How come that sometimes I have those simple games where I earn 2 Mil and then I have 100 games where I earn 150k each even though I invest into better graphics and AI and stuff, still my games fail :[
We really could use some play through from player that found the secret and made it into advanced development
This usually happens in the second office. The most common error is immediately going for Medium Games and self-publish them. I suggest you to make contracts with publishers and make their dirty work until you have 100k fans (the game will open a prompt at that point) - then you can start to self-publish them. Also, try to minimize the amount of times you upgrade your Engine. You can make it to office 3 with as few as 2-3 Engines
Thing of it this way: A bad game with incredibly high graphics and all the features is still a bad game.
You need a good genre/topic combination, and good slider balance to make an amazing game. Different genres require different slider settings.
My average income from a game is at 180K, got 2 engines, working on 3d action games with mouse addons and better AI, got Open World and Gamepads from good RPGs, what are the benefits of a second worker?
Found this on a site, that worked very well for me:
I went bankrupt 5 times and had to restart from the second office over and over again. But I think have figured out a good way to actually turn a profit. What worked for me:
Be extremely conservative about investing in employees. Only hire a new employee when you have 5 million sitting in the bank. Then, spend 2m to search for him/her.
-
ALWAYS be cranking out games with new combinations and quickly research new topics after you release one.
-
Slowly invest research points into new technologies. When you’ve amassed a significant number of these, take some time to develop a new engine (but don’t do this too often or you’ll go bankrupt quickly, since it takes a while to create one).
-
Only create small games until you reach the third office. I never once used a publisher while in the second office.
-
As your fan base grows, you will find it much easier to make money.
-
When showing your game at the expo, buy the smallest possible booth until you have at least 5m sitting in the bank.
These points worked really well for me! The main idea is to just make small games with new topics all the time and to expand your company extremely conservatively. Let me know how they work for you! I’m happy to add new ones to this list too.
-
Use publishers early on in stage 2 to build your fanbase.
-
Remember to keep track of what game/audience/system combinations work well together.
-
Don’t rush in and hire a lot of employees, I only used 1 other than myself for a long time.
-
Don’t make sequels unless you have a new engine which advances nicely on your last.
-
As with the last point, don’t make a new engine unless you have made good technological advancements.
-
When you can, specialise your employees and keep them focussed mainly on their assigned role.
-
Try and hit the trends. Normally a topic/genre trend is announced with a pop-up but a target audience trend doesn’t have a pop-up - watch for these.
-
If you start making a large game, as soon as a trend is announced, you can finish it in time. I’ve yet to finish an AAA game in time though, these fall down to luck.
-
Don’t be afraid to spend money on marketing, but only do so when you’re confident in a game. Marketing a bad game isn’t always a good idea!
-
Do make sequels when you have advanced your engine, sequels seem to play a little off their predecessors success. However, you can kill a series with a terrible sequel.
-
Remember to make varying games. The market can get stale at times if you release 4 different RPG’s consecutively.
-
When you have the chance, and the funds, do start an R&D department. It can be costly, but it gives some really great advancements which help you a lot!
-
The hardware department is extremely costly and I’d advise against going for it when you first can unless you have a lot of money. Developing a ‘top’ console costs ~140M downpayment, and then the monthly payments of your research too, think about it before committing!
That’s a few random points in a slightly random order that I hope are of some use. If I think of any more I’ll be sure to add them.
Do NOT use a publisher if the game combination they want is crap, only take one with a good combo, or ones you can choose. Also if it is your first publisher game get one with a low rating requirement as it will likely get a bad rating.
wow, my first published game gave me 2 Mil… I called it Everquest, yeah you know what is it about 
The other 3 or 4 I lost the contracts, but still made some good income
You will almost always profit from a publisher contract, even if you get hit by the fine for being below the desired rating. It obviously helps to hit that rating though!
Generally, I’ve found publisher contracts give me $1 for every 1 copy sold. It’s give-or-take a bit, depending on the % of course, but it seems to hover around that figure. So yeah, if you can shift a couple million copies it can get you some good capital and some fans to boot!
I think my first real ‘blockbuster’ game was a published one which sold ~22M copies or something and gave me ~18M to spend which was a nice kick-start for my new office (the second one).
Wow! Im already at the large 8Mil office! having 12Mil cash and 120k fans! 
Now I cam upon a new problem, research! I dont have enough research points to get a new good engine.
I’ve been told that somehow I can make a research department, how do I do it?
Having only 12M cash and 120K fans can be very risky at the top office, make sure you’re extremely careful with what you do. R&D is very expensive and I’d definitely earn some more capital before venturing down that route.
To do so you need to make a Tech Specialist, via training. I think they need 700T and 100D and takes 100RP and 500K or something. You can then set up your R&D department, but as I said, it’s expensive.
To get more RP, you want to increase the research rating of your employees, you can do this via training. The higher rating they have, the more points they generate while making games/engines.
700T? what you mean by T? and what is 100D? =\
T = Tech and D = Design. The attributes of your employees and yourself.
Cool thanks, BTW I noticed that at late game I can just leave the development bars all at MAX, so this is it? At Late game you just rush in games all at MAX and hope for the best? Or am I missing something?
I don’t know what you are defining as ‘late’. Having only 12M cash and 120K fans I wouldn’t call that ‘late game’, nowhere near.
My game is an extreme, but I have 9M fans and something like 4 Quintillion (Or trillion, I don’t know!). Before I had my crazy MMO I still had nearing 1B in cash though, as well as 3M fans. As I said previously, I’d be careful if I were you as 12M cash is nowhere near enough to survive on. Developing a top tier console costs ~130M alone as the down-payment, you have the monthly payments on top of that.
Aye… I thought each game is only 30 years long, looked at your screenshot and found out I was wrong…
anyways that is why I thought It was late game.
Anyways how do you control your sliders during development? Do you MAX out everything?
Or are you still focusing on more and less on other tiers?
In my current game, the one with the screenshot, I do what I like… I can’t lose.
Before that point, and for any new games, I focused on trying to be realistic. Putting emphasis on story and gameplay for RPG’s, not so much on sound etc.
The Wiki has a good guide for the sliders if you want to use that. Again though, it takes the challenge out of the game. For me the fun was finding the combinations and such for myself, it just so happens I stumbled across something which makes you stupidly rich with fairly little input. I’m just glad I only did so at year 60+, instead of early on as it would’ve taken away from the experience of the early game.