RecommendedSteam player
I made Call of Duty and got horrible ratings from game magazines. 10/10 most realistic game I ever played.Show moreShow less
8.3 hours at review4,355 people found this helpful
Game Dev Tycoon
Game Dev Tycoon is about building your own development studio: shape your games, research technology, and eventually assemble a team. At $3.99 from 
Steam, the purchase makes most sense for players interested in that gradual company-building loop. The focus stays on your own studio and its projects.
Consider whether its interface language and single-company management focus suit what you want from a game. The interface languages include Simplified Chinese, English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Arabic, Czech, Dutch, Greek, Hungarian, Polish, Portuguese-Brazil, Russian, Swedish, Turkish, and Ukrainian, useful for checking whether Game Dev Tycoon fits your language preference.
Loading store offersAll-time low ~ $1.99across Steam & third-party stores
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Price History
Past 36 months · Updated dailyHistorical Low~ $1.992023-08Current Low Across Stores~ $3.99Steamvs. Historical Low+101%
Prices cover Steam and 39 authorized stores; only legitimate offers are counted. The chart shows weekly market-wide lows and Steam's official price across the past 36 months.
01About Game Dev Tycoon
In Game Dev Tycoon, you start a game development company in the 1980s and grow it from a small garage office into a larger studio. Create games, research technologies, and invent genres. Your choices about areas such as gameplay or quests influence each game's success. With experience, you can build custom engines, hire and train staff, and take on larger, more complex projects. Steam players rate the game 95%% positive from 40,393 reviews. Release date: August 29, 2013.
Credits
Developer
Greenheart Games 💚
Publisher
Greenheart Games 💚
Lowest recorded in 36 months
$1.992023-08-24 · SteamBase game · same records as the chart above; USD history, not a regional Steam low.Language support
| Language | Interface | Subtitles | Audio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Simplified Chinese | Yes | — | — |
| English | Yes | — | — |
| French | Yes | — | — |
Show 14 more languages
| Language | Interface | Subtitles | Audio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Italian | Yes | — | — |
| German | Yes | — | — |
| Spanish | Yes | — | — |
| Arabic | Yes | — | — |
| Czech | Yes | — | — |
| Dutch | Yes | — | — |
| Greek | Yes | — | — |
| Hungarian | Yes | — | — |
| Polish | Yes | — | — |
| Portuguese-Brazil | Yes | — | — |
| Russian | Yes | — | — |
| Swedish | Yes | — | — |
| Turkish | Yes | — | — |
| Ukrainian | Yes | — | — |
Steam PC edition data · 2026-10-19
02Before you buy
Languages
The Steam PC version lists 17 interface languages, including English. Audio-language details are not specified.
How it plays
Start with a small garage studio in the 1980s, create games, and later hire staff and move into a larger office.
Additional features
The game supports modding and Steam Workshop, and includes achievements.
03Frequently asked questions
What is Game Dev Tycoon about?
You start a game development company in a small garage office in the 1980s and grow it over time.
What decisions do I make?
During development, you choose which areas to emphasize, such as gameplay or quests. Those choices affect a game's success.
How can the company grow?
You can hire and train staff, move to bigger offices, and develop larger, more complex games.
Does it support mods?
Yes. Modding and Steam Workshop support are listed.
Popular Steam reviews
Native-language selection · 10 reviewsSelected helpful reviews in this language show both recommendations and criticisms. This selection does not represent the overall positive rating; opinions reflect the version reviewed.
Not recommendedSteam player
Game Dev Tycoon is fun upfront, but this fades quickly as you realize the game is, ultimately, pretty shallow. There's no depth to management and nothing meaningful you can do when designing games. Lots of levers and options that simply don't matter. Employees are just bodies to fill seats, and their stats don't really mean much. Any experimentation or deviation from What Works is met with immediate failure. A better game would be using this to say something about the industry. But Game Dev Tycoon isn't interested in saying anything at all. It's just... there. The most fun I had with it was refusing to upgrade past the initial garage phase and just trying to see how far I could get as a solo garage developer while the industry progressed around me. But eventually the game just goes "no, you can't do that" and forces you to build a big company and hire people if you want anything to continue. There's little to no true agency at any point in this game's design, and the writing isn't funny or interesting enough to justify that. It's just a mediocre tycoon game. There are much better ways to spend your time.Show moreShow less
28.3 hours at review451 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
I named my company Valve and I have still not released Half Life 3 yet.Show moreShow less
16.5 hours at review2,593 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
The road to succes in this game lies in the simple fact that every game you make (besides choosing the right mix of topic/genre/platform/....) has to be slightly "better" mathematically than the previous game. What does Game Dev Tycoon mean with "better"? Simply that more 'Design' and 'Technology' points have to be put into your next game. You do this by training your employees to become better at writing and coding, and researching technology so your engine becomes more advanced (in a nutshell). However this means that once you create a bombshell game (large, AAA, whatever) you CANNOT develop a smaller game...ever...because the algorithm that defines how the audience and reviewers respond does not budge from your new game HAVING to be "better" than the previous game. I'm disabling comments on this review, some people need to learn to read, or just go back their cave. For example: In real life this would mean that devs like Blizzard would never be allowed to create intermediate content like Hearthstone or the upcoming Starcraft graphical remake, since it's not as "good" as their AAA titles? That's just impossible, and to me it ruined the game since your just stuck in a chain of "get more bubbles in your next game or else!". This is probably also the reason why the game rather quickly becomes repetitive and a tad dull and linear. You have so many options that would potentially allow you to make a cost effective title that's still a lot of fun (who needs state of the art graphics on a gameboy?) but since the goal of every development cycle is simply MOARRRR this mechanic is broken from the start.Show moreShow less
11.8 hours at review351 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
I named my company EA Games and went bankrupt on purpose just to feel better.Show moreShow less
23.2 hours at review2,183 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
Yes I like the game. But I really dislike some part of the mechanics. If possible, I would rate this neutral. As I can't do this, I decided for negative. The problem is: when I just mark this review as "positive", no one ever reads about negative remarks in this game. But currently there is barely any negative rating or posivite review with a "contra" that has more content than "I don't like this" (although there a quite a few funny ones ;) ). So I write this to show people like me, who read negative comments first, that this is a good game in general. But still not 100% recommandable. Also, after reading the wiki about the rating mechanic, I really thought about stopping to play. Unfortunately (?), I'm kind of a perfectionist, wanting to finish the game at least once... Simulator + PC = Great Everyone/Mature + PC = Great Design: 100, Tech: 80 That's basically the main flaw of the game: The Design/Tech Ratio. Design is great / Mechanics, for a sim, not! Design: * Love the artwork, the productive bubbles and sound. * Also love all those somewhat ironic texts, scam mail ( I am nubian princess with lots of money for you :D ). * And fu**** love all those hidden references to lots of games and even movies (seriously, back into the future!) * Nice touch with moving from garage to office to bigger office and lots of things you can do. *And, of course, the relation to real world PC and Console over the past 30 years. Awesome, guys! Tech: * Great Sound * Beautiful graphics. * Moving around feels a bit sluggish and menus not always responding, but that's still ok. Aaannd here comes the big fat but (one "t" only): The calculation of game scores. 1) As you're the only company in this game, your scores are always calculated against your own. This effectively means 2 things: - You need to improve your score from game to game. Not too fast, only steady improvements. So if you make some awesome RPG with great Tech/Design ration and then an potentially great Simulation - the latter needs to have a bit better Tech and Design values (according to ratio) than the previous game. - That leads to times where it is better not to make a huge jump in quality, as it then is harder to improve further. But instead to leave bugs in the game for decreasing it's rating, and making it easier for the following game topping the score again. This is a really annoying part of the game in my opinion, as you cannot focus on good values and features, but might have to "sabotage" your efforts if you see the game might be "too" good. Maybe something regarding the engine features would've helped here (like a new game should not miss certain features games before from the same genre had ) 2) Tech/Design ratio mechanic No matter how great your design or your tech is, you will get bad scores if the ratio is not perfect enough. In general this makes kind of sense, as a simulation needs more tech focus than a casual game. But let's see this: I make a 10/10/10 game with 100 tech and 160 design (like RPG). Then I make another RPG with 200 tech and 250 design afterwards. This will get worse ratings than the previous, as the ratio is not 1.6, but 1.2. So lots of improvements, yet the game sucks. Ah-hah. 2.5) This is especially annoying if you take the sliders into account, as the granular settings mean nothing (which maybe could've eased up the previous problem). After you make a lot of post-release game research, the game tells you how important one thing is for what kind of genre. Like Action games have a "+++" (very important) in sound, whereas RPG only have a "++" (for example, don't remember exact values right now). But when developing a game which needs a ratio, let's say, 1.5 (more design than tech) and you have only a ratio of 1.0 in the end of the 2nd development phase...The sliders might tell you that you should put "++" in tech (e.g. sound) -> but when doing so, you will usually get an even worse ratio! In the first playthrough I failed in the 2nd office, because after having a couple of successful games, where I adjusted the sliders to my general game knowledge, I used the slider recommendations (e.g. --- for nothing, +++ for full, ++ for half) and now the ratios were complete wrong. In no tutorial or whatsoever I found the reason for my mediocre games. Only after reading a couple of wiki pages about the ratio thingy I started to ignore the game recommendations and only adjusted the sliders depending on ratio I needed. Which is usually 100% for 2 of them and 0% for another (even if that 0% is according to game "+++" !) That's it. Combine this with a couple of staff trainings after each great game and you're done. 3) Sequels Making a Sequel in nearly 1 Year after another brings BAD scores. (if it's around <1 year - did not measure exact amount of weeks). Like 1/1/1 BAD scores. Unless you use a major upgraded engine. Then you might get a 3-5. Not major upgrading the engine for a sequel in general is also bad, even if the previous game was made a couple of years ago. Really? Ever heard of Call of Duty? Or Fifa? Or... ;) Summarum: Great game! If you like sim games, definitely get it. But there is still room for improvement! Try a better tech/design ratio next time, Greenheart Games. And remember to upgrade the Engine and wait >1 Year or so ;) PPS: If you're bankrupt some text similar to this appears: "Fortunately, Electronic Mass Productions has bought your studio. Fans cry and bury their hopes." - Guess the reference :D UPDATE Dev Response 2016-01-26 First, thank you for your comment. Glad to see that you care even about an older game here on Steam :) I believe you when you say you changed that behavior. Which, however, confuses me somewhat: as I did play this game some time after the Steam release (and only installed it then), most of your tweaks should've been in there by then. When using said imbalances I found in the wiki, as outdated it might be, to my favor, I was: * able to consecutively get great game scores (>8 average) while not listening to (most of) the ingame +++/--- report evaluations * failing most of my games (<=5 avg), when listening to the evaluations -> common in the last dev phase, where the ratio gets fu.. mixed up. * feeling that, beside said sliders, most other things like engine features had diminishing influence * still having that first game after every 9,x hit which was 90% of the time way worse in game rating (esp. when not having a real perfect ratio). Best seen after a hit or having very high scores, for example, right after adding a good team member and/or lots of staff training in one go * seeing sequel mechanic somewhat lacking Maybe my wording in this review here was somewhat biased in the end after reading about everything. Too much time since then, can't really recall, sorry. Still the mechanics (and my "what the heck am I doing wrong?") at that time where the reason which lead me to even look into a wiki in the first place. So in the end my experience was still the described one: Where I found the core tech/design mechanic to be too indistinctive about the seemingly huge possibilities of not only slider adjustments, but also team, engine etc. Thus making my game scores a total mess or, after reading and comparing my own game scores, very predictable. That being said: Your are mostly right, that those problems are somewhat overstated for many players. Which is also the reason I still say that simulation fans should still try it. And I really hope your game (still) is a success. Just for some players like me, these issues are like an itch in the eye you just cannot ignore.Show moreShow less
20.8 hours at review269 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
Game Dev Tycoon has taught me a lot about how consumers and reviews influence which games succeed and which don't. I started off on my second full playthrough of the game having some knowledge of how to play it already. However, this time I was doing something different. I named my company "Activision" and set out to reinvent the First Person Shooter, starting with Call of Duty but not going overboard with it. Call of Duty was a great success with reviews and sold millions of copies! I made a few sequels and once I had enough cash and enough skilled employees, I decided Call of Duty had outlived its usefullnes and decided to stop making sequels. I was now ready to reinvent the shooter, it was going to be a cyberpunk adventure FPS with a focus on story and characters. The idea was great in my head and we even spent millions on a new engine for the game to really shine. I pressed the "Finish Game" button and was expecting 9's and 10's. What I got was nothing of the sort. My heart sunk when I saw the 3's and 4's saying that "Cyberpunk" and "FPS" don't mix well and was even more nervous when I saw the low sales numbers. We were nearly bankrupt damn it! That engine alone cost us millions and the game took a huge amount of money to develop! I paused the game and sat there, thinking what we could do to save "Activision". I then looked at my game history. We had a few games that sold alright but nothing that sold as well as "Call of Duty" that's when I did the unspeakable. I clicked the "Make Sequel" button and made yet another "Call of Duty" game. I felt sick as the reviews came in with 8's and 9's, saving the company and making millions, but stomping on our morals and values. The entire reason I made the company was to avoid such a thing, when in the end I had become what I had set out to destroy! 10/10 for realismShow moreShow less
23.7 hours at review1,415 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
I admit it, I have 30+ hours of playing this game on record. Is it addictive? Maybe. Is it good? Not exactly. Game Dev Tycoon is one of less than a half-dozen in this very specific genre. That is its success. It's failure is that, in a world full of very solid sim games, it lacks balance and depth, delivering only moderately clever puns and a menial supply of easter eggs to keep you coming back. If there were a better Game Development simulator out there, I'd be playing that one, but there isn't. Game Dev Tycoon as a title represents what I want in a game, but not what exists. Final score... 4/10 Not good, not bad... simulation games are great for pc... ;-)Show moreShow less
34.7 hours at review208 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
I released Day Z too early with 14 unfixed bugs.... Everyone loved it. 10/10Show moreShow less
7.4 hours at review1,246 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
Rip off of Kairosoft's Game Dev Story with barely anything new brought to the table. This is the indie equivalent of a Zynga rip-off. [edit - removed comment about game speed, it was one of a number of complaints I have and distracted from the crux of my criticism which is that the devs ripped off another game and they should be shamed for it, not celebrated. ]Show moreShow less
19.3 hours at review163 people found this helpful
Source: original Steam user reviews. Helpful votes are an archived snapshot, not live data. Last collected: 08/15/2026.