Game Dev Tycoon: The Game Where You Develop Games

Hello everybody!

Here is a nice little indie simulator for y’all. Game Dev Tyccon, the game where you develop your own games.

TITLE: Game Dev Tycoon

DEVELOPER: Green Heart Games

GENRE: Simulation

YEAR: 2012

Game Dev Tycoon is a small independent simulation game released by Green Heart Games in late (Dec.) 2012.  While it is quite a simple simulation game that uses sliders and bars to majorly play the game, Game Dev Tycoon made waves when the game was released, but I will get into that later.

Game Dev Tycoon allows players to start their own video game development company and start from a single programmer in their garage to an entire office (including a Hardware Lab and a Research and Development Center).  The game essentially allows you to play through the last thirty years of gaming history, allowing players to witness the releases of all of the major consoles since the Commodore 64. The timeline goes from the release of the PC and the Commodore 64 to the mBox Next (Xbox One) and Playsystem 4 (PS4), but also allowing you to design your own custom consoles (if you get that far before the game ends).  Your company can even be represented at the E3 Gaming Convention each year.

While Game Dev Tycoon is insanely addicting and fun, the game itself is quite difficult if you don’t understand the development system. Until I actually went online and researched how the development cycle worked, I could never get past year 12.  Another fallback is the review/rating system. While I praise the system for accompanying many different factors into the system. It is very difficult to make a perfect 10 game. I have gotten close though three 10s and a 9 (damn!).

Alright so as I stated above, Game Dev Tycoon made waves when it was released, especially among the pirating community online.  The CEO of Green Heart Games initially made cracked versions of Game Dev Tycoon and released them onto various torrent and file-sharing websites. Hidden in the game’s code was a Digital Rights Management (DRM) restriction. Once the player finally made a best selling game, this notification would appear on screen.

That’s right! Green Heart Games punished pirates by releasing a pirated version and having pirates effect pirates in game sales! Woah, that was a lot of pirates.  The reaction was priceless. The players were all opposed to their games being pirated, while they pirated the game in the first place!  After one day sales, this is what Green Heart Games discovered:

While there is now a cracked version of Game Dev Tycoon on the internet now without the DRM, the move surely shocked pirates worldwide.

PROS:

• Addictive gameplay
• Thirty years of gaming history.
• Difficult difficulty level.
• In depth in the development process.
• Amazing staff management system.
• Green Heart Games CEO is a badass!

CONS:

• Difficult to understand Rating System
• Difficult to understand development system.
• Pirates!

SCORE: 9.0/10

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