Guide to distribute video games(request)

[Jxvier67]

Hello, I have been playing the game frequently, but it turns out that I have a problem, and it is about the distribution of my own games and other studios, I always have problems to sell and produce copies, it is very cumbersome to go to the factory every time I run out of copies of a video game, also making marketing campaigns is very expensive and I lose money. What I ask is, please, a guide for the distribution of video games, I know I'm not the only player who has this problem, I would appreciate of course the help of you. Thanks.

[Kyouko Tsukino]

Here's a few tips, all of which I've used time and again to pretty much "break" the game in Legendary. Not trying to boast anything, but in this game, any "trick" that works for Legendary will work even better for lower difficulties.

Legendary, normal speed, by 1985 I've usually set up self-distribution and am rolling in money.

- Self distribution is only really worth doing if your studio's got at least three stars of rating, and your IP's rating will also affect your sales.

- Your game's review rating is very important to your potential sales. You'll want to aim for *at least* 90% to have a game that's worth self-distributing.

- Having a lot of IPs is cute for roleplaying purposes, but highly detrimental to success. The less IPs you have, the more you can focus in each, and the faster they'll get to five stars rating, which will make them sell a lot more.

- The platforms you target matter: if you're distributing your games to platforms that have a total of 50k users, you *won't* sell more than 50k copies, no matter how good your game is and how well-known your studio has become. Try to always target the platforms with the highest *active users* (not market share, a platform can have 100% of the market with 20k users, and "only" have 1% of the market with one million users, because markets are split between platform types.)

- This is very important for anyone having troubles with the tedious manual production method: *It's not needed to manually supervise every game you sell, you can automate them all.* Have small (5x5) production rooms with two machines in them, and automate their production. I've gotten used to this, at first getting a few production rooms, then later on expanding and making them bigger as the demand for games increases - which depending on the difficulty level, won't be an issue until the late 2000s.

- Marketing campaigns are *never* needed for games. If your game's good enough (90%+) your studio well-known (3+ stars) and the IP is rated high enough (2 or more stars) then you'll be selling a lot of copies anyways - and if you do sequels and spin-offs to raise your IPs, then games will have a starting hype, up to 90 for 4+ IP rating, if I recall correctly.

I do have a game development rhythm that's not for everyone - I make one game every three or four months, with my development team (all rooms involved) being busy for those whole three to four months. This has allowed me to get a consistent 95%+ review score due to extensive polishing. As I said above, review rating is very important for sales. I also tend to bypass both add-ons and the "budget" part of games - they are both just a waste of time and space to maintain, for too little return.

I usually end up having at least ten production rooms to keep up with my development speed, but if you're doing things slower, even four or five automated production rooms should be good enough - games don't stay around forever, so if you make one game a year, you'll have the oldest game out of the market by the time your fourth game's finished. If you find that your games take too long to go out of the market, you can increase the price - they'll lose sales quicker, but the money you'll get will be almost the same, and you can then use *even less* production rooms.

[Jxvier67]

Originally posted by Kyouko Tsukino:

Here's a few tips, all of which I've used time and again to pretty much "break" the game in Legendary. Not trying to boast anything, but in this game, any "trick" that works for Legendary will work even better for lower difficulties.

Legendary, normal speed, by 1985 I've usually set up self-distribution and am rolling in money.

- Self distribution is only really worth doing if your studio's got at least three stars of rating, and your IP's rating will also affect your sales.

- Your game's review rating is very important to your potential sales. You'll want to aim for *at least* 90% to have a game that's worth self-distributing.

- Having a lot of IPs is cute for roleplaying purposes, but highly detrimental to success. The less IPs you have, the more you can focus in each, and the faster they'll get to five stars rating, which will make them sell a lot more.

- The platforms you target matter: if you're distributing your games to platforms that have a total of 50k users, you *won't* sell more than 50k copies, no matter how good your game is and how well-known your studio has become. Try to always target the platforms with the highest *active users* (not market share, a platform can have 100% of the market with 20k users, and "only" have 1% of the market with one million users, because markets are split between platform types.)

- This is very important for anyone having troubles with the tedious manual production method: *It's not needed to manually supervise every game you sell, you can automate them all.* Have small (5x5) production rooms with two machines in them, and automate their production. I've gotten used to this, at first getting a few production rooms, then later on expanding and making them bigger as the demand for games increases - which depending on the difficulty level, won't be an issue until the late 2000s.

- Marketing campaigns are *never* needed for games. If your game's good enough (90%+) your studio well-known (3+ stars) and the IP is rated high enough (2 or more stars) then you'll be selling a lot of copies anyways - and if you do sequels and spin-offs to raise your IPs, then games will have a starting hype, up to 90 for 4+ IP rating, if I recall correctly.

I do have a game development rhythm that's not for everyone - I make one game every three or four months, with my development team (all rooms involved) being busy for those whole three to four months. This has allowed me to get a consistent 95%+ review score due to extensive polishing. As I said above, review rating is very important for sales. I also tend to bypass both add-ons and the "budget" part of games - they are both just a waste of time and space to maintain, for too little return.

I usually end up having at least ten production rooms to keep up with my development speed, but if you're doing things slower, even four or five automated production rooms should be good enough - games don't stay around forever, so if you make one game a year, you'll have the oldest game out of the market by the time your fourth game's finished. If you find that your games take too long to go out of the market, you can increase the price - they'll lose sales quicker, but the money you'll get will be almost the same, and you can then use *even less* production rooms.

Muchísimas gracias tío, esto es lo que necesitaba, ahora sí podré liberarme de Nintendo😎🤙🏽

[Aida79]

I read through all that good stuff

But the part about console market share and active users how to I check the active user count ?

[Kyouko Tsukino]

The easiest way to see this is in the same part of the game's setup where you select platforms. There's a number at the bottom right of each platform's "info card" that tells you how many users they have.

And the symbol that looks like an "E" in a cyan circle at the bottom-left corner of the platform-selecting screen tells you the total users you're targeting with all your consoles. *This* number is your maximum potential sales, you cannot go higher than what that number says.

One of the options to sort platforms in that screen is by active users, and that's the sorting option I use, as active users are the single most important thing in that part of game making.

Anyhow, here's some visual aid: https://i.imgur.com/xZpuDzN.jpg

Compare the Katari to the Byte II to know why I always say "market share is just window dressing." The Byte II, with a pathetic 12.9% market share on computers, has almost as many users as the Katari 2600, which has "twice" the market share.

As for the "what about your own consoles" question I can see coming, well... I tend to make games for the two platforms with the highest active users (which will usually be more than fifty percent of of the active users of every active platform in the list,) and my own consoles, but until player-made consoles are balanced out of their high pedestal, I could also just make games for the four most active platforms and let my consoles gather money for nothing (and fans for free.)

[Aida79]

I thought that E was the most consoles sold

[Kyouko Tsukino]

Nope, that symbol down there is the total number of people you are targeting with your game. May be the most important thing to pay attention to when making a game.

Game without 100% perfect sliders? Can still sell well, heck, I've had some 97% review scores on games that I purposefully had all sliders be "one place off." (Polishing for a long time and having IP 5 and 5 stars studio rating seems to make reviews love whatever you do.)

Games for non-trending topics/genres? They still sell like fresh bread, in fact I never look at trends anymore, as their boost is never needed.

Games that target 5k users total? "Well, I guess you don't want to sell that game." ;)