Modern Game Dev Tycoon

Game Dev Tycoon ideas
#1

I have read some of the other user’s ideas for ideas and improvements to GDT and I have some similar interests as well as some that I didn’t quite see. Hopefully seeing that we all want some similar things will get them added to the game. I guess this would be the most efficient way to get in contact without bombarding the developer email. I couldn’t sleep tonight so, Here go my idea’s.

Prolonging Games
DLC/Expansion Pack: Modern games include buying DLC for a game. So I think it would be cool to be able to provide DLC for a game I’ve created. This would first arrive as expansion packs and then slowly as the years go by and tech advances, it would evolve into DLC. This should have some fan reaction and be essentially beneficial to the re-sparking of sales.
Updates/Improvements: As the purpose of this post, I think games should also be able to be improved and updated for continuous support rather than just going off the market and no longer have any money being generated.
ReIssue/Special Edition: I think maybe being able to repackage or rebuild an old game, perhaps make a special edition or GOTY (Game of the Year) addition would be a cool factor.
Preorder: Today’s modern world allows us to preorder games from established companies. Even offered for the Steam update of GDT.
Release Exclusives (Bonuses): Exclusive content for people who perhaps preorder or by console. Console deals would make for a release of the game earlier than for other consoles. Other benefits. This would have a positive/negative effect of fans. Makes for a more strategic gameplay.

Systems
All Major Consoles: I strongly believe that not having Gameboy Advanced, 3DS, 2DS, etc is a major flaw. This could add to extended gameplay as well as being more ‘realistic’. This would include the different versions that xBox and Playstation have released as a modified console. Also the addition of the Kinect. Each of the systems maybe variations of an existing console but they played a significant role in game history.
PC Versions: PC, Mac & Linux are all different and valid components. Mac is moving into becoming a gaming platform and we are now seeing the early breaching of legitimate ports to Linux as well. These would be very cool to see in the game as they have different markets and price points. (Just my opinion)
Android: Android has not yet been acknowledged. I notice iPhone and iPad (though missing iPod Touch) and Android is a huge different market. Much more so than the difference of iPhone to iPad.

Company Interactions (I know this is a major one being restated by other people)
News: News of what OTHER developers are doing or have produced would be interesting. However I believe this should come in the form of maybe a news line rather than a popup as current information is given.
Partnerships: I have seen other people mention rivals but what about partnerships or joint efforts?
Announcements: There should be company announcements given by our own companies and others which could lead to the following:
Deadlines: If my company announces that I will have a game ready by X-Month on X-Day, then I now have a deadline, if pushes back this would have an effect of the games overall review and my fans. Same applies to other companies.

Fan Benfits
Sales/Discounts: Allow games to go on sale or have a discount applied, maybe bundling (if some of my Prolonging Game ideas are incorporated)
Mod Community: There should be some interaction or purely news of what is happening in the modding community.
SDK: Purposely releasing game engines as an SDK for modders and fans, this may effectively add-to or replace the action of fans wanting to buy or use (when you give away) game engines.
Demos: Early or current releases to bring in fans. Add to realism.
Intended Cheats: Adding cheats to a game for fans
Console: Adding a console for cheats or modding/debugging (Keep fans involved in game development, I personally love this about games)
Leaks: Game leaks of news, new tech, or the game itself.
Piracy: Piracy should be a larger component BUT not hinder or cripple a company entirely as long as the company takes secure precautions leading to:
Security: Allow for a new job title of maybe a security software person. Creates game keys, piracy prevention etc. Could lead to different research ideas.

MISC (These ideas may be included already as I have not played the R&D Lab things)
Online Fee: Online Fee attached to MMO’s
Difficulty: Change the difficulty of GDT
Title Rights: Things like NFL/NBA or Movie Rights, Marvel/DC Comics rights (like EA’s hold on NFL)
Glitches: Games have glitches, not necessarily needed to be patched. Some may be exploited with a positive benefit for fans.
Sequel Improvements: Sequels seem to be a hard sell in my experience. There should be some more guidelines about them and not have multiple sequels lower the quality.
Main Publisher/Distributor: For example, steam or origin. Some sort of deal with a company.
More In-Depth Interviews: I would think it would be better to have a more involved interview.
Awards: There should be an award system for other companies and yourself. This could be for company rewards or individual game rewards. Similar to the Game Dev Story awards but not as random. Their idea for rewards is intelligent, but the execution of it sucked. GDT has improvements over other ways of handling things, this is just another way to shine.
Sponsors: Tying into the Title Rights, there should be sponsors with an actual name and goal. Example: Movie of The Amazing Spider-Man comes out, asks company to make a game based on the Movie (falls under superhero/adventure-action category etc)

Overall Slight Improvements
Tutorial System: Go a little more in-depth in some areas of the game, mainly the later portions and individual stages.
Graphic Tweaks: Nothing specific, just think it could be improved a little somehow, someway
More Advanced Dev Controls: The sliders are nice but somethings are not explained entirely and having more numeric values with the sliders would be greatly appreciated.

Well, that’s all for now. I think the game is pretty amazing, there are just some improvements I think that could make it even better and I understand that they cannot just be plopped in and require some sort of system to make them function.

The key ones are the Systems and Prolonged Gaming. I think those are a must.

I appreciate you reading my ideas, hope to see them someday!

~Shade

[Edit: Corrections]

12 Likes
#2

Nice and well organised ideas

2 Likes
#3

I personaly want to be able to set the prices for the games.

#5

2 small corrections.

They do have the Nintendo DS, its called the Ninvento GS.

Also they have demo’s too. If you look at the Marketing campaigns, they start from the Small Campaign which does Magazines and Demos.

#6

Do they have Amiga as well? I think that platform was very important in the history of gaming.

#7

Yeah, that’s true.

I had an Aimga 500, the graphic and gameplay was fantastic compared to C64 and the early PCs.

#8

Whew, this is a great number of addition possible in an update or in a sequel :smiley:

1 Like
#9

I knew somebody would catch the Nintendo DS one, I didn’t realize I said that until after I posted and it was very early this morning after tossing and turning. Good eyes! However, minus the DS, the modifications of it introduce good changes. I for one had a friend with GameBoy, I got GameBoy color, he got GameBoy Advanced, I got Advanced SP, then from there we stopped talking but I still bought DS, and now also have DS Lite. I am now wanting 3DS (due to games more than 3D). Still all money that got spent.

Demos: I know that the game has the word demos that are available in marketing. I was hoping more for a better control on releasing demos. The demos that come in magazines (in my history), suck compared to those released online by large developers. I think controlling the Demo in maybe a way as to how long or what content is allowed could add for more in-depth playing. It would be another formula to figure out how to do right. If done wrong, it would negatively hype the game, maybe give to much content resulting in bad purchases or piracy. Maybe even competitive companies make a better game based on the demo. In the positive it would give way better hype towards the game than the Magazines & Demo marketing. Could suffice as a way to also do Alpha & Beta testing. Closed/Open Betas. Just an idea that I think has more potential than it currently stands.

Thank You for the feedback!

[PS: I’d hope most of these features would be implemented as a future update VS a sequel. I still see GDT as a newer game with a lot of potential. Maybe not quite ready for talk of a sequel, which would also be way to far ahead for any of these features. Some of these could be implemented in a smaller or simpler scale, which could be sufficient.]

I wonder what GHG’s staff thinks of these ideas? :wink:

~Shade

2 Likes
#10

For the first time, I strongly agree with your ideas :smile:.
Nice organized list. It’ll be nice if the devs could add some of these ideas. Good Job :3

#11

Thank you very much. :]

#12

Interesting read, I’d say OP is about adding features in the game to make it more realistic by adding other possibilities coming from real life. Fun to read but it makes me wonder how the dev could transform it in a gameplay design.

An example is adding more consoles and computers, there’s big names of both that aren’t in the game but currently the game is overloaded by consoles release popup, with the 42Y setup it’s a bit more viable but still a bit overloaded. So yeah more consoles and computers would be cool but in my opinion it would decrease the gameplay quality.

Another example is Deadlines, Interestingly the current evolution is no more deadlines ever, too much risks and negative reactions about that. How could it be implemented in the game and not just be an obscure frustrating feature for the players is a difficult question.

OP applies no gameplay thinking, after all it’s more the responsibility of developers of the game, and it’s a sort of list reminder of real life features about Game developing that aren’t yet in the game. That’s cool to read and could be a good base to keep in mind to design a sequel to the game, or even an expansion.

#13

Forgive me but what is OP? Would this be Original Poster? Me? Odd way to write a post in my experience but as you will.

So to tackle some of your thoughts. The addition of these features would need more though put into them, this is correct, however GHG Dev’s successfully made GDT so I have faith they could implement these things. If they are like me, I am also a developer, adding features and solving the problem of how to make them work is the fun of developing.

Consoles

For those that see flaws, perhaps some ideas could be that, when adding more consoles. News bulletins may be transformed to no longer be abrupt popups but more of a news bubble, notification that grasps the users attention but may not halt the game unless it is of dire importance.

Also, extending the timeframe is a possibility however to maintain realism, the dev’s may simply add a game pacing. This would give the user the option to say how fast the playthrough is. If a week takes longer to process, console releases ‘appear’ to take longer to come out. Since the game can be played in a matter of hours, extending the time for more features makes the gameplay longer and more functional. This also keeps users playing the game, a simple goal of all games I believe.

When a game adds more features, the replay ability increases. If you have the ability to develop for 3 game consoles, you have 3 replay options with small variances, if you have 20 consoles, you cannot possibly make a successful career developing for every single one. You’d go bankrupt, according to the currently way of playing.

Deadlines

I have no idea where the understanding of no deadlines ever is. Every single game company has deadlines. Recent examples, Game Dev Tycoon, announced the release of their game to Steam. Then announced a ‘deadline’ as to when it would happen. I read the comments on Steam, if it did not come out the day that it did, people would have been pissed = negative feedback. Part of reality. Second, I am a Mac user. Recent game release in the Mac world was SimCity. EA/Maxis delayed the launch of SimCity to Mac, twice. Now, for the users of Mac this created many back lashings. Later when the final announcement was released and followed through, many of these same irritated people got a sense of relief and were glad to see it. Fluctuating benefit.

Adding deadlines would increase gameplay difficulty for the player. It is not a necessity but for those that like a challenge this could be awesome. Achievements follow along with doing good or bad on the deadlines someone sets. The dev’s could restrict this so that you of course don’t announce a game that will release in 20 years or that you will release in 1 day (and have yet to begin on it). Deadlines could be announced at the start of or during development. Just another addition to Marketing. Would you agree that GDT has a good base on how Marketing is handled? Deadlines would slip into that mechanic.

So, simply there are some gameplay ideas. Now, these ideas could be entirely unused by the dev’s as, after all, as mentioned the GHG dev’s have control over their game.

Again, I’d like to restate that these things would be better seen in an update to the game rather than an expansion or sequel. Would anyone rather the developers improve a great game to incredible greatness or would you like to see a sequel that is, while great, comes off as expected. If these ideas or maybe just one idea appear in an update and we can’t fathom how they could improve the game. We become more impressed when they blow us away with unexpected content in an expansion or sequel.

Food for thought readers!

I hope this also adds some understanding of how the gameplay could potentially work! More support of these ideas may get the developers attention! More support of the developers makes them produce more awesome games/updates!!!

~Shade

#14

Can’t they have news reports in the left side of the game screen? I believe that’s not used as much as the right side

1 Like
#15

And I think budget sliders should be on the main screen aswell.

#16

Huge awesome ideas…But that would be hard, since the game left in large unfinished state…With a lot missing and unrealistic features…

#17

[quote=“Shade, post:13, topic:7530, full:true”]
Forgive me but what is OP? Would this be Original Poster? Me? Odd way to write a post in my experience but as you will. …[/quote]
OP is both Original Post (first post) and Original Poster poster of first post) depending of the context, it’s a forums classical, well I read it so often that for me it’s a classic.

Ok but do they need you to get a description of reality? I’m very used to quote some players request just list of reality elements as if the dev had no clues about reality. Well perhaps it’s the problem and they focus too much on developping and lost contact with reality. But I’m less sure it’s a problem for a developer involved in sim games. That said your OP is quite extensive so I bet it could be used as a useful reminder.

Just appear, ie it won’t change that most consoles will be pointless because of a too short life span.

The only way to change that would be to use false life span or to lower development time of games and in my opinion it is already lower than reality.

For the other points ok, yeah non modal popup event could allow more consoles releases, still pointless for those with short life span but more diversity for more consoles with a span life long enough. For me there’s already too many consoles but I can see why other players would like some of their favorite consoles of their childhood to be included in the game. Myself I’d like see Amiga computers, Atari computers, Apple computers, 3DO, Vertrex and more.

Well how long before Steam release Greenhart mentioned a release date on Steam? I bet less than a month I don’t name that deadline. Now deadlines are “probably in ‘a month, often a quarter of year’”. See Dragon Age 3 and compare to Dragon Age 2. You certainly could find some exception but it’s the general trend and evolution.

I didn’t mean deadline couldn’t be a point to include but more that for me they are becoming uncertain and zero engagement stuff and even they are disappearing.

#18

Well, we are each entitled to our opinions.

No sir. The dev’s know what they are doing, these are merely ideas and request for things that may have been truly overlooked or purposely left out that I would like to see in game. The second post stating ‘So to tackle some of your thoughts’ was directed as a better understanding for you on my position.

By changing the pace of the game, on the timeline, yes a console may be out for less than a year, for user gameplay, the console could appear to be out for longer. If it takes let’s say 1.5 minutes, real time, (It’s probably more/less shorter) for an entire in game week to complete and they expand that 3-5 minutes. The user experience would be that there is more time available to produce games. Again, to each his/her own though.

Agree to Disagree on these ideas.

#19

Well I could think of a couple ways for them to improve the game, even though I like it pretty well as is. Though a lot of your ideas, in my opinion, would simply add unnecessary complexity.
As someone said, there are demos available in marketing, though I don’t think they mentioned that they are also available in the annual booths. To me giving more control over it would simply make it more complex without making it more fun.
Same for deadlines, as the “hype” you have acquired for a game decreases after a certain amount of time.
DLC/Expansion, they do have sequels and for the MMO’s there are expansions. Again, simple is better
Adding more platforms, I already find it irritating to figure out what works best for each platform/ topic. Really wish you could invest in research to have you R&D figure it out or have a worker do it. Especially for you own console. By the time I figure out what works well on it, it is already costing me more in upkeep than it is bringing in.
Release Exclusives Reissue/Special Edition Sales Mods Leaks Cheats Title Rights More In-Depth Interviews: nothing specific to say except that I, and I’m sure at least some others, would find this more irritating than interesting and would again distract from the smooth gameplay it already has. – I take back “leaks” that should again be included under “hype” and ways to generate it and would not need to be added as it is already in the game.
I haven’t had trouble with sequels so I don’t know what to tell you. Seems that all they do is add a lot of hype to my games but nothing more.

One thing I agree with you on in a BIG way is the Online Fee for MMO’s. That is one of the main reasons I came back to this site. The MMO’s are completely useless right now. I developed several games with and without MMO and found that the money you make from each unit is the same with or without that game size being MMO. The only difference is that you have a massive monthly cost (tried to think of an “o” word to make an MMO joke, but failed) that keeps getting larger and it increases the production cost 4X. After a year you (or at least I) don’t make money from the game because the upkeep outpaces the sales. The tutorials say to make expansions to offset the high price of making them, but if you look on the first screen an expansion actually costs about 2X as much to start making, and you keep the maintenance cost the original game already has. Then you have to keep in mind that it looks like you lose fans when you discontinue an MMO without having another one on the market. So right now you are simply ruining your company by making MMO’s

I have a couple other ideas for how they could improve the game, but it might be better for me not to put them here since I don’t agree with most of your ideas… I’ll look at the other threads and maybe be back.

#20

Nice ideas bro

1 Like
#21

Sigh. Alright, thank you for your opinion.

Simple contradiction in your reply. My ideas would add too much complexity to the game and you like the game pretty well as is. While discussing the ideas of DLC/Expansion, you state that you already find it irritating to figure things out within the game. I strongly believe that is the foundation of the game…trying to figure out what works, not always getting it right makes you try again…maybe that’s just me.

One of the ideas mentioned is also the ability to change difficulty of the game. Perhaps with an update that adds complexity, this may be beneficial to players, like yourself and player like me who seem to want two different gameplay difficulty.

These are just simple ideas that may or may not make it into the game, as it depends on if the dev’s and other users like them, or even see them. I am just a fellow player that enjoys the game and would like to see somethings that seem to make sense within the game world and would make things more modern towards today’s world. Along with the history of it, which is partially created within the current game.

Remember also that some of these ideas do not necessarily have to be added as a complex item. Giving more control could perhaps make things easier, as the more control you have, potentially the more money or understanding you could gain. I tried to list things so that they may be neutral, in that they could have a positive or negative effect on the game.

Now, as for your own ideas that you have mentioned in the beginning and the end of your reply. State them. State them here, state them in another post (assuming it doesn’t tick off another user), state them in both places, or make your own idea topic. It does not matter to me if your ideas contradict my ideas in every way or you just have different ideas and do not agree with mine. If you do not share your ideas, the developer’s and other users will NEVER know what you want or request. So by all means, share them!