What do you think should be GHG's main priorities for GDT2?

I really want to see a mechanic where you could make “Launch Titles”. I get that it’s completely broken for regular consoles, but what about your own custom consoles? I really think this is a huge flaw, as it isn’t really realistic seeing a console rack up 10M in sales with no games out for it.

2 Likes

Interesting idea. However, GDT never implies that your company is the only company in the game. I just assumed other companies were making games for it. But yeah, “‘Launch Titles’” are a good idea.

I do think they should make it categorically harder to create a successful console. At the moment, it is way to easy, and they should have the creation process involve more variables, not just how much money you put into it.

Really excited for a 3D GDT as well. Hiring employees and creating a team should involve interviews, not just a salary-for-hire. Cannot wait for GDT 2! So much potential.

2 Likes

[quote=“chizbejoe, post:2, topic:19903”]
However, GDT never implies that your company is the only company in the game
[/quote]That’s also my other problem. Now, with (presumably) more budget at hand, GHG could possibly make an in-game “competitors” UI where you can see how other companies’ games are doing on the chart list. Competing in real time with CPUs could be pretty kick-ass.

1 Like

That would also induce some pressure for creating games. Like when you release the game should have an effect on sales. If you were to release alongside a rival AAA-game, then you wouldn’t make as much money and vice-versa. Releasing games during holidays should have an effect as well.

2 Likes

I would like MMOs to be reworked.

Currently they make no sense. They only generate income based on sales and the game doesn’t factor in monthly subscriptions.
I can’t think of any large MMO that doesn’t ask for subscription fees, and in a game like this one, it would make the most sense.
Also I can’t understand how the maintenance is so high on the MMOs. I believe the formula generates the cost to run the game based on number of sales. Without subscription fees, that cost to run becomes astronomically huge.

Making expansions to generate more sales is only a temporary fix. Without constantly making expansions, you won’t generate any income. And it’s a losing battle, because making expansions = more sales = more temporary money. However the more sales you have, the higher the maintenance cost, which equals, eventually, a cost too high to keep.

Subscirption fees and micro-transactions (perhaps another research into your game engine) should pay for itself. The way MMOs could fail is that the people lose interest in them. I would say if two years go by without an expansion, subscriptions can dwindle. However when there’s a topic match, like ‘the market is leaning towards RPG’ and your MMO ‘is’ an RPG, that will bolster sales/subscriptions.

2 Likes

Speaking of MMOs: Updates? Could that be implemented as well, or is that just too trivial?

Hmmm updates…

Well that got me thinking about something else concerning the MMOs of Game Dev Tycoon.
If you make an expansion, all who have a subscription should automatically buy the expansion. However, let’s consider that number of sales does not equal subscriptions. You get sales and based on how good the game is, there’s a percentage that stay around for subscriptions. So the higher you’re scored, the higher the percentage. IT could be as easy as 8.5 score = 85% subscriptions off of sales.

but as stated, subscriptions can dwindle over time. But if subscriptions dwindle, cost to run should also lower, though cost to run can lower a bit ‘slower’ than subscription loss. This means that it does get cheaper to run the more you have. One user for a full server = tons of cash lost. 4k users for the same server could not be affected if a few ditch.

2nd issue.
“own convention” needs some reworking. You have to currently sink millions into opening your own convention in your R&D lab and you have to do that EVERY time you want to host one. And to top it off, it only is useful in gaining more fans, which if you are over 1 million, it really doesn’t matter much, unless you’re going for that 100milion sales, within the 35 year game limit, and need faster fan base growth.

All in all, ‘own convention’ feels way to expensive for basically a minimal benefit.

1 Like

Yes please, add this all

also maybe more GRID and events, replayabilty and stuff

2 Likes

Speaking of the ‘GRID’, I would like more research options that aren’t part of your game engine, but help grid, like ‘GRID economy’, for things like cards and hats, and skins. The more you research into GRID, the more income it will generate, but based on fans of course.
Not a direct 1/1. Say a percentage of your fans use GRID - the better games you release, the more fans us it. Making games that score an average of <=5 can make GRID less profitable, and games >=7 can increase usage.

1 Like

Who says we can’t have that in GDT? :smiley:

To point out something on WaveJones thing about competitors, I’d like your score (game score, 1 - 10) to be based off of making good games consistently, instead of having to trump your previous scores. Having competitors can give you a ‘bar’ to match/surpass, that isn’t based solely on your own previous high score.

Also about your previous scores, sometimes you forget what your previous design or tech score was. Wouldn’t it be nice to know that information somewhere on the HUD?

1 Like

:o
yes pls

Some thoughts on that suggestion:

If we don’t make it harder for you to make good games, then we need another mechanic that would challenge you to progress and improve.

It’s true that at the moment the player sets the pace, so when you release a great game, the audience will increase its expectations over time. This is not as drastic and immediate as it was in earlier versions (and as the wikis still suggests) but it is still the main mechanic. The main flaw that wikis still state, is that it was possible to make too good of a game early on. This is no longer the case. A good game won’t hurt your long term chances.

If we implemented a real competitor system this would essentially replace this mechanic but it would also mean that it would be much easier to fall behind and competitor successes could feel random.

The other related mechanic is that we decided to base the financial success of your game directly on your score. So better games will always sell better. This was a case were we thought that reality (great games can flop) would be too punishing to players because marketing or market circumstances can feel like random luck/chance.

Anyway, I have some concrete ideas for GDT2 on how to solve these scenarios (I don’t want to spoil it) but I was wondering if you had anything specific you would like to see?

1 Like

Yes, launch titles would be great :slight_smile:

2 Likes

I suppose it ‘is’ true that good games can flop. How about the ability to re-release a game that scored very well but sales were very low? Companies always like to re-release games (probably because making new IPs takes time and effort and recycling old ones is easy and players these days are kinda like sheep).
How about if you make a new engine, you can chose not to just make a sequel but to remake a game, or re-release. Both options would be grand ideas.

also the marketing mechanic could help your good games sell well. Allow even in post-production, to market a game. Currently in GDT you cannot market a game after you release it. Changing that up a bit would be an interesting concept to explore.

I think there should be one main factor to how much a game would be good: "Success"
Success is the probability of your game becoming the next big thing. It is divided in two main groups, Pre-game and Post-game
Pre-game is based off of your fans and success of previous games. Post-game is based off of your gained hype during the making the game, tech level and other stuff(I will finish this later, playing osu! with @Haxor chan)

Agreed. I think the challenge from a game design perspective is just how to keep this system fair and transparent. When we learned one thing from GDT it’s that you have to explain your mechanics to players, otherwise even a good and consistent system will seem to be random to some…

3 Likes

In a way you remedied this with the ‘game report’ system. I agree that in first release, there was no analytics to explain things and our initial ‘reviews’ didn’t tell us many things about what we did ‘good’ or ‘bad’. That really frustrated us as players.

I’m excited that the next game may/will have a more transparent evaluation system in place :smile:

1 Like

I would like a improved UI if it is to be a 2.5D game. Like what was shown in the TAG mod.

1 Like

yey :smile: