Software Inc. Tutorial - How to make a GOOD product
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- čas přidán 19. 07. 2024
- For the full tutorial playlist:
• Software Inc. Tutorials
For the full playlist of my Software Inc. Season 5:
• Software Inc. Season 5...
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Game Details:
Name: Software Inc.
Official Site: softwareinc.coredumping.com/
Steam: store.steampowered.com/app/362...
Game Information:
Construct and design buildings for optimal working conditions. Hire people to design and release software, so you can defeat the simulated competition and take over their businesses. Manage and educate your employees to make sure they are skilled and satisfied with their job.
- Build, furnish and maintain office buildings up to ten stories + basement, on an enormous land, using a free-form building system with easy copy-paste tools
- Hire employees to design, develop, support, research and market software in teams
- Build roads and parking to ease commuting for your employees
- Tend to your employees' needs, demands, skills and specializations, while making sure each team has compatible personalities
- Customize your own employee avatar
- Create your own software products and franchises
- Compete in a simulated and randomly populated market by selling your products, taking on contract work, creating patents, making deals or trading stocks
- Hire staff to repair your furniture and computers, clean your office, make food for your employees or greet visitors
- Mod what kind of software you can develop, add your own furniture, upload your building blueprints or add support for your language
- Delegate important tasks to your team leaders, such as managing development cycles and human resources
- Set up your own servers for products, source control and running your own online store
Music: incompetech.com/
Outro Song: MBB - Island (Vlog No Copyright Music)
Music provided by Vlog No Copyright Music. - Hry
In the beginning one does not have a marketing team, thus it's important to use a 3rd party publisher. They put a time limit requirement on software, so you can't "take your time"
You actually can and I have a lot of videos to prove it ;)
The game wants you to use the 3rd party publisher, but me and some of my subscribers have tested it extensively and everytime it comes up at a loss. It costs more money than you will profit from it and there are way more profitable strategies at the start that also don't require a deadline for your product.
If you have a decent cashflow (which is not hard to get using the design deal strategy for instance) then you can definitely just take your time and make an outstanding product if you know what you're doing. Putting in the extra time will give you millions of extra profits in return and is definitely worth it.
@@Hipbone How many marketers do you have for a large product?
@@Neceros You don't need a specific number really. It all depends on their skill. Skill determines how fast they work (that plus a good team efficiency will make them very fast and efficient).
What the main question should be is: how much money do you need to spend on that product? Set a good budget and your marketing team should be able to fulfill all those budgets for all the marketing campaigns you have running. If they can hit all their tasks every month then you're good sizewise. If they can't, you need to hire more or better ones, or improve their skill/efficiency.
In short: there is no right amount of members for a marketing team or for any team for that matter. It really depends on different factors in your gameworld and choices you make!
@@HipboneThat wasn't really possible anymore beyond beta 1
At least we can make good games again. In A8-9, "outstanding" was my average rating, in A10, it was a rarity to get higher than "good".
I don't think it was that hard to make better than good quality producs in alpha 10, but yeah in alpha 11 it is quite easy to make an outstanding product.
Man! Thanks for the info. This game is almost tooooo complex but it's oh so good!
Thank god I need this
Haha you'll learn soon enough!
Welp, back again
There actually is a reason why its good/bad to start with some types. An 2d edtior is an example of a good type to start with as its used in a lot of different things, wich will make More profit. An antivirus takes about as long as an 2d editor, but isn't used in any other software, so it makes less money.
A publisher is (maybe, since the fixed release date is annoying) worth it at the start, since you don't have a marketing team, but after that don't go for it, as its Just a waste of money.
For a framework, it gives you money temporarely, as the ai actually uses frameworks.
TL:DR: check your royalties when starting a product
Sincere,
ThatTipListGuyThatWritesBlocksOfTextAndCallsInSickIfHeFallsOffHisBikeThatIsAnnoyedAboutTheToiletsHereAndHatesClassesThatNowAlsoHasToCopyTheNamesBecauseHeCantRememberThemAnymoreThatAlsoTookAbreakOfThisChannelBecauseHeHadOnlineSchoolsAndThusMoreHomeworkWhoIsHereToHelpTheCommunity
Edit: my name
True for all of that ;) I will be looking forward to the name
why are other peoples games so different compared to mine
I think you might not have alpha 11 enabled yet then. To do so go to your Steam library, right click Software Inc., click properties and select betas. In that tab set the version to "alpha 11 - testing". Steam should download the new files now, if not, restart Steam to force the download. Hope this helps, otherwise just let me know so I can maybe help you out!
I have been playing this game for around 80 hours this week and i have played 4 serious games now and made money in 4 different ways, the great thing about this game is you can do it so many ways. Also you can have 4 founders if you want an easy start.
Thanks! :D
I saw other YT people not understanding the logic behind and doing this.. oh I am not 100% interest? Lets set my target triangle to see 100%, adjust it to my selected features. This is like a company analyzes the market, and decides what features there are already covered on the market and aim those not yet covered, setting the point in the triangle to the right place, focusing those not having coverage. The point is your target, and it is not very wise to set the target to your idea instead of what the market needs.
So moving the point in the triangle sets your target, you get 100% alignment with your target but your target is no longer aligned with market coverage results.
I just played the game and now i have a 2 billion company and that's just by making sequals to only 4 main products a audio tool a os ofcorce a game and 2d editor i have 60 marketers and 26 developper and one leader that is all it takes to make millions of dollars
That's very good :)
Awesome video :) Could you do one about research and patents?
Thank you for your comment! To be honest, there is not much to tell about research and patents. When I was making this series I thought about doing a video on it, but it's just very plain and simple. You need designers to research a technology and you than need lawyers to patent it. If you are the first to do that, you gain the patent and other companies have to pay you royalties when they use that technology. However, most of the time you will be beaten by big companies before you can do that all. If you want to see a bit more on research and patenting you can watch my season 3, 4 or 5 series on the channel :) Hope that answers your question enough!
Nice video :D
Thank you!
Could you please update this video? From what i understand creativity matters now in the beta. Love your videos btw.
Once your software is close to ready. What's the best way to decide what month to release in. Are certain months or groups of months better than others. Should you try release 1 or 2 months before competitors making same type. Or release after them, or try to avoid releasing near them. These are all things I've though about but Im not sure what's best
It definitely can help to release your software before competitors release theirs. However, what I find is that the quality of the software is way more important than the actual release date. I"ve had it happen multiple times where I would release an outstanding software at a non-favorable moment in time and it would still take over the market. If people know your company and the software quality is high then it will sell unless you make huge mistakes post-release. For me the development process for a good product looks like this:
Design phase: make sure to get iteration 4.
Alpha phase: fully develop the product, do a review, if needed do a re-iteration (probably only needed once in order to get a 10/10 if you have designed it to iteration 4) and finish the development.
Beta phase: fix bugs. As soon as I promote my product to this phase I will select a release date based on the product itself. Bug fixing takes more time for OS and games because there are simply more bugs, whilst bug fixing for 2D editors for example can be done quicker. Whatever you do, make sure to set a release date that is far enough in the future so that you can fix a decent amount of bugs before release. The timing of the release itself is then not really important anymore as your product will simply be better than others, but you can still take a look at your competitors and release before them to get a small boost.
Hope this helps!
Thank you for your vid. Would you be able to tell me which mods you are using?
If you want the complete mod list, you should go to our Discord server (the link is in the description of every video). In there you can find every mod list for every season. This way it's a lot easier for me to show people the mods and it's a lot easier for them to find them for different seasons. If you want the mods that are being used in this tutorial save game you need the Season 5 mod list!
do you have a marketing guide somewhere by chance? Every time I try to market my products myself it always takes forever and the press claims I needed to market better. That's the only reason I like to get a publisher since i'm no good at marketing
I don't have a marketing guide, since I'm not really a person who makes tutorials. These tutorials were only made since a lot of people at the time were asking for them. What I can do is try and explain a bit about my view on marketing in the game and hopefully that can help! :) For better help and other questions about the game or to just have a fun time you can also join our Discord community (link in the description of the video) where there are a lot of people who can help you with the game, some more knowledgeable than me ;)
To go back to your problem: personally I think that publishers ingame (as they are now at least) are a waste of money. They just throw your money away with an unlimited marketing budget and huge marketing teams so that you drain a ton of money every month. This also explains why it will be slower when you do it yourself: you're most likely way more careful with your money ;) Marketing really depends on the products you're marketing for. Is it a product that is well-known by people and was a success before? Market it with a high budget to get to a high level of awareness everywhere quick. If this is the case I mostly use a budget of 50.000 per month or sometimes even up to 100.000 per month. If it's a new product however in a market you haven't been making products in before, be a bit more conservative at first. Make sure the product is actually selling before you start investing a ton of money. For these type of products I mostly use budgets of 10.000-25.000 per month and I'll adjust these according to success. High success means a higher budget. I hope that part makes sense.
For the marketing during development. I basically never really use the marketing options that you have to do yourself. It's extra money and you have a free option with releasing a press build. Besides that, the press build gains you more fans than the other options. But the same applies here: try and think about the potential of your product. Is it a product that is part of a series that was really succesful already? Then it can make sense to do a few other options too. Is it a first product? Then it probably makes more sense to not heavily invest in it yet except for the press builds since they are free to use. With press builds (and also press releases for that matter) make sure to not overuse them. If you use them too much they will not have an effect anymore. I normally use 2 or 3 press builds per product. I try to plan these out at the end of development, with about 2-3 months between them, but again this is not set in stone. Just do what feels right for you.
I hope you find some use in my little essay here xD Thanks for taking the time to watch the video and leaving a comment. Have fun with the game and maybe I'll see you around in the future! And if there are more questions feel free to ask them ;)
IP in this game, refers to Intellectual Property (IP).... hope this helps... Groetjes uit het zuiden van het land.... ;-)
Thanks! And good to see a fellow Dutchie! xD
These are amazing! Some things that are not in this video (i assume because of the beta update) i still don't get. Can you make an updated serie or show what is all new in the new update? From all the videos
Don't forget, i really really don't get research! Can you maybe make a video about it? I've read the tutorial multiple times but i still don't get it.
@@SKH116 Glad to hear you learned from these videos and are enjoying the game! I am not really a tutorial channel, these were made as an exception of some sort. I might do more in the future when I can get back to regular recording, but for now sadly they won't be there soon.
During my playthroughs of the game I also tend to explain a lot of why I am doing certain things, so you could also look there for more information.
Or you could join the Discord server (link in the description of the videos) where there are a lot of people that like this game and know a lot about it (I'm quite certain most know more about the game than me xD) You are always welcome to ask questions there or just have some fun :)
@@Hipbone im currently watching s10. I really enjoy watching and im learning a lot. 😁
@@SKH116 I'm really glad you like it!
I have to ask, is it normal to make over 30 million dollars on your first product. This recently happened with me and I’m trying to do a complete non - modded play through on the testing alpha and I feel that it might be broken.
It can happen, however you need a good product and get really lucky for it to happen ;) So I would say.. enjoy the money and make good use of it!
Hipbone thank you. You seem really genuine and I can’t wait to watch more of your videos
@@TigerzEye11 That's the best thing I could wish to hear, since I always try to be as genuine as I can in my videos :) I don't like putting on a character just for the vids. Welcome to the Discord too btw!
I did all this had a great product, spent 40,000 on marketing with 3 star workers and having widespread marketting, but only got 55 people using my first product. I dont know what's happened. Could you help me?
Edit: I made sure it was on all currently available operating systems and it was.
This sometimes happens with your first few products. I've had something similar happen to me in a livestream recently. Don't worry.. just keep going because it takes a while for the sales to ramp up with your first few products! Mine became profitable after about a year. Even if it doesn't becomes profitable, don't worry.. just repeat the process in the video and you will make another really good product and you'll see that the second or third one will blow up and make you millions!
Also, if you want more help or a fun place to chat about the game, make sure to become a part of our Discord! The link is in the description of the video and me and a lot of other players can help you there!
On alpha 11 I’ll have a outstanding product and try to market best I can but don’t get more then 10000 active users on a first product, idk something seems wrong with marketing, fans on individual products are so hard to get and company fans don’t seem to be interested in any company products. All this equals a bankrupt by the mid 90s, I don’t see any good guides on what I need help with.
Heey, thank you for your comment. Based on this information I can't really say something really about what might go wrong, but I will put a few pointers in here that you can check. Some of them you might already do and others you might feel are not the problem, but feel free to ask more questions after this or join our Discord full of SI veterans (link in the description).
So it seems to me that the development is not the problem, however there is one thing you can check there. Making an outstanding product alone is not good enough. You need the right features. If a product is a sequel it at least needs to have the same features as its predecessor. If it's a new IP, make sure that it has enough features to create 100% interest (you can check that in the new software window at the start). Also you might check similar products that have released or are releasing in the future to see what features they use. An outstanding product with 2 features is not as good as a mediocre product with 20 features, simply because customers can do so much more. The closer these totals are the more people will lean towards better quality.
About the actual post-release. You said you market the product to your best ability. What does that mean? I sometimes don't even market my first product and it still sells. If you have the people and the budget, put in around 50.000 bucks to market it. If not, don't really bother and just use the press builds during development. Secondly, do you have a good support team? Missing support tickets kills sales and drives fans away from your company. Make sure you don't miss a single ticket, because even outstanding products with all the new features can't get over bad customer support. I would even argue that at the start having a good support team is way more important than actually marketing your products. Last thing you could do is check if you released your product on the right Operating Systems and port it to the most active ones. Also check if any similar products have released at the same time that might be more popular than yours. All of this should give more explanation as to why it happens.
Did this happen one time btw or multiple times? If it happened one time I would not stress too much about it. On another note: there is no reason to go bankrupt in the midgame if you know how to get a lot of money. Check my tutorial video on Deals to see a Design Deal Strategy that I came up with that should allow every player to get enough money at any point in the game to just stay alive and make a product.
Sorry for the long essay xD but I really wanted to help, which was difficult with the small bits of information. Hope this helps and feel free to ask more!
How do I deal with slow development in the first phase. I have 50 people working on an OS in 98 and it's taking 18 months to do the first Iteration. How do I optimize this?
I of course can't see your game, but my guess is that those 50 people are not all skilled in what they need to do. It's a classic thing that real life companies also do: development is too slow? Let's throw more money and people at it, which in return makes it even slower in most cases. I cannot say for sure this is the case for you of course, but at least it's a general tip in the right direction. It's better to have a smaller team that is skilled in the right areas than to have a big team that is too broadly skilled.
So, regarding your team: I link the word iterations in your comment to design. How many of those 50 people are actually good designers? And of those people, how many are skilled in the correct areas? It could very well be that a lot of people are "helping" with design, whilst they are bad at it. That slows down the project. The other thing that probably is happening is that not all the good designers have the correct skills. For instance: if you selected a feature that needs a designer to have 3 stars in System, than only the designers that have 3 stars in System design will actually work on that part. So you could set 50 people to work on it, but effectively maybe only 2 people are doing that part, which of course, slows down the project.
Besides that, Operating Systems take a long time to develop and design anyway, especially if you select quite a few features, which could very well be the case for you since you are in 1998 (assuming you started in 1980). But like I always say: don't sweat too much about time. It's better to release a very good product and take a year (or even a few years) longer, than to release a mediocre product a year faster.
I hope these pointers help you out, but if you feel you need more help you can always join the Discord (link in description) and ask there. Besides myself there are other experienced players who can help you and you can also post screenshots there if you feel that would help!
@@Hipbone Yes thank you for the information. Being my 5th game but the first where I made it to the late 90s I haven't gone through a specialized stage. I figured it out about a few hours after I made this post. I was still on work 24/7 and throw more people at it to solve not knowing wtf is going on. I would make 15 person teams with a few of everything and just churn out products. I'd get lucky every 5th to 10th would be a hit and pay for my next expansion. Early game is forgiving if you just pump products. I also learned about support and marketing contracts so these huge teams paid for themselves lowering my overhead. Then digital distribution and I was getting rich while making duds.
But as you said things started to get way more complex. I'd have 200 people on a project and they would take years even with 10 setting. So I started splitting people in teams like AM DESIGN 2D and paying attention to the pie charts. Using leaders to auto hire teams and it massively improved my game. I went from 20 products every year with 2 being good too 3 products a year with them all sucking too 12 products a year all 8.5 or better. I had to turn the difficulty up.
I'm still running into projects that take forever. I wish there was a point system we could see so I could plan better. Now I need to learn hardware and research along with taking over companies and I might be able to win a game
@@frozenbuckeye6700 Sounds like an awesome journey and that is exactly what I like about this game. You can create your own adventure basically. Good job on finding your own way through it and for sticking with what works and changing what doesn't. Most people who ask for advice tried 1 thing and never something else, either because they were too afraid to change things up or because they were holding on to a strategy that once worked but not anymore. Being able to adapt is key in this game and that is what makes it awesome in my opinion. Good to hear you were able to do so and it sounds like you had a good time doing it too! :)
@@Hipbone Sure did. Now I'm working on figuring out hardware then how to build my own building. I still need to finish this play through but I'm also looking forward to my next pay through so I can try some different things.
@@frozenbuckeye6700 Sometimes I'm jealous of new players of the game, since they have so much to discover and try out still haha :) It sounds amazing that you are making full use of that!
Old video, but you can EASILY get an operating system by 1883 if you don't hire anyone, and leave yourself on "crush time" the entire time. You don't get mood debuffs, so you will develop faster than a small team of low skill people. Just start out by giving yourself programmer > designer > marketing > art in that order so you can still do contracts. You can do the operating system while doing up to 3 embedded contracts a month.
True, but I personally feel like that is kinda cheating. I never liked that you can overwork your own character so much and I hope the developer will change it. That is the reason why I don't mention that. Also, keep in mind I never said to use low skilled workers. That used to work pretty well in Alpha 10 and below, but from Alpha 11 and onwards it's not a good strategy anymore.
That being said: you're totally correct that you can make any product really fast on your own using that strategy.
@@Hipbone business owners tend to overwork themselves in real life though :/
True, but that does not mean that they're doing a good job or that it is healthy for them. I just think it should be changed because it's a workaround for the intended system
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