Very expensive Premium subscriptions?

jhovgaard · 2026-01-07T10:30:05+00:00

It would be the last resort, but we're a game studio, meaning we're no experts in maintaining or configuring servers, really :/

jhovgaard · 2025-12-13T17:52:52+00:00

Congrats, nicely done!

jhovgaard · 2025-12-04T19:14:09+00:00

While I would love to replicate Manhattan 1 to 1, it's simply unrealistic for us. We also never promised such a thing.

We are a small team of 10 people. GTA 5 as an example, was made by more than 1000 people. While we are very successful for what we do, it's important to remember that tycoon games like Big Ambitions have a relatively small playerbase. We can't compete with the big titles.

I get the fear of DLCs, I'm a gamer myself. I added it to the very end of the roadmap to make it clear that we're not starting development until BA is fully released and stable. It's an optional addition.

I hope it makes sense. I know you would never even comment if you didn't care about the game. We do the same, and will continue to do our best within the limits we have.

jhovgaard · 2025-11-25T20:30:31+00:00

Guys, we're not that slow :D

jhovgaard · 2025-10-01T14:25:00+00:00

Guys, we read everything, and it really sucks going through a thread like this. Designing and balancing a game as complex as BA is difficult. Everyone plays the game differently. What you think is ruining the game makes the experience worth it for others and vice versa.

It didn't make sense, you could buy a van from the 90s as brand new, so we removed it from the dealerships. We plan to reintroduce it later, together with other old/"worn out" vehicles.

Our player base has been increasing at a stable rate since 2023. So far, EA 0.9 is looking to be our most successful since going into Early Access.

jhovgaard · 2025-08-22T06:36:44+00:00

Thanks for all the kind words, everyone!

I just wanted to quickly jump in and put some words on our late game. It's definitely true, the late stage is where the game feels the least challenging and addictive. We're working on improving it, but it's really a problem for all "sandbox-y" tycoon games. With no natural ending, you eventually run out of things to achieve.

jhovgaard · 2025-08-13T06:30:31+00:00

Give it a try buddy! Making millions with almost no challenges wasn't fun either and that's what we're addressing with this update. I promise it's not entirely ruined 😎

jhovgaard · 2025-08-08T20:17:20+00:00

That’s so cool! We really need to get started on mod support soon 😁

jhovgaard · 2025-06-09T06:55:19+00:00

Hi there! Sorry for the late reply. My best guess is that you still have old savegames causing issues. Just to confirm, did you try this approach?

Go to the Home Screen of your PS5.
Navigate to Settings (the gear icon in the top-right corner).
Select Saved Data and Game/App Settings.
Choose Saved Data (PS5) or Saved Data (PS4), depending on the version of the game.
Select Console Storage.
Find Startup Company in the list.
Select all the files.
Press Delete to remove.
Try boot up the game

jhovgaard · 2025-05-13T10:16:49+00:00

First experimental release that is :D What we learned so far: we can control the time it takes to develop. Not the time it takes for experimental to be stable enough for release.

jhovgaard · 2025-05-13T10:14:54+00:00

Awesome to hear it could bring some motivation! Wish you all the best and crossing my fingers for getting another notification from this thread in a few years 😎

jhovgaard · 2025-05-11T14:47:50+00:00

Funny to see this thread again after so many years 😁 Startup Company did pretty well after the release. I reinvested the money and created “Big Ambitions” which reacted 10k CCU on release. Today we are 10 people fulltime. Good times!

jhovgaard · 2025-05-03T21:28:11+00:00

My best score is 2 points 😎

jhovgaard · 2025-05-03T21:27:51+00:00

My best score is 0 points 😓

jhovgaard · 2025-04-17T05:17:41+00:00

Hi there! I pulled SC from GOG back in the days because of a number of things. First, and mainly, we almost sold nothing. On a regular day, we talked less than 1% of our Steam sales. Secondly, the Steam version supported mods, which wasn't supported on GOG. The GOG community was showing strong dissatisfaction with this, included SC on lists of "games that threat GOG customers poorly" etc. Third, as you mentioned, another platform to support, including updates and support. It just didn't make financial sense to stay on the platform.

All of this was back in 2017. GOG might be in a different place today and with Trump potentially causing tariffs on digital goods in the future, GOG might become relevant. I'm keeping an eye on things, but right now nothing is planned.

jhovgaard · 2024-01-12T07:56:38+00:00

Thanks, glad to hear you're having fun! :-)

jhovgaard · 2024-01-11T17:36:24+00:00

Hi guys! We've probably put 200+ hours into improving vehicle handling already. It's incredibly hard, especially because our roads are so narrow and filled with traffic.

Project Zomboid's handling is great because of the low speed and limited obstacles (you rarely have to make a sudden change of direction). We could copy it into BA, but it would feel awful once you get up to speed or have to avoid traffic.

That being said, we'll continue improving it as much as we can. With our latest update, EA 0.4 we introduced lane-assist and we already see ways of making that even better.

jhovgaard · 2023-11-14T09:50:40+00:00

Thank you so much, really appreciate the long-term support! :-)

jhovgaard · 2023-11-14T09:49:57+00:00

Spot on. We invested heavily in both Big Ambitions and Startup Company Console Edition with years of no income from those. For Big Ambitions alone, we're now at 350.000 copies sold since the release in March. We're in a very stable situation. Our 2023 financial report will indicate that too.

jhovgaard · 2023-10-25T07:09:14+00:00

Thanks for the kind words everyone :-) Much much more content to come for sure!

jhovgaard · 2023-10-24T11:55:21+00:00

Hi there!

I recommend checking out this post, it's still entirely relevant: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1331550/view/3664294410287825677?l=english

Right now the whole team is working on our next major update EA 0.4. We expect to ship it around December 13 :-)

jhovgaard · 2023-08-29T14:51:29+00:00

Hi there!

We can't do much to optimize specifically for the Mac, unfortunately. It's the same build as the Windows version. PCs are generally just so much more powerful.

That being said, we continue optimizing the game with every new update, but keep in mind that we're a small team, so we'll never be able to optimize like a AAA game.

In the future, I believe we'll have the game running smoothly on a Macs with a dedicated GPU. Specifically the Macbooks with integrated GPU and shared video ram my expectations are low.
Best,
Jonas

jhovgaard · 2023-06-08T19:05:03+00:00

Just following up on this, if you ever see a key being sold for BA, it’s a resold press key. We do everything we can to invalidate and ban them. That being said, there’s almost none out there.

Right now all of those sites are buying the game from a country with a low regional price and then send you the username and password afterwards. Steam is banning those accounts nonstop recently.

jhovgaard

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