I have a trio of questions. Firstly, do multi-platform games get a penalty of some sort? My multiplat titles never seem to rate as well as my exclusive titles, even if the design/tech ratio actually comes out better. Most of my multiplats were casual games aimed at a young audience for GS, grPad, and grPhone. I also had some custom console and PC multiplats, and one for playsystem 3, mbox 360, and PC. None of them do as well as exclusives, but I may have just had an unlucky streak.
Second question. For the first time, I started a new game with the intention of specializing in action and simulation games. I’ve hired on a tech-heavy team, but they still generate a surprising amount of design points. After much training, I’m only just beginning to see an improvement in the ratio. Before hiring anyone, my character produced more design points than tech despite balanced stats. Is the game intentionally geared more towards RPGs and Adventure games, or is that accidental? Focusing on action games seems like hard more.
On the wiki, I just read something about this; the margin for error in tech games is apparently half that of RPG games and something about the points ratio having to do with it. You can go look for yourself; it’s the Victory Guide’s calculations on Design-based genres vs Tech-based genres.
I’d guess that realistically, it’s harder to innovate technologically than to make something look nice.
Also, there are certain audiences that get better ratings in general with PS3, 4, 5 + mBox 360, One, Next excelling in mature audiences, and Gameling, TES, STES, TES 64 and GS all performing slightly better for the younger crowd.
There are only two tech-heavy areas (engine and AI) but gameplay, graphics, sound and even level design produce a good amount of design points. So yes, it is easier to get the ratio right for those design-orientated games.
My advice if you want to focus on Action games: Ignore the “perfect” ratio. Missing it will give you only a small penalty and what is important is consistency in your games. If you can have your ratio stay roughly the same, then its influence of the game score will not determine wether your game is a hit or a flop.
When i make tech-heavy games, i always try for a 1:1 ratio of desing:tech. Its not perfect, but it is easily achievable.
In that last post I meant to include that if you use GS, grPad and grPhone, I’m fairly certain there’s a slight score penalty due to it possibly not calculating/minimizing the GS young bonus? I’m not too sure, but so far multi-platform seems to lower scores somewhat and increase sales, unless you use a multi-platform optimized ($2m add-on while making the engine) engine.
Thanks for the responses. The design/tech balance makes a lot more sense, now. Multi-platform optimization doesn’t seem to help much. I use it, and I don’t notice much of a difference. I think it only reduces dev costs a bit.
I know what’s going wrong with multiplatform games for you.
The problem is that each console has its own genre and audience preferences. If ANY of your console/genre selections are mismatched, the game will do badly. The same is true for if any of your console/audience selections are mismatched.
In order to make good multiplatform games, you have to match ALL of the traits. This requires much more extensive understanding of the consoles you’re releasing for than is required for a mere exclusive.
It doesn’t really seem like the game rewards the added difficulty in multiplatform releases. I still like to do them once I have the ability. I like the idea of producing a game with gameplay so resilient that it works well across multiple control paradigms. Sometimes the fun of a simulation isn’t just in having the situation give you cookies(/points) for high-scoring actions. It’s in doing interesting things that you wish were done as well in the real world.
