First of all, let me thank the good people of Greenheart Studios, you guys rock! Loved the game! Second, i already apologize for my bad english because i’m not a native english speaker.
So, I expend an entire weekend playing Game Dev Tycoon and my company is the biggest motherfucker in the market (more than 1 billion in cash, the best selling console on current time, 2 games with an 10 score, lots of games with 9.75, 9.5, my entire crew is developed to the top and bla bla bla).
However, i do have a few considerations that could improve this amazing and beautiful game (if this crazy ideas are “doable”, of course).
- The Presence of Consoles: Don’t get me wrong, but i didn’t feel exactly what’s the difference between each console in the game. For example, i was able to creat an game with 3D Graphic V6 on an Playsystem 5 and on Ninvendo GS. Ok, on the GS it can’t be an large game ou an AAA, but it worked with 3D Graphic V5. What i suggest is an improvement on the differences between the consoles. For example, limited resources for each console. Portables and smartphones can’t have 3D graphics or orchestral soundtrack or stuff like that. For consequence, they become “an oasis” for indie developers (with the PC) and that could create and entire different market;
- An Fractioned Market: I think that um market divided between Portables, Smartphones and Consoles would be great! Each division should have its own size (for example, smartphones > consoles > portables), with each console having an share of this market. That way, we can have smartphones and portables as an option for development even in an late stage of gameplay and we could develop games for various platforms (and develop an portable or/and an smartphone).
- Price of the Games: would be great if we could define the price of our games, based on an limite based on the size and the platform of the game. For example, an AAA for Playsystem 5 couldn’t cost less than 60 dollars, but an game for smartphone never could pass 5 dollars. That functionality would allowed some “quick game for quick money”. The adition of some capacity to do Promotion or Humble Bundle would be awesome too;
- Relations with others companies: Would be amazing if we could have relationships with others developers. That could open an giant number of gameplay options. For example, if we have a good relationship with Ubisoft would make they release their games on the Grid. or prepare AAA games for our consoles. We could develop good relationships delivering contracts, making good statments on press, helping on research, etc. Also, we could have rival companies and stuff;
- Being an publisher! - We could offer publishing deals to other developers to make games for our consoles. Lets say i want to my portable to be a good place for 2D RPGs, so i offer 5 publishing deals (with a limit of money) to companies make games with those features for my portable. Same thing with an custom console, if the player want to make it an good hardware to mature action games. Or an console good for indie with low cost, etc;
- Regions: we could choose an start region and develop games to different regions. And RPG would be more popular in Japan with an GS and an Military Action game would be more popular in America on mBox Next;
- Not force the player to be an AAA developer: the system of the game is based on the idea that our next game has to be better. It’s great, but force the player to be an AAA developer. That limits our gameplay option, because i maybe wanna be the next Zynga, for example, and develop just games for smartphones. Or i maybe wanna be Greenheart and do creative indie games. Also, the fact that the reviews of my games are based on the quality of my previous games is a little bad because forces me to evolve even if i can’t. Happened with me once: i was in bad financial shape and want to make quick money, but my games was worst and worst and i lose money instead. I think you could solve that changing the Review Algorithm puting an “console goal”. For instance, lets say that PlaySystem 2 demands that an rating 7 game have, at least, 1000 design points and 1000 tech points. If my new game achieved that, i have already at least 7 and my game will sale in moderate quantity. However, if i make lots of moderate games, i could start to lose fans and sale less and less.
That was what i could think playing Game Dev Tycoon. If you guys put these features on Game Dev Tycoon 2, it would be awesome!
Sorry for the “yet another suggestions thread”. Thanks for the awesome game!