Are exceeded market interest really wasted?

[Azige]

Or extra features make advantages in competition?

I had an series of antivirus software just above 100% interest. But I always had less sales than my competitors. Even I tweaked market targeting to ideal value, made the quality of my software better than theirs, made my marketing unavoidable, things did not get better. The last thing might be market recognition but even a newly founded company could have more units sold per month than mine. After I took over an competitor's IP, I realized it had 48% wasted interest, thus their software had more features than mine. It's reasonable I was losing in competition. Does the game really work in this way?

[Dominian]

My experience makes me assume, that it does work like that, but I also don't fully understand what the 100% actually means. The extra sales created by a more feature complete software sort of invalidate the value for me. Now I just use it as a rough guideline. When I aim for about 150% (50% wasted), I hit the sweet spot of dev time and sales.

[Rasip]

Over 100% means more work for the same number of sales.

[nosedigger]

Originally posted by Azige:

Or extra features make advantages in competition?

I had an series of antivirus software just above 100% interest. But I always had less sales than my competitors. Even I tweaked market targeting to ideal value, made the quality of my software better than theirs, made my marketing unavoidable, things did not get better. The last thing might be market recognition but even a newly founded company could have more units sold per month than mine. After I took over an competitor's IP, I realized it had 48% wasted interest, thus their software had more features than mine. It's reasonable I was losing in competition. Does the game really work in this way?

You are on the right track here, I'm glad to see.

Yes, the Market Recognition does play key part in product sales, so when you are new company with first product, you are not going to get much sales, especially if that software is Antivirus.
Wasted interest do not contribute to sales at all, and why AI is making products with so much of it (non-sense), it is still a mystery for me.
However, the obvious reason why your competitors outsell you, is because it is their sequel not initial release. In Software Inc., sequels are the engine which drive more fans and Market Recognition.
So do not fall in trap of making products with too much wasted interest, it is just a waste of resources without any gains. Create a sequel to your Antivirus, if it's the same or better quality, it will sell more (and more).

[Azige]

Thanks for the replies. I found something interesting.

1. In design document, raising tech level will raise market interest. A post release update introducing new tech level for a software may boost the sale a bit even if market interest is already 100%.
2. Pre-marketing of a sequel hurts the sale of the original one (or the whole market?)

I had a "successful" antivirus software that had similar profit to AI's. But it took several years to achieve that, without announcement of a sequel and I kept updating it. AI companies just spam sequels and earn same profit every year.

I guess the game discourage you to spam sequels and encourage you to develop more types of software. AI companies don't play the same rule as players because they are not smart enough and you need competitors to make the game not boring :p

[nosedigger]

Originally posted by Azige:

Thanks for the replies. I found something interesting.

1. In design document, raising tech level will raise market interest. A post release update introducing new tech level for a software may boost the sale a bit even if market interest is already 100%.
2. Pre-marketing of a sequel hurts the sale of the original one (or the whole market?)

I had a "successful" antivirus software that had similar profit to AI's. But it took several years to achieve that, without announcement of a sequel and I kept updating it. AI companies just spam sequels and earn same profit every year.

I guess the game discourage you to spam sequels and encourage you to develop more types of software. AI companies don't play the same rule as players because they are not smart enough and you need competitors to make the game not boring :p

1. Updating to the latest tech gives you edge over the competition (if you are first), so of course latest tech level with boost the sales. This is best observed when the 1985 tech level is researched, after the update every product should receive a nice boost to sales.
As for raising market interest in Design phase, take it as you can achieve 100% market interest with less Features (more optimized product, minimal Wasted interest)

2. As for sequels, you got it wrong. My experience is that announcing the sequel will actually boost the sales of the currently standing release. Each sequel will increase your fan base for that IP, and will directly increase Market Recognition, so marketing of sequels will be more and more effective (4th sequel released has high chance of being "Unavoidable" straight on the release date, which is huge).
The drop in sales can be contributed to several factors:

- Antivirus has one of lowest lifespan, since it's one of the simplest software types available. If you check AI, you will see that they churn out a new sequel to their AV every two years, comparing it to PC OS, or Adventure/RPG which are done in 4-5 years span.
You can keep AV for longer if you implemented Network and it is after 2000 or later, do not expect AV to be profitable and long standing before that year.

- Competition has released new sequel, or new AV has hit the market

- Check total sales against Consumer Reach for your AV, it might be that you already sold high amount

As I said, dont be shy to do sequels, because each will be more successful than previous, while building MR and IP's fan base for further sales.

[Azige]

Originally posted by nosedigger:

Originally posted by Azige:

Thanks for the replies. I found something interesting.

1. In design document, raising tech level will raise market interest. A post release update introducing new tech level for a software may boost the sale a bit even if market interest is already 100%.
2. Pre-marketing of a sequel hurts the sale of the original one (or the whole market?)

I had a "successful" antivirus software that had similar profit to AI's. But it took several years to achieve that, without announcement of a sequel and I kept updating it. AI companies just spam sequels and earn same profit every year.

I guess the game discourage you to spam sequels and encourage you to develop more types of software. AI companies don't play the same rule as players because they are not smart enough and you need competitors to make the game not boring :p

1. Updating to the latest tech gives you edge over the competition (if you are first), so of course latest tech level with boost the sales. This is best observed when the 1985 tech level is researched, after the update every product should receive a nice boost to sales.
As for raising market interest in Design phase, take it as you can achieve 100% market interest with less Features (more optimized product, minimal Wasted interest)

2. As for sequels, you got it wrong. My experience is that announcing the sequel will actually boost the sales of the currently standing release. Each sequel will increase your fan base for that IP, and will directly increase Market Recognition, so marketing of sequels will be more and more effective (4th sequel released has high chance of being "Unavoidable" straight on the release date, which is huge).
The drop in sales can be contributed to several factors:

- Antivirus has one of lowest lifespan, since it's one of the simplest software types available. If you check AI, you will see that they churn out a new sequel to their AV every two years, comparing it to PC OS, or Adventure/RPG which are done in 4-5 years span.
You can keep AV for longer if you implemented Network and it is after 2000 or later, do not expect AV to be profitable and long standing before that year.

- Competition has released new sequel, or new AV has hit the market

- Check total sales against Consumer Reach for your AV, it might be that you already sold high amount

As I said, dont be shy to do sequels, because each will be more successful than previous, while building MR and IP's fan base for further sales.

Well, I do make sequels. The "successful one" was the 7th or 8th of the series and I already reached top market recognition. I was pretty sure the pre-marketing of a sequel would impact the market as I already observed this several times: after releasing a press build, the number of sale and active users of current software drops quickly, even the sale of competitors drops. So I tried not to release any press build for next sequel for a while and watch how things going. The "successful one" had a 4M customer reach and sold about 2M units after couple of years, at a rate around 100K per month.