I noticed that you get very few publishing deals that offer a reasonable combination of Topic and Genre… and they expect decent scores with these combos! My current game offers me Surgery/RPG, Ninja/Strategy, and Ninja/Simulation… Yeah they’re bound to make mega bucks and get rave reviews, right? 
3 Likes
Mega bucks? More like an uncountable number of moneyz. No I don’t know why they do that… 
There are no stupid combinations but a lack of ideas IMO (-:
For example, my Ninja/Simulation game in the 3rd office was sold for ~15M and got 9.5 reviews. The development team was very proud of how they combined an innovative ASCII engine, Orchestra Soundtrack and an amazing storyline about a secret ninja society which became so dangerous so there was a need of an undercover agent who joined the society and progressing level-by-level made himself its leader.
“Blood Society” - ask in stores!
I made a Surgery/RPG in the game that rolled a flock of 8’s. I called it Micromégas Surgery. A bit of a tribute to Voltaire, it was.
How to be a major publisher:
Step 1: come up with an idea that is equal parts stupid and boring
Step 2: blame inevitable lack of sales on piracy and fire developers due to budget constraints
Step 3: add (more) DRM onto all new titles, most of which makes the game harder for paying customers to play but doesn’t affect pirates
Step 4: ???
Step 5: profit!
Step 6: repeat steps 1-3 until either bankruptcy or armageddon, whichever comes first
5 Likes