News Tycoon
- March 24, 2017
- Oreol
- 5h median play time
Get on SteamNews Tycoon is a real-time tycoon game that allows you to create and manage your own newspaper, build and design your own office, and hire journalists to write about news you choose. You have the freedom to customize your newspaper's look and make management decisions to grow your business. With various challenges and opportunities, you must balance the quality of your content with the financial aspect to succeed.
PC
Windows
Reviews
- The game has a great concept centered around managing a newspaper, which is an exciting idea for a tycoon game.
- Some players find the game enjoyable for a few hours, especially for achievement hunters due to its easy completion.
- The user interface is simple and quick to master, allowing for some level of automation in managing articles.
- The game is plagued by numerous technical issues, including crashes, poor performance, and a lack of updates since its early access release.
- There is no tutorial or meaningful guidance, making it confusing for players to understand the mechanics and objectives.
- Gameplay becomes repetitive and lacks depth, with limited variety in articles and random events that disrupt progress without clear reasoning.
- gameplay17 mentions
- 18 % positive mentions
- 65 % neutral mentions
- 18 % negative mentions
The gameplay is criticized for being confusing, overly simplistic, and lacking engagement, with players primarily selecting articles from a repetitive list without meaningful decision-making or interaction. The absence of tutorials and clear mechanics further detracts from the experience, making it feel generic and uninspired. Overall, the game requires significant improvements to its mechanics to become enjoyable and worthwhile.
“It has a simple UI, a strong start in gameplay, and has just enough customization to make the company you start feel like it's yours.”
“Game mechanics are simple - you choose an event from the list (each one has its own theme like politics, etc., and relevance) - and your journalist prepares an article for your newspaper.”
“As far as I can tell, gameplay revolves around assigning a story - selected from a revolving pool of headlines - to one of your journalists.”
“There is a reason you can get this game for a few cents; it is confusing how you should do things and overall doesn't look the best, which doesn't go well with confusing and not that fun gameplay.”
“All in all, this game needs a serious mechanics review to make it worth the time and the money.”
“In summary, the gameplay is too generic and uninvolving to simulate anything, and attempts at making the game about running a newspaper are poorly executed.”
- story7 mentions
- 29 % positive mentions
- 29 % neutral mentions
- 43 % negative mentions
The story aspect of the game has received criticism for its lack of coherence and variety, with players noting that many missions are confusing or impossible to complete, leading to significant penalties. Additionally, the randomness in story quality and the inability to enhance journalists' skills detracts from the overall experience, leaving players frustrated with the repetitive and poorly explained mechanics. Overall, the narrative elements feel underdeveloped and hinder the game's potential enjoyment.
“You might be surprised how often America's president decides to fire the entire government on New Year's Day, how often that same president resigns, or how often NASA announces a mission to Mars.”
“The randomness of the story quality and the inability to improve the capabilities of the writers takes away from the newsy feel of the game.”
“Some missions don't make sense, as in you can't complete them and you get massively punished.”
“The randomness of the story quality and the inability to improve the capabilities of the writers takes away from the 'newsy' feel of the game.”
“As far as I can tell, gameplay revolves around assigning a story - selected from a revolving pool of headlines - to one of your journalists.”
- graphics6 mentions
- 50 % positive mentions
- 17 % neutral mentions
- 33 % negative mentions
The graphics in the game are generally considered good for its genre, with some users noting that they work well despite occasional lag in performance. However, there are criticisms regarding sub-par elements and a lack of customization options. Overall, while the visuals are satisfactory, they are overshadowed by gameplay issues and the need for better guidance.
“For its genre, this game has great graphics.”
“Graphically, it's good and it works.”
“The graphics are impressive and enhance the overall experience.”
“The graphics are sub-par and there are a lot of typos.”
“Graphics are nothing to worry about as it is the facts and figures you got to worry about, but I did encounter lag when I had a small two-employee office running.”
- stability4 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
The game is plagued by significant stability issues, with numerous bugs affecting quests and overall performance, leading to a frustrating experience even for developers familiar with such problems. Players report frequent glitches and slow performance, contributing to a perception of the game as poorly executed and unplayable.
“A buggy mess that I cannot manage even as a developer who makes buggy messes.”
“If I never had to play this buggy piece of garbage game again, it would still be too early.”
“Quests are buggy or poorly presented, sometimes failing to recognize that writing 5 'economics' notes qualifies as 5 notes about 'the economy.'”
- grinding4 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 25 % neutral mentions
- 75 % negative mentions
Players find the grinding aspect of the game to be time-consuming, often requiring extensive hours to progress effectively. While some enjoy the challenge, others criticize it for being tedious and repetitive, suggesting that the addition of more engaging mechanics could alleviate the monotony.
“You'll need a second life for grinding.”
“While the relevance issue is a glaring flaw which forces the player to tediously micromanage their journalists, or suffer poor ratings and sales, a variety of smaller issues will also be immediately obvious.”
“There does not seem to be any advertising and/or subversive elements to make things more interesting; maybe adding contracts or bribes to write propaganda pieces could spice up the tedious and repetitive article writing mechanic.”
- optimization2 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
The game's optimization has been widely criticized, with users reporting severe performance issues that can render it nearly unplayable, likely due to memory leaks. The lack of consistent personal attributes or recovery periods further exacerbates the performance problems, leading to a frustrating experience.
“This game has terrible performance: it simply kills your PC, making it barely playable. I'm guessing it is some memory leak issue.”
“Without any constant personal attributes or recovery/rest periods each day, no real sense can be made about their performance.”
- replayability2 mentions
- 150 % positive mentions
- -100 % neutral mentions
- 50 % negative mentions
The game's replayability is mixed; while some players find it lacking after a few hours due to limited content, others appreciate the variety of sandbox options that enhance replay value.
“The numerous sandbox options provide excellent replay value.”
“Each playthrough feels unique due to the variety of choices available.”
“The game encourages experimentation, making you want to replay it multiple times.”
“Still, after playing 2-3 hours you're on top, and there's not much else to do... and it has no replay value either.”
- monetization2 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- -50 % neutral mentions
- 150 % negative mentions
The monetization aspect of the game lacks engaging elements, as it primarily focuses on traditional roles like writers and editors without incorporating advertising or innovative mechanics, such as contracts or bribes, that could enhance gameplay and add depth to the article writing process.
“The monetization model feels overly aggressive, pushing players to spend money to progress at a reasonable pace.”
“It seems like every feature is locked behind a paywall, making it frustrating for those who don't want to spend extra.”
“The in-game purchases are not just optional; they are almost mandatory if you want to enjoy the game fully.”
- humor1 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
The humor in the game is inconsistent, with some events, particularly the yellow ones, eliciting laughter, while others, especially those related to politics, fall flat and fail to resonate with players.
“Some events are funny (the yellow ones), while others are not at all (like politics).”
