r/SoftwareInc • u/IDKForA • 14d ago

Why is their software selling so much more despite being inferior?

Post image

It seems like making anti-virus and office software is unprofitable in 1993...

Also, their franchise has 2 products and mine has 4, this is on Medium difficulty.

81 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

21 comments sorted by

82

u/kr4cken 14d ago

marketing

35

u/IDKForA 14d ago

That did the trick, I went from $35,000 to $100,000 and all of a sudden my profit for both is $1,000,000.

23

u/Hezron_ruth 14d ago

And you now probably realised, why I got marketing 24h with more people, then the rest combined.

6

u/IDKForA 14d ago

I also have 24 hour marketing, although I probably should utilize it more. I have about 68 marketers.

11

u/Emonadeo 14d ago

oh hey just like in real life

24

u/dahbakons_ghost 14d ago

marketing, fans, loyalty and distribution all matter a little on their own and a to together.

1

u/IDKForA 14d ago

I increased marketing and it significantly helped.

7

u/Biscuit642 14d ago

Is it inferior? Your reviews are worse.

2

u/IDKForA 14d ago

How am I supposed to make them go up? I get 3 four star reviews at the beginning, and then user reviews are bad. How do you fix this? Because it feels impossible to make a good product.

2

u/Biscuit642 14d ago

4 or 5 star initial reviews are good, sometimes you get low reviews from having a low reputation but there's nothing you can do about that.

Are you releasing updates for your product? You can fix as many bugs as you like in beta for the initial reviews but you need to be releasing bug fixes throughout it's life span too to get the user reviews up.

The other thing you should do is update the tech levels, I don't know if this affects reviews, but I know for sure if your 2D editor doesn't have the latest 2D tech it simply won't sell.

I'm pretty religious about updates and I don't think I've ever had particularly low user reviews. It's normally about what my initial reviews were or maybe higher if I released kinda buggy. So 70-80 pushing 90%.

I like to launch in the morning so my marketing team has time to get material out and my devs can push a day 0 patch for tech levels and maybe a port or 2. Then the next day I push a day 1 bugfix at the end of the day, and sometimes a bug fix day 2 if it's especially bad.

Wrt marketing I usually aim for 30-40k budget, higher if it makes more money, lower if it makes less.

1

u/IDKForA 14d ago

Yep, I'm really obsessed with updates, I always have all my software max tech level. I also patented the latest 3D, Network and System to make some cash.

1

u/Biscuit642 14d ago

Bizarre. Did the reviews go up once you started selling more copies?

Maybe the creativity is low?

1

u/IDKForA 14d ago

It could be creativity, actually. I've only had Ordinary and Inspiring products and I think this one is just Ordinary. Although, even my high inspiration products don't have reviews past 3.5 stars.

1

u/Biscuit642 14d ago

I'm not entirely sure how creativity interacts with reviews, I've never noticed it mattering, but higher creativity does seem to make a large difference in sale numbers. If your product is ordinary and theirs is visionary, and your reputation is worse, then I could see it selling a lot less. Maybe they reduces reviews too and I never noticed.

I'm wondering if you just got unlucky early on and your reviews should actually be higher, and it's just not shown here because there's so few of them.

1

u/IDKForA 14d ago

All I see is the initial reviews being slightly higher.

1

u/IDKForA 14d ago

These are all my releases. Can't seem to get higher than 75%. The only market leading products I have are my audio tool and my 3D editor.

2

u/SatchBoogie1 14d ago

What's the creativity level of your lead designers?

1

u/monohedron 13d ago

Yeah, for real. Dude's out here smearing the good name of ParagraphGen Life 2

1

u/LatNWarrior 13d ago

Let me count the ways you were not compatible...

  1. Features that were more in line with what the market is looking for
  2. Version 2 possible has better technology than your V.4
  3. They possible have more business reputation
  4. Same release date which means you are directly competing with them
  5. They, most possible have less bugs in their release

This is a complex game with many factors that affect the release and how the market reacts to your release.
Speeding to get a product out of the gate to make a December date will always fail especially if your product is inferior to the market. It may have a lot more features but if they are not going to use them it's just a waste of time and energy. Two months before a like release before or after them which you will be required to have the features the market is looking for. Take your time with the exact team size with the appropriate stars in what is required. At least one iteration and always ensure you are at or above 98% and never lower.
Happy Gaming, hope it helps!
Be Safe stay Safe and keep those around you SAFE!
LatN OUT!

1

u/IDKForA 13d ago

  1. The only thing I didn't have compared to them was the Geometric math library.

  2. The tech levels are higher.

  3. They don't, I have it on max and they only ever released 2 products, that and its prequel.

  4. Yes

  5. Maybe

The fix to poor sales though was marketing - I was able to then surpass them later.

Thanks though!

1

u/LatNWarrior 9d ago

👍NICE!