Company Acquisitions!
You can now buy your competitors! This feature was quietly released several weeks ago but has been getting many updates, bug fixes and additions from player suggestions.
Once purchased you have many options to control their decision making process. You can tell them what genres and topics to develop for, what consoles to focus on, whether to develop exclusively for your own consoles, what game engines to use, and how long to spend developing their games. You can also make them prioritize certain IPs, set how much they pay per copy to publish games (or publish their games for them!) and many other choices!
To buy a company you can select from the statistics menu at the bottom of the screen, then select publishers and developers. From here you can select what company you would like to purchase if you have enough funds to do so!
This feature continues to get additional functionality in the on-going beta detailed below.
You'll also find a full list of the most recent changes since the last Steam announcement in the patch notes listed below.
Development Update!
There are a lot of exciting changes on the way to Mad Games Tycoon 2. One of the biggest behind the scene changes has been a restructuring of the way the game handles a lot of the data files. This technical change was necessary to make future changes possible (such as the buying, selling and trading of game IPs between companies).
Because of the size of this change and it changing the structure of many files, this change once it moves out of the beta branch in a few weeks will break save compatability with the previous version of the game. Any saved game made on the 2022.04.06A Build or prior to this build will not be compatible with future updates.
Currently this change is in an opt-in beta branch only for further testing and feature improvements. Below you can find out instructions on how to participate in this beta if you would like to see the new changes and continue to get future updates before it is officially released.
Once this beta version moves to official release, it will not be possible to play an old saved game made on or before Build 2022.04.06A
We apologize for any inconveniences this may cause with your current saved games, but we also appreciate the understanding that this change was necessary to make Mad Games Tycoon 2 the best it can possibly be going forward!
As announced previously, there are still changes coming to consoles, the game pass, multiplayer and many other improvements on the way in future updates!
Opt-In Beta
If you would like to participate in the on-going beta you can opt-in and update your game to the latest changes by
-Right clicking on the game in your Library ->
-Goto properties ->
-Goto Betas ->
-And then select the beta test build from the drop down menu.
Understand that there will be some unexpected bugs in this version of the game and your previous saves prior to the beta update will not be playable unless you roll-back to the previous build while it is still available. Once this beta moves to official release, there will no longer be a previous version of the game available to roll-back to.
Besides the technical changes some of the current changes in the beta include the ability to trade IPs between your subsidiaries, view subsidiaries award histories, some changes to the way the Mad Games Awards works and additionally all upcoming changes and updates will be exclusively on this beta branch until it goes live.
If you are on the current release build, you will not be seeing many (if any) updates as of late or going forward until the beta version is released.
A future announcement will accompany the full release of this beta build to let everyone know that a brand new save will be required if it was not made on the beta version
Latest Patch Notes
BETA ONLY BUILD 2022.04.26A - 2022.04.27A --------------------------------
2022.04.26A:
- "Subsidiaries Menu": You can now move IPs to you or subsidiaries.
- NPC Publishers/Developers, Subsidiaries: You can now view their awards.
- You can now get "Golden Records" ect. for contract games.
- "Mad Games Awards": Requirements to win an award have been adjusted. Requirements are now displayed as tooltip in "Mad Games Awards".
- BUG: Bonus sales when an arcade port exists did not apply to NPCs.
- BUG: Arcade machines received the bonus for the Christmas season.
- BUG: Wrong developer was specified for commissioned games.
- BUG: If you had a lot of fans, it could happen that all fans disappeared.
- BUG: In multiplayer NPC games were not sent.
2022.04.26B:
- Place objects: Move camera and deselecting objects with right mouse button should work better now.
- BUG: When you gave a self-made IP to a subsidiary, different bugs occurred.
- BUG: You did not receive fan letters.
- BUG: You could lose publisher relationship with your own company if you used an NPC publisher.
2022.04.27A:
- If you win at the "Mad Games Awards" you get a bonus on the sales.
- BUG: IP prioritization was not reset when you swapped an IP.
- BUG: When you created a budget game, the game name was taken with TAGs.
- BUG: If you released a budget game or a GOTY edition of a moved IP, the game was not displayed.
BETA ONLY BUILD 2022.04.20A --------------------------------
- Many bugs have been removed.
BETA ONLY BUILD 2022.04.14A --------------------------------
The new build is only available as a beta. Since all old save games are no longer compatible, this build is only for players who want to test the new version. Since all data structures have been changed, I expect many bugs.
- Special new features are not included in this version (only some improvements and changes).
BUILD 2022.04.06A --------------------------------
- Build mode: If you hold down the left Control key and click on an object, it will be copied (even if the build menu is not open).
- Construction mode: With the right mouse button you can deselect the current object.
- Subsidiary: You can now select up to 4 platforms that your subsidiary should prioritize.
- In the options, you can now activate / deactivate the [★] marker for subsidiary games.
- Remove game from market" menu: search function added.
- Game development -> "Engine selection" menu: search function added.
- Game development -> "Engine selection" menu: The technology level of the engine and the lowest technology level of the platforms are now displayed.
- BALANCE: Revenue of F2Ps increased significantly.
- BUG: If you picked up a co-worker and touched a room button with the mouse pointer, you could not drop the co-worker.
- BUG: You could create ports and successors of F2Ps that were previously MMOs.
- BUG: There were problems with game names when you converted an MMO to an F2P.
- BUG: F2P games from NPCs were not removed from the market.
- BUG: Removed some issues that caused subsidiary companies to not release new games.
- BUG: Sometimes successors were released with the addition of "III" and "3".
- BUG: If you distributed an NPC game, you could release GOTY editions, budget editions, etc.
- BUG: Subsidiaries: For old save games, the engine was set to "Without Engine".
- BUG: Game development: enlarged some buttons because the text was too small in some languages.
BUILD 2022.03.25A --------------------------------
Here is an overview of the updates, the last weeks:
- Subsidiaries: You can now set the company to focus on three IPs.
- Subsidiaries: You can now instruct your subsidiaries to use their own engine.
- Subsidiaries: You can now set from which quality a game is automatically published by the subsidiary.
- BALANCE: Selection for screenshots revised. (More graphic points are needed now)
- BALANCE: NPCs now wait longer for development for remasters.
- BUG: NPC companies sometimes used genres that have not been unlocked yet.
- BUG: (Minigolf) Animation of the ball fixed.
- BUG: (Subsidiaries) IP focus was not saved in SaveGame.
- Subsidiaries: You can now set the company to focus on a specific IP.
- Subsidiaries: You can now set the games to be distributed primarily by their own publishers.
- Subsidiaries: You can now choose a default for topics.
- Subsidiaries: "Settings for all subsidiaries" -> The selected genre will no longer be copied to all subsidiaries.
- Subsidiaries: Once an NPC company is purchased, difficulty bonuses or deductions are disabled.
- NPC companies are now locked for a certain amount of time until you can buy them.
- Options: It is now possible to set that employee terminations are no longer displayed.
- Employees who want to take a break now move objects instead of running out of the room.
- Games in which a subsidiary is involved are now marked.
- BALANCE: (Subsidiaries) Approved development time now has a greater impact.
- BUG: When creating a commissioned game for an NPC, the IP was not maintained further by the NPC (no new games appeared).
- BUG: The fanbase (genre) could be deleted for subsidiaries.
- BUG: The review settings of the special IPs did not work anymore.
- BUG: Sometimes the year 1976 was not displayed in the menu "Finance->Financial statements".
- BUG: You could add copy protection and anti-cheat software while developing arcade games.
- BUG: NPCs released budget games within a year.
- Entertainment cost for subsidiaries is now linked to the difficulty level.
- Subsidiary fanbase is now based on "Preferred Genre".
- BALANCE: Revised selection for screenshots.
- BALANCE: Upgraded subsidiaries should now create less bad games.
- BUG: NPC games had "pets" as subtopic extremely often.
- BUG: Fixed bug with subgenre selection for NPC games.
- BUG: When distributing an NPC game, it was no longer shown as IP to the developer.
- BUG: Fixed a bug in the calculation of game reviews.
- BUG: NPCs should now not use multiple arcade systems when developing an Arcade Cabinet Game.
- BUG: When distributing an NPC game by yourself, the IP was no longer maintained by the NPC (no new games were released).
- BUG: Subsidiaries -> Preferred Genre: You could choose a genre which was not unlocked yet.
- BUG: Rotating objects with the "F" and "R" keys did not work correctly.
- BUG: When the message box for unlocks is displayed, it could happen that the pause mode was terminated.
- BUG: NPC games should now be removed from the market significantly less in the first week.
- "Automatically remove games from the market" is now enabled by default.
- MODDING: Platforms that are automatically owned by the player at game start must now be marked with "".
- BALANCE: Market load reduced by genres and topics.
- BALANCE: Salary for commissioned games slightly increased.
- BALANCE: AA & AAA game size costs lowered.
- In the main GUI, you can now see an icon at the bottom left that shows how many employee applications are available.
- The start settings (company name, logo, difficulty etc.) are now saved / loaded.
- The basic costs for the production of games is now linked to the difficulty level.
- BALANCE: Penalties for cancelling an exclusive contract increased and are now linked to the difficulty level.
- BALANCE: (Platform sales figures) Impact of exclusive games increased.
- BALANCE: Game reviews of static IPs should now be more trackable.
- BALANCE: Salary for commissioned games revised.
- BALANCE: Hype for sequels and spinoffs reduced.
- BUG: Salary for commissioned games was not adjusted to the new development costs.
- BUG: (Distributed NPC games) For budget games, the guarantee amount was incorrectly displayed again in the revenue display.
- BUG: Slovenia's flag is the same as Slovakia's
- BUG: (Mad Games Awards) fixed bug in winner selection.
- BUG: If you double clicked the button for the GameTab filters, you could no longer leave the pause mode.
- BUG: For distributed NPC games, "No Engine" was displayed instead of "InHouse Engine".
- BUG: (Develop paid addon) Wrong tooltip was displayed and it was not shown if Subgenres was not unlocked yet.
- BUG: "Publisher & Developer -> Distributed Games" menu: Games from the player were not displayed.
- BUG: (Own Engines) Sometimes games were shown that didn't use your engine.
- BUG: The "Censored" graphic was not deactivated when selecting a staff member who was in the bathroom.
BUILD 2022.03.01A --------------------------------
Buying NPC companies is now available in its basic form. In the course of development, this feature will be expanded. Since this feature is very complex, I expect many bugs and strong balance weaknesses. If you notice anything, please report here in the forum.
Thank you! ;)
BUILD 2022.02.05A --------------------------------
- If you are developing an exclusive game, a portion of the development costs will now be covered.
- Game options: You can now set consoles to have their lifespan extended based on market strength.
- The cost of the game size and game type now depends on the difficulty level.
- In the options you can now set that "Random Events", "Mad Games Awards" and "Mad Games Convention" are not displayed.
- Slovenia and Croatia added as locations.
- (Multiplayer) traffic significantly reduced.
- You can now add games to the waiting list even if your console hasn't been released yet.
- MODDING: If you set "false" in the Publisher.txt file, the company will no longer develop its own games.
- MODDING: The review rating for NPC IPs is now randomly calculated with +-10.
- BALANCE: Star designers can only create a hype of maximum 50.
- BALANCE: Prices for special marketing increased.
- BALANCE: Retro games from NPCs now only have a maximum game size of "A".
- BALANCE: (NPC games) selection of platforms and engines revised.
- BUG: When closing and reopening the top 10 charts on the main GUI, the up/down icons were reset.
- BUG: (Multiplayer) Fixed bug when syncing new games.
- BUG: (Multiplayer) Sometimes the game charts were not syncronous.
- BUG: Tooltips were positioned incorrectly when enlarging the GUI.
- BUG: Fixed bug when placing doors.
- BUG: Sometimes an NPC game was created immediately when starting the game.
- BUG: (Multiplayer) A crash could occur when developing a game.
- BUG: (Multiplayer) It could cause a crash when looking at a teammate's office.
BUILD 2022.01.25A / BUILD 2022.01.27A --------------------------------
- You can now cancel publisher exclusive contracts.
- Market analysis menu: Added sorting and search function.
- Game development: When selecting the genre, you can now see the market oversaturation and the genres of your most recently released games.
- Game Development: You can now open the Market Analysis menu from the Genre and Topic menus.
- Added two company locations.
- Sports game sequels now have the year date in the name. (for example "Football 95", "Football 96")
- NPC companies now use copy protection and anti-cheat software for their games.
- Special IPs of NPC companies: the overall rating is now based on the minimum rating set, instead of every game being a super hit.
- MMO hype now affects existing subscriptions.
- You can now click on the current trend in the Main GUI to open the "Genre Popularity" menu.
- Best Games of All Time" menu: You can now filter games by genre.
- Added subgenres and subtopics for special NPC IPs.
- (MMOs and F2Ps) Best value for subscriptions and active players is now displayed in the game tooltip.
- MMO Charts & F2P Charts" menus: You can now sort by current numbers and the highest value.
- BALANCE: Subscriptions of MMOs reduced.
- BALANCE: Reduced the number of NPC games that got only 1% review score.
- BALANCE: Player consoles are licensed much more often and NPCs pay additional attention to market strength.
- BUG: If a save game file was broken, it could happen that you could not load save games anymore.
- BUG: "Mad Games Convention": You could choose a console on the smallest booth.
- BUG: (Game development menu) The sorting function of engines was always reset.
- BUG: Setting of top 10 charts on the main GUI was not saved.
- BUG: (Hide walls) Some walls were not hidden.