Specialization and Reputation

Game Dev Tycoon ideas
#1

In real world game industry, companies tend to specialize in certain genres and style of game. Square Enix makes Japanese RPGs, Obsidian makes Western RPGs, Rockstar makes violent, mature open world games, Nintendo makes colorfull, all ages friendly action/adventure games. The fans of these companies have certain expectations in mind from their games, and when they step outside those expectations it can cause a stir, for better or for worse.

In Game Dev Tycoon, there are no concept of specialization in your company. You can go right from making an open world fantasy RPG to a linear vampire action game to a historical strategy game, and nobody will batt an eye-- infact it’s better that you do so in order to score New Combo points. Moreover, the fans don’t care. They have no real expectations of you, aside from making games above a certain quality level, which is awfully egalitarian of them but breaks somewhat one’s suspension of disbelief.

This kinda hurts the game in two ways. Firstly, it makes the game a bit too easy, since it means you can basically do whatever you want and still succeed, with little acknowledgement for the history of the in-game universe. Your company can go from making Final Fantasy 7 to Resident Evil to Halo and it’s no big deal.

Secondly, it takes away from the characterization of your company. Companies like Square Enix and Nintendo and Bungie are inseperable from the character of the games that they make-- in large part, the character of the company is defined by the character of the games. When playing Game Dev Tycoon, your company is sort of denied that character-- there’s no way to get really good at making RPGs and thus become known for your RPGs. As far as the game is concerned, there’s no distinction between EA and Bethesda, between Square Enix and Activision.

So here’s the theorizing part:

Let’s say that once you make three games in the same Genre, your company earns a reputation for that Genre. From that point onward, any game that you make in that Genre that score over 7 increases your Genre Rep, while any game that scores below 5 weakens your Genre Rep. Genre Rep is also reduced when you go for a long time without releasing a game in that specific Genre

Reputation gives you a sales and fans modifer to games in your genre, and higher rep could open additional genre specific researches (So for RPG, you could grant a game an Novel Encounters, meaning it’s not just Turn Based or Real Time, but something original). But the higher your Rep goes, the more difficult it is to maintain at that level. You need to be more inventive with your Topics, or if you stick with one or two topics you need to make bigger and better games to maintain it. A comapny with a higher Rep could also risk deviating from the conventional Genre dynamics-- creating an action game with impressive world building (El Shaddai: Ascent of the Metatron) or Story (Metal Gear Solid). This would sink a less experienced company, but one with high Rep could pull it off and still score highly.

This is partially an idea proposal and partially an invitation for discussion. What do you all think?

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#2

You have big brain. Great idea.

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#3

My brain was blown when i read this.

Yes. Company Customization is one thing GDT is bad at. I want to make a “character” out of our companies. I want to specialize in kinds of games. I really want to make most of my games mature open-world RPGs.

You sir, has earned my respect.

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#4

Thanks for the great feedback :smile:

#5

This is already implemented but in a different way.

Let’s say you are interested in making RPGs.

You will find yourself leveling up in Dialogues, World Design, and Story/Quests faster than everything else.

You will want to train your design guy more than the tech guy.

Secondaries are pretty much all design/tech combos so you’ll want those guys next. You may not even hire a true ‘tech’ guy.

Leveling up those areas will unlock research in those areas faster than in other areas. You can be building amazing RPGs but if you try to transition to another genre you’re screwed, because you don’t have the manpower or the tech to make a good game.

Some genres work well together (Adventure and RPG for example) because they draw on a lot of the same sliders to be good.

If you are a jack of all trades, you will continue being a jack of all trades. If you specialize, you are able to develop a certain genre to a great degree.

So what really needs to happen is customers responding correctly to this. I think it’s already there, though, but not highlighted.

#6

Hmmmm yes that is very true. I just wonder if it should be made more prominent. Not to say that this is necessarily “buried”, but it’s not made significantly known to the player. It also doesn’t seem like it would viable until later in the game, when your stat choices have weighted your company that far in a given direction. You could chalk it up to the accellerated time table of the game, but by the SNES era a lot of companies had already made their specialty known.

#7

I was just reading the thread for suggestions which is very entertaining, but one of the suggestions was that it shouldn’t be so hard to make a blockbuster in another genre if you’ve been focusing on one genre. I laughed because you have people commenting both ways. It’s too hard to switch/you’re not specialized enough. The thing is, in the medium game section of the game before you have 100k fans, you’re stuck making really limited small games or making medium games at the whims of the publishers. Hopefully you have a good any topic/your genre deal but if it’s on some console nobody’s buying that doesn’t matter anyway.

I think there could be an accentuation of the specialization here and it would serve the game well.

#8

I think that’s a case of people wanting to have everything without realizing the repercussions it has to the feel of the game. It was encouraged in a different thread not to confuse the nature of GDT-- it’s a Small scale Casual Game, not necessary designed to be an in-depth simulation. The game has an impressively wide array of features, but Greenheart Games isn’t Firaxis or 2K Games and can’t do everything at once. In reality those people are probably right. Given the design of the game and the target audience, making success more accessible is probably the correct way to go for the game to succeed, but leaving it at that level isn’t going to further the brand on future endeavors. At the very least, a difficulty scale would make it so that everyone can enjoy the game on their own terms. On easy mode you can crank out blockbusters without breaking a sweat, on hard mode you need to work for it, taking in account how your company is structured and who you have working for you.

#9

I don’t play casual games so this must be a sim game. :smiley:

#10

I think this should be an optional feature I.E. a prompt comes up before you start the new game saying “do you want specialization feature active?” So you don’t HAVE to do it every single game

#11

I agree that they should add specialization, I posted a similar topic. :wink:

#12

Excellent work. It would take time to make it first or second person with higher graphics and more involvement in the game making and company, hoping they may think that further in the future when more ideas are an intake.