How do you actually increase console sales?

[Traslo]

Seriously, it seems impossible to compete with historical consoles. Even if you run a loss on the consoles it never comes close. It's obvious a lot of the historical console sales are on-rails and aren't actually using stats, but having more fans seems to make little to no difference. I tried shedding a full billion dollars on taking losses to sell a console at a serious loss when I launched it and it meant nothing, the console still never got close to the sales of other consoles of the time. I keep consoles at 100 hype at all times (I'll queue up the marketing if it goes under 97).

It seems console sales are better later on in the game, but even if you have like 2M fans in the 1980s you will still sell miles under Nintendo consoles (even in handheld consoles).

I also noticed even if I can sell 20M after 10 years, not a single person wants to make games on the player console usually.

I always try to have exclusives with a side studio producing extra game spinoffs exclusive to the console, on top of having a launch lineup, and always trying to ensure my games have my console as their main platform, and outside of very tiny buffs it seems like console sales are just rigged to be very meh.

[Sol]

1. During a new console's early life, put out 3 games or so that are multiplatform to keep the bank rolling in. Then, stick with console exclusives - ensure the marketing of these games is 100, give each one 10 free updates and - starting Week 3, 5 paid updates. If you have a big studio, you can pump them all out in a few weeks. Get their marketing to 100, give each one 3 paid updates. What this does is push your sales upward.

2. You want a new game to come out on your console every 4 weeks - this does not include paid updates. So you want to rush out a blitz of games within the first 12 weeks. If you can dedicate multiple development rooms, you can get a LOT of games.

3. NEVER underestimate the power of smaller game sizes. Why make a B+ with 20 features if your B game with 10 features can make 95% rating? Same with B+ to A games. Make the smaller game, pump them out like jackrabbits.

4. Your goal is to get 30% market share; this is about when you notice Contract Games for your consoles - they are exclusive games, make them. This will help drive your sales. 30% market share is also when I notice the AI start to buy engines for my console.

5. Consoles were nerfed in a recent update - the NPC consoles were adjusted to have more sales of the same market share, reducing your potential sales. There is nothing you can really do other than understand that T3-T7 or so is full of high range NPC consoles you will struggle to compete with. T1, T2, T6, and T8 seem to be the only console generations that I can rise to the 30-50% market share range. T1 and T8, I have had over 80%. You're not wrong that they were rigged to be kinda "meh". There were also new consoles added, and it feels like Arcades sell for a lot less and generally have a smaller market. This isn't a bad thing, just an observation of rebalancing changes.

Your real goal is to get your console to the 2m+ sales mark. At this point, you can just make exclusive games of the smallest size for a 95% score and pump them out like jackrabbits.

This could be a placebo effect but maybe I am on to something: Try having 5 genres, including one with [ALL]. Cycle your age groups. I feel like I have better performance when I am releasing games for each age group, rather than releasing 20 various RPGs for adults and seniors only. This could be a placebo effect, but it seems to me this helps.

The deck is not stacked for us - there's nothing we can really do about it. I don't necessarily think Consoles should be a gold mine, but it should be a valid way to play and so far, it's so dependent on RNGesus that we can't depend on it.

Consoles are fun but you make more money by ignoring them and releasing games on the top AI consoles - just like it's fun to keep 5 pubilshers at 5 hearts; but there's no benefit, you're supposed to sign exclusive with someone until you can afford to self-publish, which can be lucrative if you don't mind the micromanagement and can gobble up the early losses and stay consistent with the paid updates.

Paid Updates are powerful - by themselves, they are worthless - but if you put out 10 exclusive games with 5 paid updates each in a short amount of time, and give them all 8-12 paid updates, you can fight the tide. I've had a console in my recent save decline from 64 to 28, then did exactly this and got it back to 32 for a bit, but by the time I could no longer stave decline, I had 7m copies sold and my exclusive games were now profitable. I had a short window because the next console starts with 0 sales, of course.

[yutterh]

How do you get B games at 95%? I am assuming your playing on legendary.

[kanewYT]

Originally posted by Traslogan:

Seriously, it seems impossible to compete with historical consoles. Even if you run a loss on the consoles it never comes close. It's obvious a lot of the historical console sales are on-rails and aren't actually using stats, but having more fans seems to make little to no difference. I tried shedding a full billion dollars on taking losses to sell a console at a serious loss when I launched it and it meant nothing, the console still never got close to the sales of other consoles of the time. I keep consoles at 100 hype at all times (I'll queue up the marketing if it goes under 97).

It seems console sales are better later on in the game, but even if you have like 2M fans in the 1980s you will still sell miles under Nintendo consoles (even in handheld consoles).

I also noticed even if I can sell 20M after 10 years, not a single person wants to make games on the player console usually.

I always try to have exclusives with a side studio producing extra game spinoffs exclusive to the console, on top of having a launch lineup, and always trying to ensure my games have my console as their main platform, and outside of very tiny buffs it seems like console sales are just rigged to be very meh.

YOU MAKE LOTS OF GAMES WHAT I DID LOSE PROFIT BUT LOTS OF SALES AND GAMES AND GET GOOD CONSOLE ONLT DO IF GOT 10 BINILLION

[Traslo]

I would spam out literally like 15-20 games for my console, always having 4-5 at launch to buff it. It never seemed to do more than a minor buff.

[GrandeLS]

Originally posted by yutterh:

How do you get B games at 95%? I am assuming your playing on legendary.

It is rather impossible
Just like it is impossible to financially efficiently produce 10 free game add-ons. And it's for a few games at once.
But maybe I don't know much yet

[Traslo]

I've never done free add-ons before personally, I just did paid-ones up to 4 of them so I can resell it as the add-on bundle shortly after it stops selling the individual stuff.

[Kyouko Tsukino]

Originally posted by Red Valour:

Originally posted by yutterh:

How do you get B games at 95%? I am assuming your playing on legendary.

It is rather impossible
Just like it is impossible to financially efficiently produce 10 free game add-ons. And it's for a few games at once.
But maybe I don't know much yet

It's possible. Highly RNG-based, but possible. "Meta" knowledge is required, as wasting time with QA and fan mail will put you beyond the time when you can get that review score out of a B game easily, due to having more features around than you can fit in a B game.

Step 1 - Give your player character the "Error-free" perk (and whichever other perk you like,) and pump their game design all the way to 65.
Step 2 - Research B+ games.
Step 3 - Make your own engine and keep it up to date - not hard to do at first, at least time-wise, with three or four scientists and four people in the dev room.
Step 3 - do B+ contract games until you have enough experience in two compatible genres and two compatible topics, and if possible try to get five starts for at least one platform - avoid the ones that die off in 1977-78, as you most likely won't have enough time to raise those and make a good game.
Step 4 - Get at least 500k dollars, then start working on a a B game, using the perfect slider settings for all sliders, which I memorized for RPGs (hence I don't need QA for guessing.) So in short, let's say I start working on an RPG/Adventure game about Dungeons and Dragons...
Step 5 - Probably pretty important: *** POLISH THE GAME *** You can get a 70% game up to 90%+ with a few months of polishing. Which yeah, you guessed that right, is why you would need to have 500k in your account before starting, to "weather out" the number of months you'll be going without any contract game-based income.
Step 6 - If you wait for a month or two *after* your development report lists your game as "80%-100%" chances are you'll get a 95%+ review score. It'll sell like crap and probably not be too profitable due to how long it was in development, but you can congratulate yourself on achieving that mark.

What I've never been able to, due to review scores being "slightly" RNG-based, was a "first game ever" B-rating game being a 100% game. RNGesus just hates me like that.

[Sol]

Originally posted by yutterh:

How do you get B games at 95%? I am assuming your playing on legendary.

I play only on Legendary and Slow. I get B Games in 1982 with:
1. Good IP at 2.0+. I release a game in 1976, then its spin-off immediately after. During this time, a second development room starts kicking out updates. This second room is also responsible for engines if I get a console at 30%+ share. I have had 90% with IP 1.0 as well.

2. I use ONLY green features and put thought into the final impact of those features on my desired slider goals. I won't add a feature with 100 Tech to a game that requires 40/30/15/15 because I would need a LOT of gameplay to close the gap.

3. When a game is done, I check if it's 80%-100%. If yes, I polish out the bugs and release it. If not, I use Quality Room to Improve Gameplay and that usually does it. In some cases, I might have to use Sound/Graphics studio, but I usually don't have to.

B games are a winner until about 1984-1986. B+ games are good until about 1990.

I also use Contract Work to test the waters - I make a game with only "Controller" and maybe one other feature. If it scores 90%+, I can basically release copies of that two feature game and get 90%+ all day. Even 95% all day.

You do not need to pack a game with every feature and overpolish to death. Maybe for AA games you do. I have been milking A games up to about 1995, at which I am finally forced to use AAA due to it being a pain in the butt to click 30 features or unclick 12 features.

Contract Work is a great way to use new genres, engine parts, topics, build that EXP up before releasing a game for yourself.

Yesterday, I had a 100% B-Game in 1978, self-published. It sold like crap, but when it won Game of the Year, its sales spiked for several weeks. I've had a million 97% games done perfectly.

I've released fully stacked games next to mostly naked games, both with the 95% range, and selling the same as long as they both have the same number of updates and hype.

I use Paid Updates because I can build experience in genres/topics/engines. It takes 4 paid updates to get 5 stars of experience at something, and you can use 3 paid updates - one for each polishing room, to feel like a REAL game developer who removes stuff from the base game just to sell it back as an expansion or DLC.

[yutterh]

Originally posted by Old School:

Originally posted by yutterh:

How do you get B games at 95%? I am assuming your playing on legendary.

I play only on Legendary and Slow. I get B Games in 1982 with:
1. Good IP at 2.0+. I release a game in 1976, then its spin-off immediately after. During this time, a second development room starts kicking out updates. This second room is also responsible for engines if I get a console at 30%+ share. I have had 90% with IP 1.0 as well.

2. I use ONLY green features and put thought into the final impact of those features on my desired slider goals. I won't add a feature with 100 Tech to a game that requires 40/30/15/15 because I would need a LOT of gameplay to close the gap.

3. When a game is done, I check if it's 80%-100%. If yes, I polish out the bugs and release it. If not, I use Quality Room to Improve Gameplay and that usually does it. In some cases, I might have to use Sound/Graphics studio, but I usually don't have to.

B games are a winner until about 1984-1986. B+ games are good until about 1990.

I also use Contract Work to test the waters - I make a game with only "Controller" and maybe one other feature. If it scores 90%+, I can basically release copies of that two feature game and get 90%+ all day. Even 95% all day.

You do not need to pack a game with every feature and overpolish to death. Maybe for AA games you do. I have been milking A games up to about 1995, at which I am finally forced to use AAA due to it being a pain in the butt to click 30 features or unclick 12 features.

Contract Work is a great way to use new genres, engine parts, topics, build that EXP up before releasing a game for yourself.

Yesterday, I had a 100% B-Game in 1978, self-published. It sold like crap, but when it won Game of the Year, its sales spiked for several weeks. I've had a million 97% games done perfectly.

I've released fully stacked games next to mostly naked games, both with the 95% range, and selling the same as long as they both have the same number of updates and hype.

I use Paid Updates because I can build experience in genres/topics/engines. It takes 4 paid updates to get 5 stars of experience at something, and you can use 3 paid updates - one for each polishing room, to feel like a REAL game developer who removes stuff from the base game just to sell it back as an expansion or DLC.

My bad, I thought you meant releasing B games in like 2000 or something lol yeah early years it is possible and i usually do. Thanks for all the info though and clarifying what you meant. But I can also see why you get a game a month as well, slow doe that for ya.

[Sol]

I released a 90% B-game in 1987 just now. I will release B+ games after the B games no longer get 90. In the 1990s-2005ish in my experience, the B+ game becomes the new tiny jaxkrabbit to whip out really fast for 90%. A games become super fast to make in 2010. Get a development studio of 50 people at 90+ (in my case, 100) skill and the quality/sound/graphics room, 12 each.

Once I get a console to even 700k, I can start pumping out the smallest game size that will score 90%, and I might even take late-game B Game contract work to bag an AI with "worst game of the year". Once I can release one exclusive game every 2 weeks, minimal polishing on all ends to get Development Report to say 80-100%, I will spike most consoles up to the 20%-30% range. Then the AI posts contract work (also exclusive games) for my consoles and I can give them "bad games" that pass with lowest score (which lets me gain exp in new features/.genres/topics and leave them the bad rated 78-88% game instead of myself).

My current T3 in 1987 has 12m sales, 17% market share, and handheld has 100% market share with 8m copies (I sold several multiplatform) when both have 700k, a "small" game becomes money. Once the stationary gets 700k, it's all exclusive games. I aggressively hammer them out.

In my most recent playthrough I only make 3 paid updates per game, at weeks 4, 8, and 12. When my storage hits capacity, I stop making games and churn out paid updates, contract games, and most importantly, bad games for the other publishers (I give them 85% range games and self-publish 90-95%+ games).

I take games down once they hit the 20k-50k wk mark OR when the total sales is edging toward the number of units sold on my console.

I think my T3 console is going to slowly dwindle from its 17% downward from here, though I have a little more room to grow from exclusive games.

I will have to test the latest year I can get a 90% B game, and under what conditions I did so (specific features, IP quality, etc). If we're using "realism", there are still hot selling B Games released in 2020 in the real world, so I don't see why B Games would ever hit the wall on ratings. They should (and do) hit the wall on sales. When I put out a B game next to an A game, both at 95%, you can guess which one is selling 12k copies per week and which one is selling 180k copies per week.

I wish the console sales reflected game quality/frequency and less dependent on RNGesus. The only way I get consoles to sell - yes, is to set up a super workhorse machine gun that churns out a game every 2 weeks, with the 3 paid updates. I decided 3 is less work than 5, and lets me release an extra 2 games per year under my current system. It would be nice to "play normal" without resorting to this, but it feels like we have choices.

We can make big dedicated workshop factories that manage 8 games at a time. Or we can set up a giant MMO farm for 5 MMOs at a time. Or we can set up a super fast game development/processing factory. Or we can set up the self-publishing super machine. But I am not sure if we're supposed to be able to do it all in one playthrough. The space says no. But more future production/storage, and more maps - just might say yes. It's exciting, and very early in development process.

[GrandeLS]

Originally posted by Old School:

I

Do you play slow with or without adjusted time?
And are you using perfect settings game concepts from meta files?

[Kyouko Tsukino]

You can get 95%+ review B-games with normal speed in Legendary, if you don't mind going into the "reds," which at the moment mean absolutely nothing at all. But even without going to the reds, it can be done, you just need to have a million saved up before you start up your first game (the 500k I mentioned before could be too little,) then polish the game for as long as you feel you can handle it. Just remember that there's an "unknown" part of that percentage which is random, so you can polish a game for two whole years and still only get 96% (yes, I did try that, in Hard, for the heck of it.)

"But how can you save up a million in Legendary?" All it really takes is a few contract "A" games, or a lot of B+ games.

[yutterh]

Thinking more on this, having to be forced to one play style of machine gunning games to get your console up is a little ridiculous. Hopefully when we are able to buy studios we ca have them getting exclusives out for our console and that will help boost sales. We also need a buff to console sales when you go negative, yes there is one but it isnt big enough to be worth it. Right now I think the balance in how much money you make just on the sales is good, we jsut need soe extra tools to get the market share increased. Maybe also add overhype to consoles will help.

[Sol]

Originally posted by Red Valour:

Originally posted by Old School:

I

Do you play slow with or without adjusted time?
And are you using perfect settings game concepts from meta files?

Slow, no adjustment to speed. I get things done a little quicker but there is also a lot of fast forwarding through time. I don't build a sound room or graphics room until about 1985 or so, as I can hit 90% scores without them - just using the right sliders, genres/topics, and the only people who get trained are Game Developers, to 70. They get the rest from working.

When a game is finished, if it's not 80%-100%, I polish it for the smallest amount of time until it is.

I usually have 3 development rooms - one for games (12 desks), one for engines, free updates, and paid updates (8 desks) and one that handles contract games, contract work, and occasionally produces "The Smallest Game That Will Get 90%+" which for me around 1985-1987 becomes B+ with Quality Room "improve gameplay" polishing. Around 1990, any game will need all rooms.

I also learned NOT to use every gameplay feature. Look at the Gameplay/Graphics/Sound/Tech that features have, and use the minimum and try to stay in range of what your genre sliders are. This allows a deluge of B Games with 10 specialized features and all 3 polishing rooms to still pump out 90% scores in 1985-1987 or so, and most of the time it will be from an IP with 3.0+ value.

When I have the money, I combine my second and third development rooms into 18 desks and bring the main one up to 36. The first one produces big games, the second one produces small games (and paid updates for big games).

I put out an average of 3-5 main games per year - once I get going, usually around 1978, I am producing 1-3 B+ games per year, and 8-14 B games per year. As a general rule, I do spin-offs as B games, and sequels as B+ games.

When I have several 90%+ games, I begin creating Workshops and hiring Technicians to start producing the arcade ports. I like Workshops having about 8 desks for Arcade Games. The first round of getting to 5* is waste - once you make your money back, make your next batch of 5. Each workshop should take care of one game. Instead of paying to train them and sit on their thumbs, I work them to 100. These guys will make consoles when I am ready. Arcades in the interim.

Note 1: This is more difficult these days because of changes I proposed that were considered about the pricing of licenses. You used to be able to buy a few 5 use licenses cheap.

Note 2: Buying the top left building is essential. I can put everything there, and it will be a long time before I need to buy the bottom left and bottom right building. Bottom Right becomes full Development Room. Bottom Left becomes full Research room.

Note 3: B Games, even at 90% will have a very low sales rate compared to B+ games, same with B+ to A games. The small games build experience and garner lots of sales when 8 of them are considered together. Bigger games are given 3 paid updates: Week 4, 6, 8. If something starts to really take off, I make 2 more paid updates for it and 5 free updates. This shot of steroids can turn a moneymaker into a bankroll. Paid Updates are displayed as "Games" on the right side of the screen, but they do not increase your IP. Like releasing games, you can lose hearts with other publishers. I use them for bigger games because they can turn a game that sells 500k into a game that sells 850k-1.4m. Especially if that game hits trend (along with said paid updates!).

Note 4: I don't build a console until I can really afford the loss if it's a bust and in the games I lose, this is why I lose. It busts. I like releasing on the highest Units Sold/Market Share systems. My first games on my console are multi-platform, the next several are B games manufacturer exclusive to drive the stationary up to 700k+, then the torrent of exclusive spin-offs and sequels pump it up. Even if I never get above 10% market share, I usually run away with 2m-4m units sold. These games do not significantly increase the sales of a console - but when you release what, 12+ total games a year and roughly 15-20 paid updates between the big games, it significantly pushes the market share and units sold. This is a high workrate system that requires steady attention, and if these games had a bigger impact on console sales - or if console success were more driven by game quality than RNG, then I wouldn't need to do this. I also don't recommend it to everyone.

Note 5: When your Console gets around 30% market share, you will notice contract work for your console - Exclusive Games. I make them all. I love using Game Contracts to develop experience, especially when I finally reach self-publishing. I can stick the main publishers with 70-80% "bad" games then create good games for myself.

Usually if I run into the red, I skyrocket from 100k to 100m+, 1b+ debt range very quickly and it's a guaranteed game over. I bailed myself out one time because I stupidly got game of the year on a trending genre that had 8 paid updates and it. It sold 20m games (1988, 5.0 IP, 5 star license, became trend on Week 14 post-nosedive but the awards and trend pushed it up).

I build ONLY amenities in rooms that either have uses, use value, or high stars per cost (such as the Artistic Drawings and Hexagon Carpets) and place coffee, water, radios, plants in between desks. If desks are placed snapping on, this stuff fits between them snapping off, sometimes two items in between! You can take care of almost all lounge/entertainment needs inside the work room doing this, but it requires using two fewer desks than the Overcrowding Limit.

I build small lounges with a few keyboards, refrigerators, chairs. Small bathrooms as well. Most employees who uses the lounge want to go in big waves - to prevent "Lounge Wave" during an important moment, I do NOT hire a wave of people at once. I stagger my hirings into small groups a week or two apart. This might just be a placebo effect but when I don't, it feels like everyone rushes to the lounge in a big wave, one wave after the other - and when I stagger my hirings, it feels like smaller groups go at a time. This increases the rate at which the lounge is actually used, but it feels like there are fewer people rage quitting because they all want to use this room at the same time.

Do not research all topics. Pick 3 genres, research 6 topics for each, and develop 3 IPs for each. One is your main genre. My 3 are (main) RPG, Adventure, Strategy. Every 2 weeks, I research a new topic that is pertinent to my genres. This is because I want my researches to have work-gap-work-gap instead of work---------gap---------work, and half of them quit. Doing this with research ensures when Console or Engine parts become available that I won't have to worry about 3 of my top 8 just walking out a week before because they're sick of being paid to not work.

3 IPs for 3 Genres - 9 IPs. Sequels should be released in two year increments. Otherwise, you should be focusing on Spin-Offs. I keep most Spin-Offs B games, like I said, because consistency helps me remember what I am doing. If an IP suddenly becomes bigger than the others, I focus on making it more spin-offs and arcade ports of those spin-offs. This is NOT too many IPs to manage, and leaves room to make new IPs.

Taken together, my strategies take a little bit of time to get off the ground, usually 1978 or so before I have two development rooms. Some games, I am forced to buy the center-right building first because my need outpaces my ability to save for the top-left one. This is not the worst problem, but it does limit my early abilities. In this case, I focus on quality a second development room, and 3 workshops (toilet, lounge). This lets me (slower rate) slowly build IP value and coffers. You cannot ignore Arcade Machines because their sales will nosedive from 1k to 200 to 12, and you should try to make a new batch of arcades every 8 months or so. Most Arcade lasts 2 years which gives you 3 batch cycles of arcade games.

You can also create one Arcade IP that you instead port to PC. The reason I don't ever do this is because as of now, we cannot make a Spin-off or Sequel of an Arcade game on a PC/Console, or vise versa. Only the Ports. I understand this might be changing down the road, but for the time being, I avoid starting an IP on an Arcade. I might start one IP on an Arcade if it's 1982 and Racing or Skill is trending.

Oh, and be aware - some Genres are negative for certain machines based on how a genre's positive/negative Gameplay Features line up with what a console wants. I don't release EcoSim on my console because controller is bad. RPGs don't seem to like Arcade Joystick. So when you're porting, you should consider whether the game is good for what you're porting it to. A native arcade game can easily be Ported just for Console if keyboard is bad, or just PC if controller is bad. While if you port anything to Arcade, you're forced to use Arcade Joystick Controller.

[Sol]

Oh - early game, Puzzle is my third genre, then I shift to Strategy when it becomes available.