The random interviews are good but lack depth, i have some suggestions:
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Ask multiple questions. These should come from a large pool so that each interview is fairly unique
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have interviews affect the way the game is received. For example if the interviewer asks about graphics and you reply that they are completely groundbreaking the customer expectation of graphics should be higher (essentially adding weighting to the graphics score in calculating sales), alternatively if you reply that focus has been given to other areas then sales to the graphics ‘loving’ portion of the population would be lower (this would require such demographics to exist in the market, would be nice to be able to do market research to find customer focus… but thats out of the scope of this topic)
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Have a number of magazines/websites each with their own subscriber count. Small indie companies would be unlikely to get a mention in the more successful publications
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have varying size of interview, a medium sized company might get a small mention in one of the bigger publications or a double page feature in a smaller one
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allow players to approach magazines/websites to request an interview, getting turned down if they are not big enough
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have interview acceptance success be influenced by the amount of advertising bought from the magazine/website
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Have publications dedicated to a single platform or subset of platforms (e.g. a PC gamer magazine, or a next gen console gamer blog)
The effect of the above would mean players would get to manage their marketing strategy by striving to get into more widley circulated publications and to fine-tune their customers’ expectations through their responses in interviews in reaction to market research … it would allow a company known for a single topic/genre or platform to branch out to a new market (ofc this would also need more details in the fan count system… for example if 90% of your fanbase are mBox owners and you decide to release a title for the gameling your fan count should have little effect on the sales)