If you want to learn more about Retro Game Store Simulator and its creator, you can read my interview with Shannon Williams Jr. right here!
How do you feel about the current state of the gaming industry, and how does Retro Game Store Simulator play into that?
The gaming industry right now feels like it is tanking. A lot of game studios are shutting down, people are using GenAI to replace people, and I think that ultimately we’re in a state of reset. The gaming industry needs a reset. The power is being given back to indie developers. I think we’re going to be seeing a big indie game surge with new ideas, new concepts, original concepts, passionate concepts, and not just money grab games. I think a lot of the bad games are going to start being weeded out. But I think right now we’re at the beginning of the reset, so people are just more cautious about the games they want to build, and people are also cautious about the games they want to play because there’s a disconnect there. So with the soullessness that comes with GenAI, I think a lot of developers are going to thrive who are able to implement human interaction and a human touch into their games, which is one of the biggest things I wanted to do with Retro Game Store Simulator.
When I first started this game, GenAI was still relatively new for me. I’d used ChatGPT before, and I thought it was one of the best tools in the world. I was so surprised by how smart it was, how advanced it felt. And then I found out about Dall-E and Midjourney and these different services that could actually generate textures, so I started using these services to generate the video games inside of this game, the descriptions were GenAI, and then also the art was GenAI. But then what I did was spend a lot of time crafting it and refining it to the point where I was comfortable with it, and I also have an artistic background so I’ve been using Photoshop since 8th grade, and I didn’t see it as a replacement for another human because I typically did my own art. So it’s like if you were a writer: if you were to use ChatGPT to write something on your own for something that you were creating, but you fed in your own content so it could be shaped to fit that mold, I think it would have felt a bit different than just me not having a writer and using it to replace an actual writer.
So when I first started, I didn’t know where I sat on it, but as I started to make this game and saw so many games just doing the AI stuff and I saw the soullessness of it, I decided to take a different route. I said, “No, actually, what I’ll do is dig into my pockets and find money where I can hire people to do these different roles,” from writers to voice over artists to 3D and 2D artists; you’ll see I am very pro human in this game.
Was there something in particular that inspired you to make this game?
I “retired” from video game development, and that was last year because I just wasn’t feeling it. None of my ideas seemed to have substance, I wasn’t happy with where I was going, and I didn’t think I could complete anything that would be worth my time or investment. So I posted two videos that said I was done so people wouldn’t be waiting on me and had their closure. And these videos were valid for about a week and a half. I went and got a certification as an Agile Scrum Product Owner, and, as a kinesthetic learner, I always like to apply whatever knowledge I have to confirm I’ve learned something, so I had to take those principles and apply it to video games. It made sense because I love making video games, and it had been a minute since I had opened Unreal, but it felt so good to get back into it.
Also, I have ADHD, so with my ADHD I always need a creative outlet. Video games are so fun for someone with ADHD because there are so many facets to it. With game development, I can go from programming to making 3D models to making graphic designs to making videos to designing characters to whatever it might be. There are so many different things where I can get those dopamine hits, so I had to stick with game development.
Now, the idea you see for the game now morphed probably three or four times. It started off with me thinking, “What is a quick game I can make?” Just something that I could use those steps in the certification program in a practical way, but also something that was worth my time. And it was going to be a DoorDash simulator, something I’d been sitting on for years. Well, as I started looking up if the genre made sense, looking at the top simulator games, I realized that the competitor was American Truck Simulator, which was much more advanced and deeper than I was planning on going. So I started to think, “Well, I would need to do traffic and all these different things,” and I just wasn’t really happy with trying to do it like that. But I still wanted to do a simulation of some sort, but what else could I do? A Home Depot store simulator seemed like a great opportunity. I love Home Depot and thought it was going to be the route, but another idea hit me probably a week or two into development.
I was watching a video game collection video, and the guy who was collecting games had the Goof Troop soundtrack playing in the background. Goof Troop was one of the first games I ever owned, and that nostalgia got me hooked on this guy’s videos, and I saw that he was running a video game store. So I said, “Hm, Home Depot’s seeming kind of boring right now, but I don’t see a retro video game store game.” And I have a ton of retro games, so it just kind of lined up for me to make a game about that. I first modeled the formula after Supermarket Simulator because it was a simple formula that worked and people liked it, but it felt soulless. And after buying some books I decided I wanted it set in the 1980s, and the rest just kept evolving over time.
Could you tell me your thoughts on AI being used in the creative process of making games?
This is a divisive topic. I mentioned before that I was for it because I saw it as a helping tool, but now I’m not for it for public facing content, especially if it’s obviously not refined. I think that a lot of people use it as a cheat code where they’re like, “I want to make a game, I want to have all these items, I don’t want to pay someone to make these items, so I’m just going to throw in these prompts and generate some crap,” and I think that’s tasteless and spoils your game. But if you are a game developer who feels like doing it, do it, because I think it makes it easier for games that are made with intention to stand out, and you can phase out a lot of those games we’re fighting against.
What I do believe AI is useful for is the concepting phase. As I mentioned, I used AI to get a general idea of what the game looked like, and then I was able to pay people to replace what I had. I think if you’re going to just use AI for concepting, leave it there. Replace everything when you release it if you want to make a good impression on the people you’re trying to get to purchase or support your product.
Is there something you’re most proud of in Retro Game Store Simulator?
I would say Ballantyne Mall. When I decided I wanted to make a mall, I was going to pay one of my good buddies, Justin Darlington, who’s making games called Nightwalk Simulator and The Vision, but I always struggled putting my vision into words for people. So what I wound up doing was I took two weeks off from my full time job and dedicated those weeks to ironing out what the mall would look like, because I wanted every store to be intentionally placed. I didn’t want a mall that was just fluff; where it was just a mall that existed and none of the stores felt alive or served a purpose. So I had to be very intentional about what I did, and because of that, it feels so good walking around the mall.
I have a synthwave playlist that I paid for, and at night time I have the neon pinks and blue lights from the 1980s all throughout the mall. During Christmas, I put a giant Christmas tree in the middle of the lobby. And then the food court, geez, the food court makes me want to put my VR headset on and walk around and just relax in it. All the units reek of nostalgia, and I get that comment a lot from people who were born or raised in the ‘80s. They look at it and you just see their smiles light up. And this was in the early phases where they hadn’t seen any of the units fleshed out and didn’t see characters walking in. So I’m getting all that positive feedback, and it feels so good to have a live mall. I love it at Ballantyne Mall.
Since you refused to use AI in your game, what were you looking for when you were hiring people to work on Retro Game Store Simulator?
I can probably narrow it down to three words: price, availability, and passion. Price: it had to be something I could afford, obviously. Availability: I needed to find people who actually had time to work. I didn’t want to work with people who I’d have to wait for weeks and months at a time to get stuff back. Like as things came up that were needed, we could make adjustments and fit it in, and that’s how I built the team. And the third thing was passion. I didn’t care to just hire people who were in the gaming industry. I think when you are working a certain job, you get disillusioned. Personally, I worked in games at a mortgage company, and I was doing it every day to the point where games were just my job and about getting a certain outcome, which made it less about the vision, the passion, the creativity. So I noticed when I became a full time software engineer, my love and desire to make games grew stronger. So I wanted to find people who had expertise in the field, but also had a passion for what they were doing and were willing to work on the project, and have knowledge about the era because I wanted everything to be as accurate as possible.
And then obviously talent. I needed people who were good at what they did, so I asked for samples of everybody’s work to just see if I could see potential in what they offered. And I saw potential in everybody I decided to work with. There were some people who I tried to work with, and it didn’t work out. Those people are not credited because I didn’t use their work. For instance, I paid someone a good amount of money to build a UI for the game, but the quality of the work they sent me wasn’t the same as what they had first provided. I also had to badger them to get the work that I was promised. I can’t be waiting weeks, especially for UI. So I wound up having to create my own UI. It’s not the best UI, but that’s what I had to do because I couldn’t afford to take that chance on another person for that aspect of the game. There was another person who was supposed to be replacing the AI for the game cases, so I paid them, they sent me what they had, and it was still AI generated. And I said, “I specifically asked you not to use AI. That was the whole purpose of me working with you.” So yeah, that was another big component: finding people who were not using AI. Because apparently a lot of people you outsource are using AI, and it sucks, but that’s one of the things you have to be aware of.
Is there a particular reason you wanted to develop a simulation game out of all other types of games?
I mentioned I have ADHD, but I also have something called OCPD, which is Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder. I call it hyper-efficiency disorder because we want everything to be efficient, and I’m very good at analyzing a process and finding a way to problem solve or make it better. So with that being the case, simulation games are actually right up my alley because my fun is different than everybody else’s fun. For instance, I made a game called Mark Out!, a wrestling card game. People loved that game. Me? I didn’t get it. I thought it was cool, but people were finding something fun about it, and the fact that I have such a hard time finding what’s fun is probably the most difficult thing for me developing video games.
With simulation games, I don’t have to worry about just the fun element, I need to worry about replicating a process. Replicating something that exists in real life and just adding those layers. It’s a simple process with this game. You get contacts, order products, place your products, sell you products, regenerate, and just keep doing the same thing over and over again. But I did add additional concepts to that, where time changes the different products that are available, the different licenses available, all different types of things happening because of time. I wanted time to play a big role in my game.
I’m extremely critical about my work, and a simulation game makes it less about my work and more about the process. And if somebody says this process doesn’t make sense, it’s easier for me to go back to the drawing board and fix that. And this is more of a validation of me choosing to make a simulation game, but there is Chris Zukowski, and Chris Zukowski is the Steam marketing genius. He talks about the top performing genres of each year, and when he showed the demographics of how successful simulation games were, that really validated my choice.
How much time did you put into researching the ‘80s and running a video game store? What are your sources?
The question of how much time is a difficult one to answer because it wasn’t as if I sat down for two months, studied the ‘80s, and then jumped into the game. As I’m developing the game, I’m constantly researching the ‘80s. For instance, something really, really small is one of the business card holders that goes on the table of the person running the Akumu convention. I didn’t want to just grab a random holder, so I googled 1980s business card holders and probably had to click through about 15 different sites to find the vintage one that I wanted. And when I saw it, I was able to say, “Ok, this is my reference.” I don’t even know how much time it took, but it was something that just popped up because I just needed it.
But one of the first things I did was I started buying books, because I think books are really helpful. One of the first books that I purchased for the mall’s development is called The Decline of Mall Civilization (by Michael Galinsky), and it is literally just a book of maybe 40 images of 1980s malls. So I got to see the stores, how people looked, the different kiosks they had, the posters, the food court areas; just get the vibe of 1980s malls. So I use that as a strong resource. I took a bunch of pictures of it and loaded it into my computer. I have a folder full of references that I broke up into different categories to help me out with different things, like the props, game consoles, mall units, the insides and outsides of things, different products that might be available in mall units; just miscellaneous stuff you wouldn’t even think of, like the triangular directory, to make sure it would all look accurate.
I have another book called Super Mario Bros. Encyclopedia: The Official Guide to the First 30 Years (by Nintendo); that’s just something for motivation. Another book is The Game Console 2.0: A Photographic History from Atari to Xbox (by Evan Amos). Another book is Let’s Go to the Mall: An ‘80s Seek-and-Find (by Sally Nixon), so it’s just an ‘80s style hide-and-seek game, but it’s ‘80s aesthetic all the way through. There’s another book called All American Ads ‘80s (by Jim Heimann), and all this is is advertisements from the ‘80s, so this is what I’m going to be using to flesh out the posters inside the game and different advertisements that fill up the marquees inside of the game. I have this book here, The Ultimate History of Video Games (by Steven L. Kent). The Dictionary of 1980s Slang (by Rick Carlile) was really helpful when writing the dialogue, so I partnered it with my primary dialogue writer and cranked those out. Got People Magazine from the 1980s, just so I can get some “current” events under my belt. Best Ever Childhood Memories 1980s Word Search Entertainment (by Jordan Lamb). I also bought a bunch of business books. The 1980s (Decades of the 20th and 21st Centuries) (by Stephen Feinstein); it just has some of the different global events that were happening around the 1980s. Got myself a classic Rolodex, which would be used in the 1990s add-on.
And then something I just invested in for a new feature in the game: I want to add a baseball card feature, so I bought a bunch of baseball card books to get an understanding of what the industry was like in the 1980s. So The Bubble Gum Card War: The Great Bowman & Topps Sets from 1948 to 1955 (by Dean Hanley), Before There Was Bubble Gum: Our Favorite Pre-World War I Baseball Cards (by Dean Hanley and Allyson Hamlin), Mint Condition: How Baseball Cards Became an American Obsession (by Dave Jamieson), Game Faces: Early Baseball Cards from the Library of Congress (by Peter Devereaux), and another called The Card: Collectors, Con Men, and the True Story of History's Most Desired Baseball Card (by Michael O’Keeffe and Teri Thompson).
So for the element of running a video game store, I googled as much as I could, but I also have local video game stores around me. So I went in and just asked questions about their day-to-day, how they run things; and that was for the most part how I did that research. I did a lot of research on the statistics of games that I replicated or parodied in my game; looked up info on when those games came out, the genre, the different types of people who were interested in those games. I actually used AI for a lot of the data collection just because there’s no way to get that in one swift move where it’s all consistent data, and that was really helpful.
I watched a lot of ‘80s movies. The Terminator, Scarface, Heathers, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, License to Drive, all the Back to the Futures, the first six Star Wars movies, just as many of these ‘80s movies as I could to get an understanding of what it was like being in the ‘80s; the feel of the movies and the characters. For research on technology, I have this website called computerhistory.org that I went on to look at all the different tech that came out during that time frame and how it evolved the user’s ability. Because players are able to buy different resources in the game, I wanted to make sure they couldn’t just start in the 1980s with an iPad. That would make no sense. Instead, they’re going to start with the ability to get an outdated computer that doesn’t have all the features they would expect, like high speed internet. Another thing is phones; they didn’t have smartphones. They had pagers, so I went and actually modeled a pager for the game because that was time appropriate. I also added payphones to the game because it was era appropriate, and something I got from looking at pictures.
YouTube was a huge resource. I used a lot of YouTube footage because there are a lot of people who upload 1980s mall footage, so I was able to look at the malls, how the people interacted, hear them talking, and just really get a feel for how everything ran. Also, I listened to so much 1980s music. I have a whole two playlists that’s just 1980s music, so that really helps you get into the vibe. So it was a lot of research in different areas.
What games and creators were you inspired by?
I would say GTA: Vice City is probably the game I drew the biggest inspiration from because of the time frame and vibe. I loved the soundtrack, the game. I make a lot of references to it because that’s childhood nostalgia for me. I will say TCG Card Shop Simulator and Supermarket SImulator definitely helped me with inspiring the gameplay loop, because that loop has been proven to work time and time again. I also would say Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4, in a weird way, because there’s something about the characters and how they have different side quests. Every character just feels cool and like they have their own personality with the way they talk, pose; it has a vibe to it. And then also Crazy Taxi, which is a game that was inspiring the DoorDash game I wanted to make. But the cool thing with Crazy Taxi is how frantic it is, just constant chaos. I love contant chaos in video games, so I was really inspired by that.
As far as creators… I don’t follow too many creators, but I will say Thomas Brush is somebody I came across randomly when I was making this game, and he has definitely helped me out. Just the amount of livestreams he’s done, the different guests he’s had on, he’s had so many cool guests come on and share their experience, his podcast, and then even him sharing his spiritual work. With me and my spiritual work, I saw a lot of correlation between us two, and although he doesn’t know who I am, I’m grateful to him for all the information he’s provided, and I think he’s been really, really helpful for game devs like myself. Even if I’ve made games before, it’s always good to get that information; to hear from other game developers and their struggles in their journey.
You’ve implemented a lot of stores into the mall other than the player run store. Do you want to talk a bit about them? Is there one you’re particularly fond of?
I would say my church. I have a church in this game, and it’s so cool because when I was building this game, it seemed like I was called by God to get back into game development. There’s a Bible verse I have printed out and it said “A man’s gift makes room for him, and brings him before great men,” and I realized that game development is one of my gifts. I think I’m gifted with multimedia ability with the fact that I’m able to program and get an idea out of my head and actually create it, so I was definitely inspired to build a church in this game. It’s right next to the arcade, and it’s very simple; not like the music store, the toy store, the cinema, none of that. It’s a few pews, a podium, and a virtual pastor who gives you the option to pick from a list of things you might be struggling with, and then he’ll give you a Bible verse based on that.
This is not me playing pastor, by the way, or playing God. What it is for me is just bringing the knowledge and the content to where the user is because if you think about something like the Bible… my fear is that with books going away more and more, and the world going more digital, I think we have to be mindful of our sources. So I provide users with verses straight from the source, and they can take that and decipher whatever they can. I don’t force you to interact with it and I don’t force you to ever go in that unit, but it is something that is there for people who need it. And that I’m most fond of.
What is your vision for Retro Game Store Simulator?
My vision for Retro Game Store Simulator is to cover two cultures: the evolution of mall culture and the evolution of video game culture. I’m releasing 1980s to start, and I’m thinking about doing DLC packs for the 1990s and maybe the 2000s and 2010s.
Now, I will explain why I’m saying DLC, because I don’t think it should be such a controversial statement, but apparently it is: when somebody pays for a game one time, they are paying for work that was already completed. It is not paying for work that is to come. So when people pay for games and expect endless updates for no additional cost, I don’t think that’s fair to the developer. Especially when you think about the cost it takes to make a game; both actual cost and time cost. Let’s say this game might release for about $20-$25. Think about video games and the endless amount of content you can keep playing for hours and hours and hours. I saw someone play my game Mark Out! for 40 hours. If I were to equate that to a movie experience: they pay $15 for a movie, and let’s say the movie is two hours long. They get the whole experience there and that’s it. If you want to buy the movie, you have to buy the DVD to get the ability to watch it again. Whereas with a video game, you can get all those hours of content for one time a price. But somebody can play that game for 40 hours, and based off the movie logic I just gave, that would be basically $300 for that experience.
Now, I’m not saying that video games should cost $300, but what I’m trying to do is put into perspective the amount of work required to make a video game, and how much a video game really costs a user for the amount of time the user gets to play that game. They shell out $20-$30 for this long experience and then expect more than I think is fair, so I don’t think it’s fair to expect the developer to release the game without additional ways to monetize in mind if you want future updates. So I stand by the fact that I will be doing DLC for this game, as long as the game is successful, because I think people will enjoy the DLC. I actually did this non DLC route before when I did Mark Out!, where I developed that game past the release date for over a year and a half without getting an additional dollar for the game from people who already purchased the game but were still getting these consistent updates. Although the game was in early access, and it makes sense for early access, I think we have to change the expectations for games that are coming out as a full release. I don’t think we should expect these consistent updates without being able to consistently support the developers.
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