Comparison

Game Studio Tycoon 3 vs TV Wars

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Game Studio Tycoon 3

Simulate a complete game development studio, from hiring staff and creating games to designing hardware and managing finances. Compete against AI studios and grow your business across decades of gaming history.

Highlights
  • Build and manage a game studio
  • Develop games for various platforms
  • Create custom gaming hardware
  • Manage employees and teams
  • Engage with a complex fan system
  • Compete against AI studios
Features
Read full description

It’s a dream of every amateur and pro gamer to have their own personal game studio where they can hire the best developers, create awesome video games and sell them for a huge profit! Game Studio Tycoon 3 gives you the chance to simulate a fully functional game development studio! Do you have what it takes to beat the competition and become the best studio in the industry? • Start on your own in a small office, and grow your gaming business to owning 7 buildings and managing 50 employees while tasking 3 independent teams of game developers to produce different projects at the same time! • Build your video gaming business alone, or try to get help from investors. A unique investor system allows you to sell off part of your company for money when you’re in a pinch! • Develop games for devices from 50 years of gaming history as well as the near future. • Create your own video games and even MMO’s! Determine the level of support for your MMO games, create updates, and run advertisement campaigns to attract new users! • Create your own hardware! You can create a traditional console, handheld device, or even a mobile device (tablet/phone). Once your hardware is released you can try to increase your market share by investing in third party developers to produce games for your hardware. Every game you release on your own hardware can help increase your market share! • Set the price for your games and hardware. Lower priced products tend to sell more, but turn less of a profit – find the right balance to capitalize! • Participate in 3 yearly conventions, each targeted at different types of fans. • Incredibly complex fan and user system. Each fan has a genre preference, and platform preference, and an age. On top of that, your fans will grow older as the game progresses! • Compare your studio against 7 AI studios and compete for yearly awards. • Analyze and strategize! Pour over various charts and graphs to determine what games you should make and decide what direction to take your company in. • Plan your game projects and hardware ahead of time. You can queue up to 3 projects for each team to work on for a total of 9 projects. This means when a team is done with their current project, they will move on to the next one right away! • Take a gamble and make games for big publishers! However, publisher deals rely on your past projects so be sure to have a high average game rating! • Certify your employees in 8 different technical fields to help improve their performance. Chase your dream and get immersed in the ultimate tycoon adventure of the Game Development industry!

About

TV Wars

Manage your own television network, creating custom shows and competing against rivals for top ratings. Make strategic programming decisions, renew or cancel shows, and capitalize on trends to build your TV empire.

Highlights
  • Create custom TV shows
  • Compete against 80+ networks
  • Strategic programming decisions
  • Renew or cancel shows
  • Story arc strategy
  • Capitalize on season trends
Features
Read full description

Introducing TV Wars: Primetime Simulator – where you become the mastermind behind your very own television network! Take charge as either a broadcast station or a cable network, and engage in fierce competition with over 80 networks, all vying for the top spot in your coveted timeslot. Key Features • Create Your Own TV Shows: Craft your TV empire from the ground up by customizing every aspect, from titles and themes to budgets and casts! • Sweeps Battle: Race to claim the coveted number one position during the critical sweeps periods. • Programming Choices: Make crucial decisions about your content by scheduling reruns or airing brand-new episodes. It's your network – you call the shots! • Renew or Cancel: Determine the fate of your shows, whether to give them a green light for another season or pull the plug. • Story Arc Strategy: Select the perfect story arcs for your TV programs, but choose wisely, as certain combinations yield higher ratings than others. • Season Trends: Capitalize on the latest trends with special holiday-themed episodes that give your ratings a significant boost! • Ongoing Updates: TV Wars is continually evolving with frequent game updates, bringing even more exciting features to the table. And we're committed to delivering more updates throughout 2024 – stay tuned! Follow Us Twitter @tvwarsprimetime Instagram @tvwarsprimetime Forum at https://www.forum.musicwars.app

Screenshots

Game Studio Tycoon 34 screens
TV Wars4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: TV Wars at Free against Game Studio Tycoon 3's $4.99. TV Wars also leads on rating (4.7 vs 3.8) and update cadence (every 2 days vs every 8 days). Game Studio Tycoon 3's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 13) and ads (none vs shown). On review sentiment, device support and iOS requirement there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

TV Wars is free to download; Game Studio Tycoon 3 costs $4.99 up front. TV Wars sells 13 one-off in-app purchases. Game Studio Tycoon 3 asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

TV Wars holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 3.8. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: TV Wars has 715 ratings behind it against 90, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 53% of Game Studio Tycoon 3's written reviews are positive against 50% of TV Wars's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Game Studio Tycoon 3 ships an update every 8 days, TV Wars every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on November 1, 2026 and October 30, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard7 real differences · 3 level
Game Studio Tycoon 3 versus TV Wars: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterGame Studio Tycoon 3TV Wars
Price$4.99Free — better
Rating3.8 (90 ratings)4.7 (715 ratings) — better
Positive reviews52.8% of reviews — better50.0% of reviews
Number of ratings90715 — better
Update frequencyEvery 8 daysEvery 2 days — better
AdsNo — betterYes
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationPaidFree with in-app purchases — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS11.011.0
Further details — not scored
Size165 MB221 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperAshley SherwinMusic Wars LLC

Customer experience

Game Studio Tycoon 3

All ratings90 ratings
Positive68.9%
Neutral8.9%
Negative22.2%
Written reviews127 reviews
Positive52.8%
Neutral15.7%
Negative31.5%

TV Wars

All ratings707 ratings
Positive92.4%
Neutral3.1%
Negative4.5%
Written reviews90 reviews
Positive50.0%
Neutral17.8%
Negative32.2%

User reviews

Game Studio Tycoon 3

From 90 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 The best game ever!!
  • 👍 Pretty fun and addicting game would recommend
  • 👍 Great Game
  • 👍 It's super fun
  • 👍 Fun

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Keeps crashing
  • 🐛 Crashes continuously
  • 🐛 Impossible To Win!
  • 🐛 Doesn't fit my screen correctly. Crashes all the time. An ugly looking copy of Game Dev Tycoon. Save your money.
  • 🐛 The game isn't even optimized to fit an iPhone, yet you're trying to 'sell' it instead of making it a free app? Worst 3 dollars or so I've ever spent in my life. It's to bad I can't rate 0 stars.

TV Wars

From 715 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Fast and responsive
  • 🎨 Creative show creation
  • 🤖 Interesting AI-generated content

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Frequent bugs and glitches
  • 🕰️ Repetitive gameplay loop
  • 💰 Excessive ads and monetization
  • 🔍 Lack of diversity in generated characters

Bugs and requests

Game Studio Tycoon 3

Reported bugs

11 issues
  • Ratings Problem
  • Impossible To Win!
  • Doesn't fit iPhone notch
  • Разрешение экрана
  • Слiders don't work for engine
Show 6 more
  • Kein Update
  • Game over penalty is too small and easy is the best way to play
  • Load Game menu Dosen't work only some times works you sometimes have to redownload game.
  • After finishing the first50yrs, I was told to own those console and engine but I don't see anything when I create a new game
  • My game crashes every time I try to load a save after finishing the first 50yrs of game
  • Certification is insanely hard to get, I am wondering if there are function if I got those certification

Requested features

6 requests
  • Add a newsreel I feel like it'd be an interesting concept to the game
  • Sandbox mode
  • More genres and topics
  • Ability to move staff to a new office
  • Simplified Chinese
Show 1 more
  • Update Food Tyccon for iOS11 please

TV Wars

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Episodes disappearing or not airing correctly
  • Game freezing when progressing to the next week
  • Issues with saving and loading progress
  • Problems with show scheduling and management

Requested features

5 requests
  • Ability to create custom characters
  • Crossover and cliffhanger features
  • More control over show scheduling and programming
  • Autosave functionality
  • Background music and sound effects

In-app purchases

None

Game Studio Tycoon 3

No in-app purchases

13 purchases

TV Wars

One-time13
  • Cash 5M$2.99
  • Cash 10M$4.99
  • Cash 25M$7.99
Show 10 more
  • A.I. Tokens - 250$9.99
  • Cash 50M$11.99
  • Demo Pass$14.99
  • Story Arc Pass$14.99
  • Cash 100M$18.99
  • Launch Bundle$19.99
  • A.I. Tokens - 1000$19.99
  • Cash 250M$24.99
  • Cash 500M$34.99
  • Cash 1B$59.99

Questions

Is Game Studio Tycoon 3 free?
Game Studio Tycoon 3 costs $4.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is TV Wars free?
TV Wars is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Game Studio Tycoon 3 or TV Wars?
TV Wars is rated higher. Game Studio Tycoon 3 averages 3.8 out of 5 from 90 ratings, while TV Wars averages 4.7 from 715 ratings.
Do Game Studio Tycoon 3 or TV Wars have ads?
TV Wars shows ads; Game Studio Tycoon 3 does not.
Which is updated more often, Game Studio Tycoon 3 or TV Wars?
Game Studio Tycoon 3 ships an update every 8 days, and TV Wars every 2 days. Most recently, Game Studio Tycoon 3 was updated on November 1, 2026 and TV Wars on October 30, 2026.

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