides" to help me make more successful games.
I will be writing a longer review of the game later in the week, so stay tuned for that. It will most likely be all about all the bad decisions I've made.
Oh well, I was trying really hard and wanted to be successful, but now I know that game developer is most likely not my future career.
-Mimi
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