Special Marketing

[MythicalReign227]

what is the situation with my special marketing actions pre-release? they seemingly always have negative results now. Its starting to seem completely not worth it anymore for such a small hype boost and review percentage loss/gain.

[Kyouko Tsukino]

If your game, at the end of the weekend after the special marketing action was completed, has a low predicted review rating (lower than 70% may do this in Legendary rarely, not sure in lower difficulties) then either hype gain or review rating gain can be negative. The lower the predicted score, the higher the chances for this backfire, from what I've seen. But the positive hype gain is random, from 1 to 20 hype, even at a potential 90-100% review score (you can check this yourself by reloading a week where you made a "demo" and letting the week end, several times. It will be a different hype gain every time (and different games being announced/released, and different number and quality of employees, and different contract games... "RNG: The Game.")

Special marketing isn't worth it by design IMO*, when you need it it may be too expensive to use frequently, and locking into a high review rating is relatively easy. Improving your IP (by releasing many games for it) will eventually lead to your game starting at 60 hype, which is already overkill even in Legendary... At least making games at a quick enough pace that profit stays relatively high even in the seventies.

* Edit: Marketing as a whole is not worth it, outside of keeping consoles above 90 hype, really. Yes, you can get more money by getting more hype for your games, but if you aren't over-spending, over-sizing or over-decorating, you'll get more than enough money either way.