Where to learn business simulation game or tycoon game

I want to learn how to creat a business simulation game like game dev tycoon. I searched the asset store, Youtube, udemy. There is no resource as a starter kit for such genre game.

Could you give me some advices?

 

Business sim games are a fairly niche genre, so I'm not surprised you aren't finding a specific tutorial on them. They also may be designed very differently depending on the nature of the business you are simulating. For example, you can imagine a game dev sim would be designed entirely differently from a package shipping sim.

I'd just focus on more general tutorials. A business sim game is going to need a lot of systems built just in C# rather than as components on objects, so make sure you are up on your general C# coding skills as well.

 

Thanks. I think there are a lot of business sim games on the market, so it's not a niche genre.

 

When I call it a niche genre, I didn't mean business sim games were rare. Just that they aren't at the popularity level that FPS, RPG, RTS, etc, games are at, of which you can find specific tutorials on.

 

It's entirely possible for a genre to be a niche while having a lot of games because the term is relative. There are a good number of business simulation games on the market but the primary genres have a far greater number of games. Check out the following incomplete table on Wikipedia. There are 106 entries for "role-playing" but only 18 for "simulation".

There have been almost six times the number of RPGs this year alone than simulation games. I'd say that's a niche.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_in_video_gaming#Game_releases

 

Thanks for your statistics. Got it. I think card game is also a niche gener, but I can find many resources as a starter kit. In fact business sim is not available.

 

It's because of Hearthstone. Back when Blizzard first announced the game Unity started using it as a way to promote the game engine. If you check the dates of the highest rated assets you'll notice that they all showed up after the Hearthstone release (March 2014).

 

Thanks again. I think you are good at data analysis.

 

It's just a probability. 12 hours after my post, the asset store comes out a business simulation game asset. And it's huge expensive. I even won't buy it for half price.

https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/?stay#!/content/124625

 

I just finished watching the videos for the asset and I have to admit that the asset has its appeals. Being a programmer I'd have no trouble creating the code for the game but the artwork is a completely different story. I doubt I'd be able to find an artist that would be able to create all of the content for less than $250.

One of the major complaints with the Asset Store is that it's almost impossible to find everything you need and for the very rare occasions when you can the styles are often very different and won't fit together.

Below is a very high quality pack that provides a little bit of everything but it has a very distinct art style meaning if you need anything else you'd likely have to contract the author of the pack or find someone who could do it. That wouldn't necessarily be cheap.

https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/environments/industrial/farm-life-110144

Below are a few examples of high quality packs but they only provide environment art.

https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/environments/cartoon-town-and-farm-17254
https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/environments/hand-painted-farm-pack-78008

Below are a couple of low poly packs. Synty is known for their low poly packs but they don't come with a lot of content meaning you have to buy multiple packs and while they're not expensive they do add up.

https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/environments/industrial/simple-farm-cartoon-assets-47003
https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/characters/animals/simple-farm-animals-cartoon-assets-76405

 

Customization is expensive, but it is other staff. In asset store, the cost of creating the asset has little effects on price. The price should be based on competition like real games on Steam.

 

Staff that can be very expensive. Like I said I doubt I could find an artist for less than $250. You might be able to.

Yes and no. If the asset takes you a year to create you need to determine the price you have to charge to make up for the time you spent making it. That said it's not just the cost of developing it you have to consider the cost of supporting it too. If you charge too little you may not be able to spend as much time providing support.

Just think about what you said for a moment. If you made a game that had zero competition by your logic you could charge whatever you wanted because you would have no competition to dictate the price. He doesn't have competition meaning he could charge whatever he wanted if he solely factored in competition.

Except it doesn't work like that. Competition is just one factor. You have to factor in the cost to develop the asset but that being said you don't want to foolishly spend a long time developing an asset if you can't charge what the asset is worth.

You have to factor in the cost to support the asset. If you can't afford to support it people will leave comments on your forum thread and reviews on your asset stating just that.

 

In economics, there is a demand- supply curve to determine the price. High price will increase supply, and reduce demand.

In fact, he has potential competition.
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/?stay#!/content/121080
Above asset currently lacks trading and harvest system. It is still under development.

Even he has no competition, expected price will work. Expected price comes from referencing other assets' price.

 

Supply and demand gets very weird with digital goods, because the marginal cost is essentially zero. That produces a very flat supply curve.