if anything it should actually give your company experience and knowledge on that genre.
In real life most companies specialize in one genre and those who develop multiple genre of games don’t excel. In GDT, producing same genre often even if they are not done in a row brings a huge negative impact which I don’t think is plausible. Why can’t I specialize in one genre?
I think that it is more a gameplay decision than a “this is how it is in reality” decision.
If you would find a very good slider setting, you could just remake the same game over and over again (maybe with a new engine) and that would take the fun pretty much out of it, I guess.
You only get a negative impact if you use the same combo twice in a row. You get a multiplier bonus for using a new topic, and another for a new combo (so Space/Action followed by Space/Sim will not get a penalty, but will only get the New Combo bonus for the second game, not the New Topic bonus).
To maximise your bonuses, you want to have a new topic (which automatically means a new combo), which is carefully matched to get a ‘Great Combo’ bonus, and then make sure none of your employees spends more than 100% of their fair share of time on the game for a ‘Great Management’ bonus. This results in a total score multiplier of x1.9 when compared against a repeated combo (especially a bad combo).
I would actually say that it is how it is in reality. If you look at gaming companies right now IRL, they generally only have one franchise for each major topic/genre. EA, for example, doesn’t publish a Battlefield clone side by side with Battlefield. Blizzard has a SciFi Strategy (Starcraft), A Fantasy RPG (WoW), and a Fantasy Adventure (Diablo). WC3 would have been a Fantasy Strategy.
Later on in the game, you will be able to make sequels to continue your franchises.
Yeah, that was my point. In reality, making one sequel after another is basically how the AAA-industry survives at the moment, but that would be kinda boring in the game, so they implemented rules, that contradict “reality” for a better gameplay. 
To quote Sid Meier:
Fun trumps realism every time.
But what about a company like id? They’ve basically been making DOOM over and over again since about '93 and they’ve done alright (not an EA or Blizzard, but they’re still in business). Or someone like BioWare/Bethesda who are rpg experts? It’d be nice to have the option to specialize in a genre.
No I’m saying the opposite. They are not doing anything different that the real world. In the real world, releasing multiple franchises that are the same isn’t going to make you very popular. Releasing sequels is fine though, which is why there’s sequel support later on in the game.
Those are all sequels of the same franchise. I specifically talked about Blizzard further up, and showed how their games all fall in different genres.
Skyrim is just Elder Scrolls V. It’s the 5th Elder Scrolls game. It’s a sequel.
What I’m saying is this:
And that’s how it is in the real world. You don’t see multiple game franchises from the same developer in the same genre going on at once and in quick succession. Developers have specific franchises for each genre. They don’t release games which will compete with each other. You’re not about to see Activision make a game almost identical to Call of Duty because it would be hurting their big FPS franchise.
Well, sort of. Doom, Quake, Heretic/Hexen, and Rage are all different games but all eerily similar or progressing off of Doom in some way.
Absolutely, but what does Bethesda make when not working on Elder Scrolls? Fallout. Another open world rpg with dialogue/moral choices.
I’m not complaining here. I do think that variety makes the game more fun, but realistically some companies do repeat the same game/genre over and over and it works.
Heretic and Hexen wouldn’t count, they’re not developed in house. Doom and Quake, I can see the similarities, yeah. Rage would be Apocalyptic/Action, though.
In the scope of GDT, those would be separate Genre/Topic combos. Elder Scrolls is a Fantasy/RPG while Fallout would be Apocalyptic/RPG.
Bioware has been releasing many RPG genres of different titles.
Most game dev companies have their area of specialty. Paradox for history simulation, Koei for historical strategy, etc. It’s only logical that releasing the same genre(whehter sequels or not) gives you further experience and knowledge on the topic, and fans will be appeased as many players have one favourite genre they like and they have high expectations of a company that excels in one area.
I don’t think any fans will appreciate it if CD proejct start making games out of RPG genre.
It’s not just Genre, it’s the Genre/Topic combination. That’s the same way in game, that’s the same way in real life. Just because it’s a history game does not make it exactly the same.
Bioware has three major franchises right now: Dragon Age (Fantasy/RPG), Mass Effect (SciFi/Action), and SWTOR (SciFi/RPG). Notice how these are all different combinations? That’s what I mean.
Koei makes many different types of games, as per their Wikipedia page.
And as I said a few times, Sequels don’t count, because they’re taken into account in the real game when you get access to them. If you release “ABC” and then immediately “ABC 2”, unless it’s done using the Sequel system, it’s counted as a new franchise.
And the whole probelm spawns from making two of the same types of game one after another. Developers don’t do that anyway. They generally alternate their major releases between different franchises.
I think it’s more down to timing.
If you Buy Battlefield for $60 in January, you don’t buy it again in June. You might buy the sequel in 2 years though.
You can think of yourself as a major software developer - you essentially flood your own market with a particular genre leading to sucky reviews and sales second time round.
And it would be boring.
That’s exactly how MMOs work. Never need to change anything, just click next next next and done. Always high rating once the initial game was good.
I’d like to throw a spanner in the works and point out that Bethesda only make RPGs
That’s incorrect. Their RPGs are furthermore part of main franchises, which I have talked about several times in this topic alone.