Fan Base problems

[Mr.Jack]

Hello everyone. i have encountered a problem regarding fanbase. I will preface that I use CGS Mega mod and I have tried starting 3 games using difficulty level 2 and 3, but the fan increase is definitely low. I have tried everything, my games always hover around the 80-90 rating, always with almost maximum hype and sold at half price. When I release the game, the sale starts off strong but after 3 months it surrealistically returns to selling very little. Currently I am in the year 2020, with over 50 billion, first on the charts and with...80k fans!!!?
I just can't figure out where I'm going wrong.
Is there somewhere an option to advertise the company?

I should add that I use my console exclusively, but I think it is irrelevant since it has 40% of the market share and with over 1 billion consoles sold.
I have noticed that publishing with a publisher increases your fan base, but not always.

[Binogure]

Hey,

Thanks for asking. So, getting fans is not easy, and there's many ways to gather fans.
The first one is lowering the game prices (like you've done so far). So kudos for finding this one.

A rating between 80 and 90 doesn't bring a lot of fans. In fact, the bigger the rating the more the fans (obvious I know). And the bigger the game, the more the fans too (Indie, Normal, Big and AAA).

The best ways to gather fans is to produce AAA games. You're going to get a lot of fans by making a AAA game. Let's say you master the "action" genre, but you have only 20 k fans. The game is going to tell you that making a AAA game is risky and you need a perfect score to get a profit. Since you master the "action" genre, you will get a great score, so you make a AAA game and you make an online AAA game that is free to play with a monthly subscriptions. If you hit a 90+ score, within a year you should get more than 100K fans (within a year).

Another way of gathering fans is hiring a studio director, and let it make normal games. So you will get fans

As soon as you publish great quality games, starting in 1992, there's a the Game Of The Year awards, bringing fans for free (basically). And if you win one GOTY, you're going to get a lot of fans.

The best way to gather fans is by making high quality games. You can make a lot of money by making good games, but not much fans.

I also have to mention that the mod you're using make the game imba, and you should try the game without any mods first, then to go back to this mod once you beat the game

[Mr.Jack]

Originally posted by Binogure:

Hey,

Thanks for asking. So, getting fans is not easy, and there's many ways to gather fans.
The first one is lowering the game prices (like you've done so far). So kudos for finding this one.

A rating between 80 and 90 doesn't bring a lot of fans. In fact, the bigger the rating the more the fans (obvious I know). And the bigger the game, the more the fans too (Indie, Normal, Big and AAA).

The best ways to gather fans is to produce AAA games. You're going to get a lot of fans by making a AAA game. Let's say you master the "action" genre, but you have only 20 k fans. The game is going to tell you that making a AAA game is risky and you need a perfect score to get a profit. Since you master the "action" genre, you will get a great score, so you make a AAA game and you make an online AAA game that is free to play with a monthly subscriptions. If you hit a 90+ score, within a year you should get more than 100K fans (within a year).

Another way of gathering fans is hiring a studio director, and let it make normal games. So you will get fans

As soon as you publish great quality games, starting in 1992, there's a the Game Of The Year awards, bringing fans for free (basically). And if you win one GOTY, you're going to get a lot of fans.

The best way to gather fans is by making high quality games. You can make a lot of money by making good games, but not much fans.

I also have to mention that the mod you're using make the game imba, and you should try the game without any mods first, then to go back to this mod once you beat the game

Thank you for the quick response.
The problem is that until the early 90s it is impossible for me to create AAA games precisely because I lack Fan.

Studio Director, as soon as it is unlocked that is the first thing I do. But the problem remains.Fans, even with a 90 (normal) game, get to 30 at most.I'm always talking about the 90s period.

I put the conventions in automatic to always do.

As for the mod. could that be the problem? Probably yes, but honestly I would have a hard time playing without it. I'll try maybe another one.

All of this is driving my game sales down to a maximum of 400k copies sold.
If I may say so, one should not rely only on the fanbase to get good sales of a game.
For example, console sales should also make you increase your Fanbase. Not for nothing, I got to know Sony through Playstation :)

[Binogure]

The problem is that until the early 90s it is impossible for me to create AAA games precisely because I lack Fan.

If you want me to spoil the game (a little bit), on how to beat the CEO difficulty I can share a video, since using the CEO tricks will help you make 90+ games in the 80s and making AAA games in the 80s.

https://youtu.be/kNdvEPaKYK8

[Mr.Jack]

Originally posted by Binogure:

The problem is that until the early 90s it is impossible for me to create AAA games precisely because I lack Fan.

If you want me to spoil the game (a little bit), on how to beat the CEO difficulty I can share a video, since using the CEO tricks will help you make 90+ games in the 80s and making AAA games in the 80s.

No, however, it would be nice to have more possible ways to increase one's Fanbase.

[Binogure]

Originally posted by Mr.Jack:

No, however, it would be nice to have more possible ways to increase one's Fanbase.

To get fans:

• Make great games
  
• Lower the prices
  
• Update your games
  
• Win an award (GOTY)
  
• Interviews

City Game Studio is about making games. So yes, to get fans at some point you have to make games.
Meanwhile, another solution would be buying out fans, but I don't like it.

However I'm open to suggestion, so if you have an idea on how to get fans, please share it.

[Achim_Mentzel]

I was curious and did a playtrough with the CGS Megapack now (difficulty 3)... and had somehow the opposite experience. :D

It started to get funny when I made my first console in the mid-late 90's and got 20+ million fans per exclusive big game. (I had around my regular 1-1,5 million fans by then)
After I hit 150 million fans overall around the year 2000, every game made f-tons of money (several T$ in the first month), but lost 100k+ fans also.

I then tried exclusives for my console, ports/mutisystem from release, exclusives for other systems, even completely cancelling my console(s), but still, whatever I tried, every game lost fans.
And we're talking about big and AAA games with an average 90+ rating.

Last run I played with the Beahl pack and had no such weird things happen, but I didn't made a console then. When copying studio interiors is implemented I'll try a similar run with that pack.

So far, I'd say maybe the CGS modpack is buggy?!
And another question for Binogure: is there a hard coded cap of 150 million fans?

[Binogure]

Originally posted by Achim_Mentzel:

I was curious and did a playtrough with the CGS Megapack now (difficulty 3)... and had somehow the opposite experience. :D

It started to get funny when I made my first console in the mid-late 90's and got 20+ million fans per exclusive big game. (I had around my regular 1-1,5 million fans by then)
After I hit 150 million fans overall around the year 2000, every game made f-tons of money (several T$ in the first month), but lost 100k+ fans also.

I then tried exclusives for my console, ports/mutisystem from release, exclusives for other systems, even completely cancelling my console(s), but still, whatever I tried, every game lost fans.
And we're talking about big and AAA games with an average 90+ rating.

Last run I played with the Beahl pack and had no such weird things happen, but I didn't made a console then. When copying studio interiors is implemented I'll try a similar run with that pack.

So far, I'd say maybe the CGS modpack is buggy?!
And another question for Binogure: is there a hard coded cap of 150 million fans?

There's a dynamic cap. In 2025 it's something like 150 millions, then in 2030 it's 200 millions. I fbd it more realistic.

The CGS modpack might be a but too large. I plan to rework the mod loader to flag broken mods.

[Achim_Mentzel]

Originally posted by Binogure:

Originally posted by Achim_Mentzel:

snip

There's a dynamic cap. In 2025 it's something like 150 millions, then in 2030 it's 200 millions. I fbd it more realistic.

The CGS modpack might be a but too large. I plan to rework the mod loader to flag broken mods.

Thank you for the quick answer.
That's what I suspected while playing- I reached the fan limit (way too fast) and that's why things got funky to stay in that limit. So to say. :D