Game Dev Tycoon

[Nintz]

Anyone else hear about this?
Their site here.

It made major gaming news headlines a couple days ago when the devs pulled this trick:
http://www.greenheartgames.com/2013/04/29/what-happens-when-pirates-play-a-game-development-simulator-and-then-go-bankrupt-because-of-piracy/

It's $8 on their site, and DRM-free. I tried the demo, and it was pretty fun, so I decided to give it a shot. Downloading now, I'll post my impressions later.

 

[GoodGame]

That's a very funny thread

 

[sophie]

Sips_ is doing a playthrough of it. It is absolutely glorious.

 

[Polycrates]

I gotta admit that seems a bit hypocritically self-righteous of them given how it looks like an utterly shameless ripoff of Game Dev Story...

 

[Thrawn]

Yeah that's pretty much what I've been thinking. The reactions of people who pirated the game are funny though.

 

[trader/warrior]

I've been watching the Sips LP as well. Looks almost so entertaining I can't resist getting it some day. However, there really is an astounding amount of "stolen" ideas in this game. Like all the elements from the (really bad) Gamedev Story. But even more seems to me taken from the less known free game Gamebiz 2, which has a lot more detail like specializing in genres and platforms, producing consoles, dynamic game market etc. but also very crude UI/graphically and buggy. Then again, I guess there are only so many ways you can make a game-dev game.

 

[Leonel]

I gotta admit that seems a bit hypocritically self-righteous of them given how it looks like an utterly shameless ripoff of Game Dev Story...

I think they've made numerous references acknowledging that Game Dev Story was their inspiration.

 

[Polycrates]

I think they've made numerous references acknowledging that Game Dev Story was their inspiration.

Yeah but there's a line between inspiration and straight-out ripoff.
And I have no doubt that they're deliberately toeing that line to piggyback off the positive vibes generated by Game Dev Story (ala Day Z and War Z). If you're making a game about game development, of course you're going to be inspired by GDS, and it's going to be the first comparison anyone makes. And there's plenty of room for multiple games about the subject, but you're going to want to accentuate the differences between the two. So to choose such a similar title and an art style that look exactly like GDS except with more pixels seems either unbelievably foolhardy or deliberately calculated to piggyback and confuse. It's clearly calculated to make people think "oh hey those game dev story guys made a high-res version for the PC, cool!", not to make people think "this is a unique twist on game development games". Maybe it's completely different underneath, I don't know (the screenshots they present make the mechanics look very similar), but the impression they present of it is that it's the exact same game. I'm sure it's not illegal or anything, but it's kinda dishonest; and to then get on your high horse about intellectual property appropriation is pretty damn cynical.

 

[Luckymoose]

I got it a couple weeks back. I noticed that after you get MMOs is when money is pointless. At the last point of my game, I had somewhere in the ballpark of 50 trillion dollars in the bank and over a trillion units sold of my MMO.

 

[jamotide]

Its a pretty good game, and with business sims you can't be too picky. Played it twice for a good 20 hours.
But I also prefer Gamebiz 3, its more business, less casual, plus it has all the real names of consoles, thousands of devs and games.

 

[Nintz]

Slight update. It's releasing on Steam in ~1 week, and according to the devs, the game now has a longer storyline and a generally better balanced game. Keys will be given out soon to those that already own the game via the company store or Windows Store.

 

[Maniacal]

That's nice of them

I still probably won't pick it up until next year's summer sale, but still.