Hello, the purpose of this thread is to create (hopefully) the only place where people can talk about the ideas for the next game. I will collect tons and tons of ideas from other threads and I will comment on them how I feel about the suggestion and how I would change it. I hope this gets pinned and I would like to hear opinion from the devs. If the ideas from others will turn out to be good, I will include them here. If they are not very well developed, I will do it myself.
My ideas:
(they maybe adapted or very similar from other people)
Regions - You can start in 3 regions of the world. North America, Europe and Japan. In NA PC and consoles are more less even while in Europe, PC dominates the market. In the contrary, Japan has a very strong console share.
Buy magazines (first 15 years) - Costs 100 (I know it’s cheap) and some time. This will give you information on upcoming games on what platform.
Consult the Internet (after 15 years) - Thanks to the internet you can see all the new gaming websites about upcoming games just like magazines but for free and it’s less time consuming.
Time goes more slowly - IMO, the game goes way too fast. The game should be like 1 week = 30 seconds in game and you spend about 20 seconds clicking buttons and adjusting each day. I would like a game where you would spend quite some time not 1-2 hour in a run and also end-game content. Also when a week starts you can allocate how much design or tech you want.
More kinds of staff - After finishing living in a garage and you move into a proper office, you can hire a supervisor that will make easier to assign tasks like allocating tech or in design, making contracts. An accountant that will take take of your money and show you all the graphs. A secretary. Hopefully there will be more random events that other companies or fans will contact you. Also, a 3D modeler, (because they are absolutely necessary for 3D games) and Pixel/Texture artists because of obvious reasons.
More staff on 2nd and 3rd stage offices - Office: 3 programmers, 3 game designers, 1 concept artist, 1 3D modeler, and a pixel/texture artist.
Technology Park: instead of 6 devs, it’s 10 programmers, 10 designers, with 1 lead programmer, 1 lead designer, 3 concept artists, 3 3D modelers and 3 pixel/texture artists. Because seriously, a person that has a hardware lab and R&D lab shouldn’t have only 7 devs. That is not a AAA team. It’s a medium game team at minimum. Even 29 is not nearly enough for a AAA game. Let’s be realist.
4th stage company - Costs 100M, it’s your own HQ building with floors and is unlocked 10-15 years after the technology park. Now it can hold up to 20 programmers and 1 lead programmer, 10 game designers and 1 lead game designer. 5 concept artists, 10 3D modelers, 10 Texture Artist and 3 supervisors. Don’t worry, you don’t have to contract individually each employee, you can assign someone to do it. It’s only an order you can give.
You are now a large publisher, you can easily publish in other regions and set up there an HQ for cheaper production costs. Companies can contact you to ask for publishing and you will receive quite a lot in royalties. If the game turns out to be very good, it’s basically a gold mine for you (and for the other company). Also, making AAA is much easier since your staff has doubled.
Updated real life events - There are a lot of things that happen in the gaming industry, but it’s not updated to the GDT. I would like that to happen in GDT2.
Ideas from other threads:
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I will correct any grammar error or change anything to make it sound more clear, so bear with me.
From this thread:
Buy company: The following message will sometimes go up: "X company goes bankrupt. It was a good company, but her recent games were bad and expensive, (or it has financial problems) so it bankrupted. The company costs (Price). You want to buy it? If you buy a company, you will gain 50% discount on each console of that company Developer Cost and License Cost. Whenever the company would create a console in normal game, it will show the following message: "Hello, Boss! We spent months planning the new (Console’s Name)! You authorize us to create that? We pay ____ (Random millions) to make you change your mind.
I agree with this and it does indeed happen to a lot in the game industry. I’m sure that this will be an end game feature because buying corporations is a heck of a lot expensive.
I’m not sure about the 50% discount thingy, I would probably not implement but what I will implement is keeping all the employees that were in that company depending on the price of it.
Advanced create console option: The creator will have all the parts of the game consoles, and you will create license and dev cost of that game. When the license cost is 80k, sometimes you will gain 80k of money. If the dev cost is 80k, for example, you will gain 10% of the money when anyone makes a game on your console (check next) and will gain fix 80k of money.
So this means a dev licence cost? It could be a good idea to have a bar regulating from 0 to 100k. If you put 0, there will be a ton of games released (quality control though) and 100k, only large companies will release on them.
Games on your console: The people will make a game on your console. It will be at a random time.
Sounds like an interesting idea but you already receive a lot of money from the consoles, but what I would implement is random hits that boosts your consoles sales.
Factories: The Factory is a lab-like room where you can make researches. Each factory you have, you can do “boosts” on your game. A Boost recharge time is 100 seconds after a game is produced. A Boost will make you gain Hype. The quantity of Hype will depend of the quality of your factory.
This needs more elaboration. I’m not sure how factories are related to a faster game development.
Other companies: The game will have “imaginary” companies.
Good idea, but needs more development on that idea.
Mod Support: It will have a Mod shop (free). Will exist a Halloween mod, a christmas mod, and other mods too.
This sounds like a feature exclusive to PC. But this needs more elaboration.
Contribution: - Have the option to get contributions from your fans and get some games of yours on kind of Humble Bundle. This can make you lose fans.
Why will you lose fans?
Fourth Stage Company: - Can buy more studios and become publisher.
I like this idea a lot and in my ideas I will develop it better.
Pre Order: - after you announce on the development of game, you can put it up as a pre order. (if the game is not good so fans will ‘abandon’ you even more than generally)
This. Happens a lot recently, very hyped games with pre-orders (but disappointing game) will turn many fans away. Sounds like something from the 3rd stage company.
Alpha & Beta: - You can publish a game in it’s Alpha or Beta phase. You’re still able to publish it if it’s done with everything. If you do this, you will gain Hype.
I agree with this and this should happen to 3rd stage company as Beta version games have only appeared recently like Steam Early Access.
More Genres: - Genres like Puzzle, Shooter and Platform.
I agree with this. There are too few genres but this should be a game mechanic not a genre. For example right in the beginning there is, Platformer, FPS, Isometric etc.
Customizable Office: - You can customize your office with different things… you can buy things in a shop and it would add that in your office. It would give you benefits too.
Yes, please.
Top 10: - There’s a semiannual top 10 of hit games and you can see details about it.
I agree because I would like to see all the interesting games that were in the gaming industry from the 80s.
Real Sabotage: - You can sabotage other companies and you are able to choose how. You can, for example, just spy them or ruin there game. There’s a chance to get caught and lose Hype and fans.
Well, I don’t know, I never actually see sabotages from other companies so I pass this.
Prices: - You can set your own prices for your games. High prices with bad games is bad, but if you make a hit game with a high price it wouldn’t make any difference, or sell even better.
I agree, if the game turns out to be bad, price would make a difference. Also I would like to change the price at will.
Customizable Box: - Customize the box for a game with a description,pre-existing pictures and an amazing cover.
Good idea. While description is something purely cosmetic, screenshots would make a difference. If the game turns out to be good, you can add reviews which would also boost sales.
Regions: - the whole planet is divided on regions with specific characteristics which affect which genres, consoles and themes are popular there or not. Characteristics can change theirselves from time to time. Examples of characteristics: size, population (divided on three categories: young, teen, mature), likes (1-2 genres, consoles and themes for every population category), dislikes (same as likes but dislikes).
At the predevelopment stage regions to release the game can be chosen just like target audience (but more than one can be chosen). There is also a trading contract to be signed with a trading company in every chosen region if Player’s company publishes a game itself. The cost varies from region to region and depends on its characteristics (size and population sum) so the Player needs to choose wisely in which region he really wants to sell a game (unwise choosing can lead to bankruptcy because of low or negative profits). And this leads us to…
Starting region: - it is a region where Player starts his company. Can be chosen in the start of the game and affect on its trading companies so they give huge discounts to the Player (after moving from the garage - there are no trading companies in the garage smile ).
I like this idea a lot. I will elaborate it more in my own suggestions.
Pirating a console: - you can not just create your own (low funds?) but recreate another console and release it illegally in the region where original wasn’t. Become Steepler company and create your own Dendy and then release a huge mountain of pirated games for it!
I’m 100% sure that it’s not pirating, it’s creating a knock-off or imitating for a very low price and receive quite a lot from the poor population. It’s perfectly legal and you won’t get any legal charges. Of course if anyone sees your company logo on that console you will lose quite a lot of fans.
Pirating a game: - you can steal someone’s game, change something and release it after that on your console or PC. You need to launch the game fast, or the other company will release it.
THE TWO ABOVE MAY RESULT IN SUITS AGAINST PLAYER’S COMPANY WHICH CAN OBLIGE IT TO PAY PENALTIES.
Again, pirating ≠ imitating. If you are in a dire financial situation, you can imitate another game for low cost (because hiring concept artists and game designer costs money). But the flip-side is that of course you will lose some fans. You won’t be very influenced in the first 10 years since there isn’t internet…
Indie Developer- You don’t always have to be a big guy, right? Like for example, you create a game in Alpha, and people start to download it. Then, you can set a price for it to fund development. Hype will generate. Soon, you can release it to Beta, and set a higher price for it. Then, you fully release the game, with a standard price. It will be available in year 32. (I think 32 is good.)
This is good. If you accept a game jam, you will create a small indie game. You can create a medium or large indie game but never AAA because of obvious reasons. You won’t get penalized for creating any type of 2D graphics, but if you choose something like 3D V1 you will.
2
From this thread.
- Buying out smaller companies.
a. Point of the mod would be to buy out smaller dev companies which would allow you to create more games at a time, get more help, more research points, etc.
b. I’d assume that there would have to be a “world map” so you can jump from 1 company to another with a max of 5 or 6 including the one you start off with.
c. You can build upgrades for these companies as usual but they will be more limited and will not have a huge burst of income unless their game scores big. The profit gets divided between your main and the smaller company.
c1. There could be a slider to determine the split but the split cannot be higher than 50/50 or 60/40.
c2. Depending on the split can depend on how hard and good the main product becomes.
d. Research Developments will either be limited to 2 total companies or to all companies but they will not be as effective.
e. Hardware will be available for 1 or 2 total.
Well, I already have a suggestion so I’m not sure about this one.
- Alternative gaming history.
a. Basically what if’s on consoles that never made it. I don’t want to get into too much details or examples just so everyone gets a new experience.
- This can possibly put into the same mod as alternative gaming history.The idea is to change what the public wants more often. Instead of just the trend of the year, have the game cycle in a 2-5 year period… Example: space/E games are good, but are horrible in this cycle.
Either have a cycle or just change things up.
Maybe?
Office Decorations, New Office Building:
So this is a semi-useless to mechanics mod or update but it would be neat if we could interact with the > work-space and change the wall colors and add/upload our own wall patterns 'n such.
A new office building but one that can be modified and changed so it doesn’t look like a class room (the 1 thing that I really dislike about the game).
Pets!: There’s a game on Armor Games that I can’t remember the title right now but you could buy pets n such to raise the productivity.
Mood Swings: i don’t think this should be done to be really sensitive but let’s say that you over-work an employee by giving him/her a workload of 110% or higher. Their mood will drop slightly. If this keeps happening, they will not produce as well. This can be implemented at the Tech park level but it will be very forgiving.
Bonuses: The way to combat their mood is if the game sells well, there will be a slight mood change but then you can offer the employee a bonus for their efforts. Depending on the size of the bonus will depend on whether the mood meter will swing more up or completely up.
Jealousy:Ties in with the bonuses where there will be a small percent chance 5% - 10% (this will happen more likely on the higher levels) that another employee will receive word about the bonus. Then their mood meter will go down slightly but not enough to damage productivity.
Meetings:
Meetings will also help to raise every employee’s mood and will give a slight increase to their stats.
Part 2:
- Sponsorships: Get local and big businesses to sponsor your game! Be careful though, too much sponsorships in 1 game can hurt reviews. Sponsor’s also want to make sure the game will sell so if the game doesn’t sell a certain amount of units within its first month, you get penalized.
- YouTube equivalent: Get the guys from the R&D to create and upload videos for YouTube and make some side money! The next step to this is to again use R&D to research hubs and then hire a group of YouTubers to create videos for your channel!
Pretty nice. I like it.
Part 3 Energy:
- Better way to know the energy of your employees… I have multiple saves and I get kinda get confused on who’s at the brink of his/her energy and who’s ready to go.
- Notes Option: Be able to write your own notes in-game as to projects, what’s going on in the particular world and so-on.
Part 4 Topic Paring:
- Be able to have more than 1 topic in your game. Ex. Sci-Fy/Space or Military/Alternate History, etc.
- Also suggestion for a new topic which is “Cartoons”. So I can make games like Spyro, Crash Bandicoot, etc.
Well it’s kinda difficult to make a good match for SO many topics. Imagine each topic must have a good pair with another topic. If there are 50 topics then it will be more than 1200 combinations to make it work. It’s tedious to make it.
Part 5 Giveaways:
- Do game/console giveaways during G3 and on your own event!
- Choice of 10-100 winners!
Should be games not consoles. I have (at least me) never seen that happen.
New Game Mode Suggestion:
Rivals:People have been suggesting similar ideas so that inspired me to think of this.
Have competition with a rival company. The rival can attempt sabatoge and develope games with similar topics in an attempt to out-hype your game.
Neither the rival or you will know what each other is working on until stage 2 of the development.
Will be a set of options such as “attempt sabatoge”, “attempt leak information”, and maybe more…
The rivals will from time to time send someone over to interview you. Something will not be right, whether it’s the reporter’s name, company, grammar or questions which you may refuse to answer. Careful though, if you don’t respond to legit reporters, you won’t gain fans or hype.
There can be multiple goals such as: own the rival company, be first to get out of the garage, upgrade, build a console, make a AAA game, make an MMO game, gain a certain amount of fans, etc.
these can also be side-goals and have all at once.
New Idea:
Sequel Combo’s:
Basically it’s taking 2 games that have been successful and combining them into 1 massive game. Depending on how close the genre’s for each game are can depend on whether or not it’s a good combination. Example, a Military Action wouldn’t really combine all that well with a fantasy RPG.
I don’t know why but I never see companies rival each other. I have seen more collaboration than rivalry.
Mod/Development Idea:
News/Events Box:
So the idea this time is that since the game pauses every time a console is released or there’s rumors of a new console coming out, I was thinking that maybe a “News Box” can be added into the game that will allow the game to continue playing while the events will appear as a headline.
Example would be if the PlaySystem was coming out, you’d see a headline “PlaySystem to be released in x months!” Then you can either click on the headline to open up the full message, or just keep playing with no interruption!
NEW GAME MODE: INDIE DEV TYCOON
The idea is instead of starting out in the 80’s, you start out around the time the 360 comes out.
You start off with a team of 3 (including you) and make medium sized games.
At the start you will be able to choose what training your team has. Ex. Grapple Coding, Micronoft, Nivento, etc.
you can choose up to 2 to start with…
Which means if you choose grapple and micronoft, you can develop games for grapple and pc.
New events such as being given an opportunity to port your game(s) to other platforms and so-on…
New engine parts as well such as pixelated graphics, 16 bit soundtrack, amateur voice acting and more until you become a larger company and can afford the real deal type of engine parts.
More ideas about this mode might be added later.
!!! This is awesome! I really like this. Although Macs are PCs this is cool.
Cathphrases, Iconic Items and Characters!:
Catchphrase (5 RP) , Iconic Item (10 RP) , Iconic Character (15 RP)
Catchphrase: Type in any word or words you wish to create a catchphrase for your game. Be careful though, as too many words might not catch on or too little might not get your point across.
Iconic Item: Choose from a list of items (Crowbar, Lead Pipe, Magical Staff, Pixelated Weapon, etc.) to place in your game that will be seen very often.
Iconic Character: Create a unique character that will stand out from the other games and give him/her a name!
The idea is that you choose your catchphrase/item/character in the first screen where you pick your game topic, genre etc. For medium games, you can only have 1 of these features per game, for Large 2, and for AAA all 3.
If the game becomes a hit, there will be a pop-up from the news or a blogger stating "The catchphrase used in the game [Enter Catchphrase Here] really caught on!"
or "The [Iconic Item] really made the game feel that much better"
or "[Enter Iconic Character] really connected with the fans!"
Only 1 of these items will be chosen per game even if all 3 were used, only 1 of them will stand out the most.
If a sequel is made and the Catchphrase/Item/Character wasn’t used again, it won’t affect the game review scores but it can affect the sales and possibly even the fan-base. Again, only 1 item will be chosen as what made the game stuck out the most. So you can always change the other special features, just not the 1 that the fans loved the most. Changing any of the others will not affect sales or fan-base.
Part 2:
Rarity of item/character
Be given a 2nd option when you select your item/character by choosing how easy or hard it is to collect/unlock.
This can determine how iconic or legendary your item/character is.
Certain combinations between an item and its rarity can help or hurt the popularity of that item and same goes for the character.
I quite like this.
More Console Diversity:
So the idea for today ladies and gentlemen, is to be able to design your console for a specific purpose.
Whether that be having the top of the line hardware, or coming up with a new way to experience gaming.
That could be done with a unique controller, headset, arm-controller, etc.
The price may cost the same or more due to these special customized parts.
2nd Part of this Console Diversity Edit is more layouts and Special Editions:
Have more body layouts and instead of having them already painted, for them to just be black and grey.
You’ll have a paint tool to choose the color scheme for your console and controller and any other accessory attached to the console.
Also, have the ability to choose different patterns such as grid lines going across the console, country flags I guess, smiley faces, etc.
And 1 more thing, be able to have the option to upload your own console body layouts, console, controller or patterns into the game.
Special Editions: Be able to create a special edition console that is themed with the current game you’re developing, or if you already had a previous console, be able to use the same paint scheme as the original.
On top of all that, also be able to create unique editions such as my favorite 'See-Through" cases, inverted color scheme, industrial (all rusted), steampunk, liquid, and more!
And also have the ability to upload your own special edition console designs to the game. Although this might be a little useless since you’ll be able to upload the same picture and use it as a main console.
I also like releasing special editions. I would appreciate this very much.
More threads and ideas are coming! This takes quite a while to do all this, so expect more from me! This is very bothersome, so expect more from this!
