back to article You've heard of Rollercoaster Tycoon – but we can't wait for Server Tycoon

Kickstarter-funded developers are trying to create of a massively multiplayer online (MMO) game based on the world of data centers. Yes, data centers. Server Tycoon will place the player in charge of a small server farm with the goal to build their facility into a massive compute center, competing against other players in the …

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  1. SoaG

    So 3 guys...

    ...gaming since 1981 and somehow 20 years experience, not each, but combined?

    1. DavCrav

      Re: So 3 guys...

      "So 3 guys...

      ...gaming since 1981 and somehow 20 years experience, not each, but combined?"

      I played computer games since about 1985/6, so when I was 3 or 4, and I have no years experience in server administration.

      1. chivo243 Silver badge
        Trollface

        Re: So 3 guys...

        My first computer game was on a portable computer my mom brought home in the mid 70's. It came in 3 or 4 suitcases and took the entire kitchen table to set up. Then she had to dial into her work network so I could play some desert war game. It was a grid of characters and progress from the left of the screen to the right with the arrow keys, each letter or number represented some granted power or a pitfall...

        I think the mainframe she dialed into was an HP 2000 or 3000. I'm told these systems are still in use too! My mom has long retired, and her position is still vacant.

        I've been in server administration for 15 years and have no experience either! LOL

  2. Grade%
    Black Helicopters

    Hmm,

    Are we really sure it's a game? What if it's a cunning plan to outsource admins by turning the job into a game? That you PAY for? Lol, in Russia game plays YOU!

    1. Grikath

      Re: Hmm,

      Well, if memory serves me correctly, in the early days of the internet there was a game where you fought Viruses eating your Files , and you had to chase them down and shoot them in your Admin Spaceship, as they got closer and closer to your System Files through the levels.

      Except that the game did exactly that... Delete the files you didn't protect..

      With literal Game Over if the viruses did reach your system files... Was pretty well done.. fun to play if you had a spare machine, or a decent image..

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    diversity

    Years working as sys admins and they want to make a game to play at being sys admins when they are not being sys admins.

    I know i sound their mum but wouldn't it be more healthy to play another type of game, i don't something with lots of blood and gore?

    1. Filippo Silver badge

      Re: diversity

      From what I read in the On-Call column on this site, not to mention BOFH, I get the feeling that sysadmin frequently IS about blood and gore.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: diversity

      "something with lots of blood and gore"

      Oh then you don't want the sysadmin game, you want the help desk game.

      1. LaeMing
        Devil

        Re: blood and gore

        That would be the BOFH DLC

  4. Alan W. Rateliff, II
    Paris Hilton

    Hat-tip: Amiga

    "880 floppy credits"

    Too bad the second higher up is 1790 credits instead of 1760.

    But this stretch goal has me a little concerned:

    350K € - Real Services (Advanced)

    With Basic Real Services only HTML, CSS, JS and binary images can be hosted on your servers. The purpose of this stretch goal is to let you enrich your contents with PHP and MySQL databases.

    Oh, how much fun it would be for someone to turn this gaming platform into a gaming malware gaming platform. On the flip-side, turning the game into a hosted MySQL database could be a neat twist. Until your closest neighbor and "ally" turns on you and raids your datacenter for desperately needed materials.

    Meanwhile, we are competing to build the ultimate datacenter for the game. Soon, the game will be hosted within itself. Shortly afterward it becomes self-aware. Oh, man, I need sleep!

  5. This post has been deleted by its author

  6. CheesyTheClown

    Microsoft and UNIX admins coding?

    OH HELL NO!

    Just.... no.

    They may have a concept, but IT guys are IT guys because they lack structure and always take the easy way out.... which means they avoid reading and research and just hack until they give up.

    The project description itself looks like an IT plan... three guys, IT "experts" will hack together an MMO for about $30000 each. Which if they were actually any good at IT is two months salary... and they'll publish it... and maintain it.

    Anyone see a problem?

    1. Montreal Sean

      Re: Microsoft and UNIX admins coding?

      $30k two months salary for someone in IT?

      Where are these jobs that pay $15k a month?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Microsoft and UNIX admins coding?

        $180,000 per year?

        Anywhere you can find a company treating their servers as cattle instead of cats.

      2. CheesyTheClown

        Re: Microsoft and UNIX admins coding?

        I would never hire anyone with 7-10 years experience as an engineer who would be willing to work for less. I generally haven't been approached for less than that in a few years except by these silly recruiters in the UK who spam everyone on LinkedIn with things like "Looking for a 4xCCIE, 3xMCSE to be in charge of 6 computers at a law firm in a two horse town... great pay and benefits... up to 40,000 pounds a year plus a carton of cigarettes".

        Fact is, these days, I've been working pretty hard at automating IT positions as it helps people with $100,000+ a year keep their jobs instead of being outsourced to India due to lack of manpower for the price. The goal is less people but better people.

        If it make you feel better, we can say $10,000 a month for 3 months each since it's Italy.

        1. Naselus

          Re: Microsoft and UNIX admins coding?

          "I would never hire anyone with 7-10 years experience as an engineer who would be willing to work for less."

          "IT guys are IT guys because they lack structure and always take the easy way out.... which means they avoid reading and research and just hack until they give up."

          Sounds mostly like you hire incompetent staff based on their demands for vastly inflated salaries, rather than recruiting based on experience, personality and ability to do the job. Which suggests that you are also incompetent and demanding a vastly inflated salary.

          For reference, the average permanent salary for an MCSE in the UK is £32k, so those 'silly recruiter' ads are a pretty good deal if you're outside London.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Microsoft and UNIX admins coding?

        "Where are these jobs that pay $15k a month?"

        I earn well over that as a UK infrastructure contractor.

  7. Pseudonymous Diehard

    Oh wow...

    Gaming history just took a weird turn.

    Pong to Doom to...Visio?

    I for one can't wait for the guys at Championship Manager to wake up and start work on Project Manager 2017.

  8. Adam 1

    very specific

    $109,242 is a very specific amount.

    Dev 1: How much you reckon we need?

    Dev 2: bout 110 grand should do it.

    Dev 1: 110? Why not just ask for a million billion squazillion. Come on mate, I need a sensible figure.

    Dev 2: OK, OK. $109,250.

    Dev 1: Well at least we are in the right ballpark, but I can't see us getting more than $109,242.

    1. Jim 43

      Re: very specific

      They're in Italy. The $109,242 looks like a EUR to USD conversion.

  9. seanj

    In a world where 'Goat Simulator' is a thing, this doesn't seem overly far-fetched...

    1. DavCrav

      A friend of mine, who used to be a car mechanic, now works in an office and plays Car Mechanic Simulator at home.

      God's honest truth.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        A friend of mine, who used to be a goat, now works in as a car mechanic and plays Goat Simulator at home.

        God's honest truth.

    2. Thecowking

      Goat Simulator's "World of Goatcraft" patch was awesome.

      It's actually better than most MMORPGs because it doesn't have other players.

  10. Haku

    I hope it doesn't get too real.

    I mean I wouldn't want to be woken up at 3am by my tablet or smartphone making a loud ringing sound because the half the data center crashed in the Server Tycoon game and it wants me to sort things out immediately.

  11. Doctor_Wibble
    Gimp

    Prior Art of sorts...

    I did some maps for Unreal, Half-Life, Quake etc that were based on our office and the machine hall downstairs, does that count? Admittedly they weren't exactly breathtaking and for convenience I had the canteen in the wrong place but there was no shortage of desks to hide (or be trapped) behind as well as plenty of walls for bouncing grenades and the evil spinning razor flinger...

    Alongside this since we had a model of sorts of the server room - there was the idea of using a game to interact with the servers, initially just to reboot by fragging (though I think someone actually did this for real at some point?) but it seemed too much like hard work for something that could already be done by telnet (it was turn-of-the-century, still partly steam-powered) or a remote-controlled digit.

    I agree with the remark(s) above that something is not right here, a sysadmin does not want to play a sysadmin game, a sysadmin wants either to do it for real or to go and play a game where you shoot people and blow things up. Or drive stupidly fast. Or all of the above. But not a game that's supposed to be just like work. Unless 'data centre manager' is a sysadmin dream? I don't remember ever having that one.

    1. Francis Boyle Silver badge

      "....a sysadmin wants either to do it for real or to go and play a game where you shoot people and blow things up."

      But I hear Daesh are very interested and Lewis Hamilton is thinking of throwing in a few quid.

  12. Stevie

    Bah!

    Laaaaaaame!

    Now add in random natural disasters, interference by bosses and beancounters (coincidentally also the name of a failed 1980s role playing game from TSR), Godzilla strikes, fires, halon releases, and Jim the bloke with the forklift and a desire to tidy the switch cabling, and it picks up some speed.

    But would still be the last game on earth anyone would play, even if you include Freecell and Minesweeper.

    1. Doctor_Wibble
      Stop

      Re: Bah!

      > even if you include Freecell and Minesweeper.

      Oi, don't diss Freecell, that's the one that requires thought patterns. I think you meant Solitaire which is designed to do nothing other than damage your mouse.

  13. Gareth Perch
    Paris Hilton

    The C64 wasn't available in 1981 and the game they're referring to seems to have been released in 1986, according to a quick Google.

    1. Rich 11

      Stop spoiling their enthusiasm with facts!

  14. Crazy Operations Guy

    $110k and only supports two platforms?

    I love the premise and really want to play it but, really, only ios and Android? Even if I had a compatible phone, I still couldn't play it as I have no cell signal at work, and when I'm not at work, I'm either flying to/from work, or at home where I have no desire to play games.

  15. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

    If this means I can be a virtual BOFH I'm in.

  16. robmobz
    Stop

    "In-game Ads Messaged"

    It looked interesting until I scrolled down and saw this:

    "The base game is freemium for iOS and Android tablets with few in-game Ads messages"

    All interest was instantly lost.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "In-game Ads Messaged"

      Ah, but you can buy your server rack blinkenlights of a different color for only 7 zorkmids! (And buy 500 zorkmids for only $50, sorry guys, can't buy any less, the overhead is not worth it.)

      (Or what are "buyable extras that don't give you advantages in the game"?)

      1. Anonymous Custard
        Trollface

        Re: "In-game Ads Messaged"

        I wonder on install ad-block or similar on your virtual servers to get around the in-game ads?

        Or would that be the buyable extra?

        1. Peter Simpson 1
          Happy

          Re: "In-game Ads Messaged"

          It's part of the game. You unlock an additional level when you figure out how to block the ads.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I am interested only in who thought anyone on the reg would be interested

    Seriously, I can understand that the devs want money, who doesnt, what I cannot understand is how 100k in any currency would be soundly invested in this "product"

    It looks to me like a first attempt at coding with directX rather than something that was created purposefully as a saleble product.

    Anyone want to give me 100k for some of my old test coding, no I take it back someone might think me serious

  18. SVV

    I'm waiting for the 'Ultimate Pro' edition

    where you have to write shell scripts to control everything,. spend Saturday afternoons and evenings loading tapes into servers, get angry phone calls from senior management and just generally die of boredom with how you're spending your precious few years on the planet.

  19. Glenn 6

    It doesn't expect me to be on-call at 3am does it?

  20. mylesagray

    Posted this on Reddit

    They've got some very valid points, the dev's started replying too.

    https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/412mv7/server_tycoon_on_kickstarter_seems_neat/

  21. TwoTailedFox

    Microtransactions

    I created a page over at the Wiki I administrate - http://gaming.wikia.com/wiki/Server_Tycoon

    However, I'm extremely skeptical of the freemium model.

  22. OzBob

    I can see it's use in Job Interviews

    make every new IT manager play the game and submit their scores as part of their interview process.

    1. Jim 43

      Re: I can see it's use in Job Interviews

      Does the lowest or highest score get the job?

  23. Andy A

    Looks to me like a tarted up version of the "IT Manager Game" from the Intel website a few years back.

  24. Wolfclaw

    This isn't a game, bit Google and Facebook outsourcing their server department to the cloud !

  25. jb99

    Looked fun until...

    It turns out to be a phone game with only the possibility of being a web game maybe.

    Not a proper game.

    Oh well

  26. Lamont Cranston
    WTF?

    "recent M&S games"

    This isn't just a data centre simulation, this is an Marks and Spencer data centre simulation.

  27. ukgnome
    Childcatcher

    Because

    The kids aren't angry enough

  28. servertycoon
    Megaphone

    SERVER TYCOON goes RETAIL

    Hi, just to let you know that Server Tycoon goes RETAIL! We got rid of freemium and advertisement. Together with Android and iOS we will release the desktop version for Win/Mac and also added some new features. Check it out! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1567327150/server-tycoon

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