Hi guys, i have played game dev tycoon for a week and i really love this game but the problem is i can’t get pass the second office. I think the problem is market share, i’ve made a game 9,5 rate but the profits only 1.5M ( still not count the weeks payment about 200~400k) and not every game i made is 9,5 so i broke very quickly. Can anyone help me ? i’m really a noob
First question: Are you using the cracked version? It has highly-rated games get pirated terribly, making it hard to profit on them. That kind of profit margin will chase you through the entire game if you got your copy of Game Dev Tycoon off of a pirate site.
Second question: Are you making Small or Medium games? 1.5M for a highly-rated small game is a fairly normal profit margin. Medium games sell dramatically better - a 9.5 on a medium game can give you upwards of 10M. You need to hire more staff and move to Medium games as soon as you get to the second office.
Third question: Are you using Publishers? Until you have about 50k fans, making high profits on Medium games is very hard. Your games become ‘hidden gems’. Yes, they’re great, but nobody ever hears about them!
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I don’t know what version i’m using right now because it’s my brother laptop. when i get to the second office i always making the Medium game and i have 3 staff in the early of second office, i don’t use the publishers. The market share of Playsystem right now is 20,2%, is that normal ? Thanks for helping
Well, unless your brother is a software pirate, your problem is probably that you’re not using publishers. Check the publishers. When they’re asking for a sane Topic/Genre/Rating/Platform combination (and sometimes, they emphatically aren’t), it’s worth taking them up. They may only give you a tenth of the profits, but they can magnify your sales more than 10X. When you’ve just started the second office, it’s more like magnifying your sales 100X. All of the publishers are marketing giants.
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But i only have 20k fan, can i use it when i have a bout 15~20k fan ?
Publishers are for when you don’t have many fans. Once you have 50k fans, I find that medium games start to earn more profit self-published. The game will tell you to switch to self-publishing at 100k fans.
Before you have fans, you need to borrow someone else’s (the publisher’s).
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For Medium games you will need at least 100k fans to publish your own. That’s why your profit is low.
For Large games it’s 250k and AAA i am not sure at the moment, could be a 1M fans.
As Deskairn said, use publishers go for the highest royalties and of course try to pick a topic/genre you like.
Even if the rating requirement is high just go for the best royalties. The penalty you will have pay isn’t that high anyways.
With 4-5 decent publisher games with 7+ reviews you should have 100k+ fans.
Hope this helps.
Exactly, there is actually a built-in sales and review penalty for self-publishing games when you don’t have enough fans. This can be annoying when you’re at 98k fans have to do one more publisher game just to push you over the edge and avoid penalties.
I’m not sure AAA games have a fan requirement, mainly because their other requirements ( Need to be researched at R&D, high graphics engine level + 3 specialists) are pretty strict and generally won’t be met until you’ve been making large games for awhile and in the 2nd office.
I find that it’s not really sales that are the problem (even tho I don’t create constantly 9 games).
I generally like to hold off on the features of the 2nd office for a little while. (and even the 3rd).
I like to spend less and save more.
mrstarware