Talk:Game Development Based on Experience/1.4.3/@comment-77.239.253.103-20130503090551

Actually, judging from http://gamedevtycoon.wikia.com/wiki/Review_Algorithm, you actually only have to do better by about 12 to 24% (hard to tell exactly) than your last high score (or two high scores). This means, that after you get your two games that scored 9's, you are just competing against yourself.

Therefore, there is no actual need to pick good combinations, good balance, good anything, per say. All that matters is that you continue to do better each time. Therefore, if you are consistent in picking bad genre combo, missing tech/design balance by 50%, and so on, but you keep your total sum of design and tech from decreasing with your next release, you will keep getting scores 8+-1 (100%/124% = 0.8)

However, it is actually much harder to consistently do BAD than it is to consistently do good. Therefore, if you don't make serious effort to do BAD every time, you will do good at least once, and set yourself a much higher plank. Now, your games will be judged against that. Imagine, you once hit a perfect game with perfect genre combo, trend hit, balance etc. Now if you release another game with equally perfect genre combo, balance etc, and same sum of design and tech, you will get whopping score of 6+-1. Why? because you didn't get your 1.2 modifier from trend hit this time, thus your score is 16,6(6)% less than your last score, and to get perfect score you have to increase your score by up to 24%, therefore your score is 0.67 of goal, rounded to 0.6

Therefore, only way to get good review scores every time is to be consistent. Being consistently GOOD is easier than being consistently BAD. You need to pick correct genre combo, correct balance, etc, because that is the easiest way to be consistent, and consistency is key to getting high scores every time.