Fantastic game with many avenues of stuff to do. Constantly coming back and starting over if our previous run, either solo or with 2 or 3 people, suddenly ends for the less fortunate businessman of the bois. Im talking multiple sessions of 5-8 hours. This game hooks you and has many different things you can do to better your company and rake in those profits. Yeah, its been in EA for 11 years but don't let the other flops confuse you with what is here. There is still work and bugs to hammer out, its a huge game with so many different moving pieces its completely understandable and granted.
Make software, Games, do contract work, host a server farm that OTHER COMPANIES in the game WILL utilize and pay you for, including becoming your own outsource and marketing/Printing of said developed software. Manufacture either your own (Albeit not fully fledged/Ease of use area) Consoles/Phones or contract yourself for other in-game companies (That actively develop, release product, invest and takeover other companies)
Not to mention the research possible within game to earn royalties on Network/Audio/3D/Anything software utilizes, can be researched for that year, earning who ever completes it first (Other companies are going for this too, resulting in sometimes losing a patent that year!) and earning revenue as other companies utilize your work and pay you in royalties for it. Its not ALL above board either, you can accumulate "Black Market/Offshore" money via rare metals, which in turn can be used to DDOS/Steal from other companies, or even FIRE your OWN employee, to dodge your own business employee benefit program that you can customize and manage all the way down to giving your employees COMPANY CARS. Including custom vacation times, sick pay and even death payout or retirement. It is seriously, down to the numbers, and most of them can be completely managed and custom to you and your business venture.
The ONLY bug that affects us as a group right now in playthroughs above 2 people, is a weird sync issue. Sometimes, and only when its 3+ people, the month becomes unsynced, resulting in the host having to save and rehost it, and sometimes things you did that month needing to be done over again, since the hosts save didn't sync with what you did in their world. Not even joking, the only thing that is negatively affecting our play sessions.
If you like making money and want a challenge, do anything above easy mode and you will find yourself struggling to make all of the little pieces this game offers fit into one solid business. Im 60 hours in and can confidently say I can start and survive a medium startup without big loans. But that comes with some downsides as the beginning of the game is where I personally find the most repetitive aspect. It is EXTREMELY hard to just not do contract work for a good year or two every single playthrough, because if you try and make a software or do anything else, while hiring a decent team to finish it, it is a struggle bus. Rightfully so of course, as its the beginning of the technology era in the world. My only gripe I have with the game itself in its current state. Contract work is too forced, and feels like a requirement. Maybe thats how its supposed to be though. You can take loans to go big right away, and I suppose that is more real world like than anything, but in a group play as I normally do, once a person is bankrupt, that's it. They are out of the save completely and cannot come back, even though there are new companies that start up at a later date ran by AI, so I think it is possible for this to become a thing, but just may not be in the game yet. Get gud loser, imo.
All in all, even with the slightly negative things I said this is still one of the best, if not the best options out there for in-depth company management and software simulation. There are thousands of moving pieces that happen every cycle in your world that you don't even realize happen until you see it. I didn't even mention stocks, buying shares of other companies or going public yourself. There is simply SO much in this game that to put it all in a review would be triple the length this damn thing already is. If your on the fence or your not sure, but the things I said perked your pickle then just buy it already and help get this thing to its final stage, its really not that far off from it.
The three amigos will be happily awaiting any and all content this game comes up with!
