Good Business Simulator games

2021Murder

2021Murder

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My favorite part of madden and roller coaster Tycoon was the business aspects, does anyone know of any like good business games made in the last 20 years?

Ive already played game dev tycoon and it gets very repetitive.

As for an anti-endorsement i hope you never play Weedcraft from devolver digital. Theres only 3 scenarios and it really railroads you in playstyle, but without telling you, so unless you play how they want you usually lose
 
Rand /pol/ said:
Why would you want to simulate having a job.
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Must be a good German.

GG.jpg


And to add a suggestion, check out the A-Train series of games. They're part city builder, part transport tycoon, part business simulation. You want A-Train PC Classic. It's expensive so wait for a sale if you can. But the game is dense and unforgiving. You'll have to deal with all kinds of stuff like your company stock, buyouts, land rights management, technology development, subsidiaries, competitors, and of course the day-to-day supply and demand of your transport empire and the individual needs of each line you establish, all the way down to routing and vehicle maintenance.

It's really in-depth, to the point where if you skip the tutorials you're fucked.

But careful play will lead to very rewarding outcomes. You will eventually be able to cultivate real estate to facilitate the expansion of your transportation empire and grow cities from nothing.
 
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A few to consider:

OpenTTD is the gold standard of transport autism/business sim. A massive community and untold mods means you can play it as anything from a multiplayer shitpost competition to a single player sandbox to make pretty railways to a hardcore business sim against competent AI.

If you can't take the dated graphics of OpenTTD there is Railway Empire, which leans more on the business management side with share trading, balance sheets, research, HR and AI competitors (like the old Railroad Tycoon games) and is lighter on the train sperging, or Transport Fever 2, which is single-player only (no AI players) and more about watching pretty steam trains chuff about (the graphics are really nice) and less about business.

If you want something that leans more towards logistics and supply chains there's Rise of Industry, which has solid business mechanics but is more about organising the production and flow of different products across the map.

I also enjoyed Two Point Hospital, a tribute to Theme Hospital with modern graphics and interface. Really good fun, and gets challenging fast, you really have to balance all those numbers to avoid bankruptcy on the later levels, as all hell breaks loose in your hospital.
 
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They literally made Capitalism the game and also a sequel. Go crazy.
 
Spunt said:
A few to consider:

OpenTTD is the gold standard of transport autism/business sim. A massive community and untold mods means you can play it as anything from a multiplayer shitpost competition to a single player sandbox to make pretty railways to a hardcore business sim against competent AI.

If you can't take the dated graphics of OpenTTD there is Railway Empire, which leans more on the business management side with share trading, balance sheets, research, HR and AI competitors (like the old Railroad Tycoon games) and is lighter on the train sperging, or Transport Fever 2, which is single-player only (no AI players) and more about watching pretty steam trains chuff about (the graphics are really nice) and less about business.

If you want something that leans more towards logistics and supply chains there's Rise of Industry, which has solid business mechanics but is more about organising the production and flow of different products across the map.

I also enjoyed Two Point Hospital, a tribute to Theme Hospital with modern graphics and interface. Really good fun, and gets challenging fast, you really have to balance all those numbers to avoid bankruptcy on the later levels, as all hell breaks loose in your hospital.
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I can second OpenTTD. It is a very good game. Transport Tycoon was what led me to finding A-Train; after a while I wanted a bit more out of the game once I figured out its quirks. With that said, I still fire up a game of OpenTTD regularly when nothing else is talking to me. Anyone with a passing interest in the premise of this thread should try it out if you have not already.

You can find it here: https://www.openttd.org/

Theme Hospital is also really good. I'll have to check out the spiritual successor.
 
If there was a simulation game about various parts of the modern world economy, like central banking, the derivatives market, commodities, futures, and supply chains, would you play it?
 
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Jimmy Durante's Ballsack said:
And to add a suggestion, check out the A-Train series of games. They're part city builder, part transport tycoon, part business simulation. You want A-Train PC Classic. It's expensive so wait for a sale if you can. But the game is dense and unforgiving. You'll have to deal with all kinds of stuff like your company stock, buyouts, land rights management, technology development, subsidiaries, competitors, and of course the day-to-day supply and demand of your transport empire and the individual needs of each line you establish, all the way down to routing and vehicle maintenance.

It's really in-depth, to the point where if you skip the tutorials you're fucked.

But careful play will lead to very rewarding outcomes. You will eventually be able to cultivate real estate to facilitate the expansion of your transportation empire and grow cities from nothing.
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Wow, I didn't know they were still making those! Maxis did an English localisation of A-Train III (marketed just as A-Train) in the 90's and I played the shit out of it as a kid. Those graphics really do rustle the ol' nostalgia jimmies, and a cursory look seems that it's a better city simulator than the older games, which had ... quirks. Wishlisted, because £45 for a game with those graphics is taking the piss a bit when OpenTTD is free.

And if you love OpenTTD as a sandboxy, single-player experience, I really recommend Transport Fever 2. It solves a lot of the problems the first game had (excessive difficulty, balance problems, incomprehensible economy) while beefing up the graphics - they really are the prettiest graphics I've ever seen in a game of that type. It has a sandbox mode where you can just build pretty railways, turn on the free camera and just go virtual trainspotting while the trains chuff by. Very relaxing. Good community too, there's a massive amount of mods for it and the devs just beefed up the modding tools, so there should be more to come. Importantly, it is the first game like this where you can pause the date but keep the simulation running - afaik even OpenTTD can't do that. That means that if you just want to play with steam trains, you can halt the date and just play with steam trains. Or you can start in the present day with all the shiny toys and still have a full-length game.
 
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The Movies is basically the game Game Dev Tycoon ripped off, except there's an actual game in it. You build and manage your own movie studio lot and film your own movies with a pretty basic movie maker.
 
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Jimmy Durante's Ballsack said:
Must be a good German.

View attachment 1461217

And to add a suggestion, check out the A-Train series of games. They're part city builder, part transport tycoon, part business simulation. You want A-Train PC Classic. It's expensive so wait for a sale if you can. But the game is dense and unforgiving. You'll have to deal with all kinds of stuff like your company stock, buyouts, land rights management, technology development, subsidiaries, competitors, and of course the day-to-day supply and demand of your transport empire and the individual needs of each line you establish, all the way down to routing and vehicle maintenance.

It's really in-depth, to the point where if you skip the tutorials you're fucked.

But careful play will lead to very rewarding outcomes. You will eventually be able to cultivate real estate to facilitate the expansion of your transportation empire and grow cities from nothing.
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Sorry to tangent, but would I like A-train if I care less about the business aspects, but I really like Transport Tycoon and want something that requires more complex trainyards and signaling?

Spunt said:
I really recommend Transport Fever 2. It solves a lot of the problems the first game had
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Or, actually this might solve that. I loved what TF1tried, but the flaws really killed it.
 
Screw Danlon said:
Sorry to tangent, but would I like A-train if I care less about the business aspects, but I really like Transport Tycoon and want something that requires more complex trainyards and signaling?
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Yes you can play the game at the micro level (building rail/bus lines) as long as you maintain a profit on whatever you build. Setting up routes and times is a major part of the game, so you'll have plenty to do.

Or you can venture into the macro level (buying stocks, developing properties, etc) if you want to. You will probably end up doing some of this anyway after you get a decent amount of money. You may want a station in a small town to do better business, so maybe you construct a small shopping center or fund a new factory. And if you do it well you can glean profit off of both the transport line and the industry you've built.

It's a lot like Transport Tycoon, just more in-depth. I should add that my experience is with the older A-Train games and A-Train PC Classic. I'm not sure how similarly the shiny 3D versions play.
 
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