Game Dev Tycoon is a business simulation video game developed by Greenheart Games, which first released on 10 December 2012. In the game, the player creates and develops video games. Game Dev Tycoon was inspired by the iOS and Android game, Game Dev Story, and many critics find substantial similarities between the two games. Game Dev Tycoon was created by Greenheart Games, a company founded in July 2012 by brothers Patrick and Daniel Klug. The game has 1–2 million owners on Steam.
Anti-piracy release
The game's developers implemented a unique anti-piracy measure for Game Dev Tycoon. Patrick Klug, founder of Greenheart Games, knowing that the game was likely to be torrented extensively, purposely released a cracked version of the game and uploaded it himself to torrent sites. Gameplay in this version is identical except for one variation, as players progress through the game they receive the following message: Eventually players of the cracked version will gradually lose money until they do go bankrupt, as a result of pirates. News siteArs Technica reported that some players complained on message forums about this piracy feature, unaware that it only appeared because they themselves pirated the game.
Progression
The player starts out in a garage in the early 1980s during the golden age of arcade video games with no employees, limited money, and limited choices for the first game. As new games are created, new options are unlocked. When the first game engine is built, the player's game development skills improve. New consoles will also be released, and the player will be able to buy licenses for certain consoles, such as the GS, PlaySystem, mBox, Vena Oasis, TES, and grPad which parody real life consoles and devices with different names due to trademark regulations. As the player progresses through the game further they have the opportunity to move to new offices and hire staff. After that further expansion is available, with players given the opportunity to open an R&D lab when reaching certain requirements that host major projects, allowing the player to unlock things they wouldn't be able to otherwise, such as MMOs and online game shops similar to Steam, Uplay, App Store etc. The player may also open up a Hardware Lab to create consoles and devices.
Reception
Game Dev Tycoon received varied reviews upon release. Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, gave the game a score of 68 based on 21 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
Mods
The game has native support for writing mods in JavaScript with the gdt-modAPI. Users have used this on the Steam Workshop with 663 mods listed as of 26 May 2018. They range from simple thing such as adding new consoles and Topics to making new libraries like UltimateLib. One of the most common ways people make these mods is with a Third-party software component called Ultimate Module Editor.
