Like the rest of the game development community, I've become utterly enthralled by the iPhone sim game Game Dev Story. It's got that highly addictive sim mechanic in a storyline peppered with puns, wrapped up in a theme near and dear to gamers' hearts -- running a game studio.
Aside from the cleverness of its setup, there is something more profound to understand both about this game and about game development in general. The game sets up the fundamental tension between making money and spending money and lets you play with the parameters. In that, it's not unlike game development in real life.
Most of us are in this because we love games and we want to make that awesome, ideal game we've been holding in our heads. And I believe we should pursue those ideal games, to the best of our ability; but it's a mistake to not pay attention to the business side if you want to be able to *actually* make your game instead of virtually imagine it. Interestingly enough this humble little app illustrates that balance quite neatly.
I'd urge you all to try it out but not without warning you how addictive it is~!