I'm going to start this off by saying that this isn't meant to be a review of the games I am talking about. Instead, I am going to analyze the different mechanics of the three games and how they differ. I'm also going to go over how they represent actual game development differently. I also want to mention that I might actually be the only person who has actually played all three of these games as much as I have, so this may just be a blog post for myself, which is okay. The three games examined in this post will be Game Dev Story (Kairosoft), Game Dev Tycoon (Greenheart Games) and Game Studio Tycoon 3 (Ashley Sherwin).
I also want to add that I myself am I game developer. While I don't have experience working on a game with a massive team or budget, I have worked on a couple of published games, so to an extent, I understand how game development is supposed to work. My goal in this analysis is to examine these three games and how they similarly and differently represent game development and all its complexities. I am hopeful that my experience will help me provide some unique insight as I analyze these games.
All three of these games start in the exact same spot. The player is a solo developer at the beginning of video game history making games for fictional versions of early game consoles or PC. We'll jump ahead in this analysis and assume the player is to a point in which they have recruited some team members and aren't too worried about money. They pick a theme and a genre that the game will follow. For Game Studio Tycoon 3 (GST3), all genres and themes are available to the player from the get-go. Players can make any kind of game they see fit from the beginning. In Game Dev Story (GDS) and Game Dev Tycoon (GDT) the player starts with a random set of themes they can work with. In GDT the player can go with any genre from the beginning, but in GDS the player also starts with a random set of genres as well. In GDT themes are unlocked through using research points the player receives while making games. In GDS they are unlocked through hiring new staff or training existing staff using generated research points.
From here all games are the same because the next step is to pick which platform(s) the game will be developed for. In GST3 and GDT, the player is also able to choose which engine to make the game in, be that an existing one, or one that the player has developed themselves. The last step in development for all of these games is to choose the focus. Specifically what areas the game will focus on compared to others. In GST3, this is done by dragging a scroll bar to whatever amount you want your team to focus on generic logic, graphics, and sound. I haven't really noticed a difference in how the games do in sales based on what the player selects at this point. In GDT, the player ends up picking their focuses throughout development, and depending on the match with the genre and theme chosen, the review scores and overall game sales will be better or worse. In GDS the player is given a number of points they can allot to different focuses, and they gain more points as they play the game. Similar to GST3, I'm not totally sure what difference is made by choosing different focuses and that can be frustrating.
After choosing focuses, and paying the upfront costs, game development is underway. In all of these games the player sits back and watches as their development team generates points that add to their game's scores in tech or art categories. It varies from game to game. In GST3 the player sits back and waits for the game to be completed. In GDS, every 20% of the game's completion they are tasked with choosing one of their team members to do a specific part of the game's development like writing the proposal or making the sound. These sequences generate points for the player's game based on the skills the team member has. GDT does something similar, but instead of just choosing a team member to work on something specific, GDT allows the player to pick more features their game can have, and they can increase or decrease depending on the engine being used, or the scope of the game.
Finally, after the time has passed and the game is completed it is time for release. The process is pretty much the same in all of these games. You see what the points you generated add up to and choose to do any marketing for your game (In all of these games, this comes down to paying different amounts of money to drum up excitement for your game.) The game goes out, you get a handful of review scores and then the money comes in depending on how good the game is. That is the entire game development process in these games. Of course, there are more details and differences in these games, but I don't want to spend too much time explaining them all.
So, analyzing how these different games make me feel, I will say the most gratifying is GDT. The process is more in depth and feels like it takes more work to get a successful game out the door. GDS definitely feels the most fun and video game-y. This is supported by the nice pixel art and chip music. GST3 is much more superficial than the other two and is honestly more boring to me. There just isn't any growth in the games that the player can make throughout, and things quickly grow stale compared to the others.
All three of these games follow a Year - Month - Day timeline that loosely follows actual game history in the timing of console releases and technological developments. This timeline also represents the amount of time the player needs to keep their game development empire alive to "complete" each game. The amount of time varies in each game as well, but generally they function the same. The best part of each of these games is the parody versions of the real-world consoles that release in which the player can make games for. GDS sticks to its theme with silly versions of the real consoles. GDT does a good job of reflecting real life consoles and at one point even takes a 2013 guess at what the post PS4 and Xbox One consoles would be. GST3 similarly to GDT mostly reflects reality, however early in the game injects some fictional consoles to make the early game more interesting. The concept of taking the player through the history of video games is an exciting one and it makes for a good game loop. It makes things in the games feel much more real as they reflect reality.
There is a long list of smaller things these games do including letting the player develop their own hardware, create everlasting MMOs and even do some contract work when they don't have enough money to fund their next games. Despite all the detail, these games cannot totally and perfectly represent what game development is like. There aren't any other voices giving input on how each game should be made, or what it should be about. There isn't any stress about paying bills at home or taking care of a family. Most of all, none of the games made in these games are playable. They are all just numbers on a screen that represent nonexistent things. However, none of those things matter. These games are a great way for gamers and game creators to express the kind of games they would make if making games were as simple as pressing buttons on a screen. It's a way for players to embody early game industry pioneers and get a very small taste of what it may have been like to be the driving force for what would become the largest entertainment industry in the world. Perhaps that's why I keep going back to these games. I have yet to get my first actual job making games, and these games give me a taste of what that will be like one day.
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