Game Dev Tycoon

[Ayen]

Has anyone else here played or heard of this game? It's by an independent gaming company called Greenheart Games. It's a business simulator where you own your own gaming development company and develop video games for the available platforms at the time. Starting off in the 1980's and moving forward until it reaches current times. The game puts a lot of focus on actually developing games where you decide how much time you spend on certain categories like Gameplay, Graphics, Sound, Engine, Level Design, etc. You also pick which type and genre you want to make. As you move on and manage your money you can make bigger and better games, dominate the top of the market and even develop your own video game console.

It's pretty fun and very addicting. I once spent all day on it. I found making action and simulation games to be my forte. Managed to sell over one million copies of some of my games after getting a full team on my side, one of them including a remake of Final Fantasy VII for the PS3 (renamed Playsystem to avoid copyright). A lot of the consoles are renamed accordingly for that reason. Cheap too. It only costs $9.99 to download from their website and there's a free demo available to test it out.

[Tasura]

They also put some neat piracy prevention into it too. At one point in the game (if you pirated it) your business will start losing money because people are pirating your game, and eventually your game company goes bankrupt due to all the piracy and the game ends, with no way around it. The best part? They released the pirated version themselves.

[Ayen]

I heard they released a pirated version with bugs, just didn't know what kind of bugs. That's awesome. I love their creativity.

The starting achievement you get for just purchasing the game made me feel pretty good about myself.

[Tasura]

On a side note, it's on sale on Steam right now for %20 off, so now would be the best time to buy it for anyone interested.

[Skyblade]

They also put some neat piracy prevention into it too. At one point in the game (if you pirated it) your business will start losing money because people are pirating your game, and eventually your game company goes bankrupt due to all the piracy and the game ends, with no way around it. The best part? They released the pirated version themselves.

While I like the idea, I hate the execution.

The "pirated" version was released by them, before the release of the actual game. It was tossed up on a torrent site, and never mentioned by them, either officially or unofficially. It had no warnings even in-game, at the point the anti-piracy features kicked in, to let you know that you were playing a pirated copy, or any in-game features linking or pointing you to the developer's website.

In short, this game was distributed in an unplayable fashion to thousands of people who didn't know it was pirated, and had probably never heard of the developers before, or who had no way to uncover the problem without looking up the controversy online.

Granted, to the people who did intend to pirate, it's hilarious. But to the people who heard about it on forums or from a friend, they'd almost assuredly find the "pirated" (only it wasn't pirated, just cruelly coded) version without knowing that there was anything wrong with it. Since, also at the time the "pirated" version was released, there was no release date on the website, and no mention of what the actual version would cost.

I wonder how many players they lost because they figured that the game just didn't work, and were too lazy to look further into it. For an indie game which gains popularity through recommendations and word of mouth, and was something people were allowed to "try" for free, with the pirated version being essentially a demo that didn't work well (and was released before their actual demo), I'm betting a lot of people gave up before discovering what the real game was like.


As for me, I tried their actual demo and lost interest after I made my first two games. Watching bubbles and numbers only goes so far before it gets boring.

[Slothy]

I can assure you that their little joke on the pirates got them a lot of publicity and word of mouth that they likely never would have had otherwise Skyblade. When the news about that came out they were reporting it everywhere.

[Freya]

I"ve been interested in this game didn't know about the pirated thing. That's cool. Pokes people who pirate stuff.

[Pike]

I LOVE THIS GAME SO MUCH

It's so addictive and once you start you can't stop for hours.

The most fun thing to do is to make silly versions of games that already exist. I made a post apocalyptic RPG called Fall-In and it sold millions.

[Old Manus]

The most fun thing to do is to make silly versions of games that already exist.

Just like real life!

[Skyblade]

I can assure you that their little joke on the pirates got them a lot of publicity and word of mouth that they likely never would have had otherwise Skyblade. When the news about that came out they were reporting it everywhere.

True. I would never have heard about it without the reporting on the anti-piracy version

But it makes me question whether it was an effective anti-piracy tool, or merely a publicity stunt.

[Slothy]

I can assure you that their little joke on the pirates got them a lot of publicity and word of mouth that they likely never would have had otherwise Skyblade. When the news about that came out they were reporting it everywhere.

True. I would never have heard about it without the reporting on the anti-piracy version

But it makes me question whether it was an effective anti-piracy tool, or merely a publicity stunt.

Does it really matter? They were successful and everyone had a good laugh.

Considering anti-piracy and DRM is all bulltrout anyway, that's really all that matters.

[Madame Adequate]

If it got them more sales then it was both a publicity stunt AND a successful anti-piracy tool. They're not mutually exclusive.

[Del Murder]

I thought the anti-piracy approach was awesome.

[Slothy]

When you think about it, you're not going to stop pirates from getting the game, so you might as well have some fun with delaying them.

[Ayen]

Greenheart Games: Please support our small company so we can make more games like these in the future
Pirate: Screw you, Game Tycoon, I'ma pirate!
-pirates game-
Pirate: Now I will play.
Game Dev Tycoon: Oh no! You're not making any money because people are pirating your game!
Pirate: Wait, what?
Game Dev Tycoon: You are now bankrupt. Game over.
Pirate: ....well played, Game Tycoon.