What makes a game in a specifc genre successful?

I'm trying to build from the ground up what makes a game successful in a specific genre. I decided to ask you guys, so follow this format of post.

Advertising to normalfags.

Sadly, this user's right.

Successful as in good or successful as in sells a lot?

Make sure it's on a Nintendo platform.

The recipe for success isn't any more real than the philosopher's stone. You can shift the odds with advertising, but there will never be a guarantee.

Presenting your innovations from a surface level.

For example, it doesn't how matter how mechanically deep your game is, if the most high-level possibilities aren't immediately apparent to the most normal of normalfags, it's bound to get overlooked. Ikaruga is one such example. It's main draw is its polarity switching mechanic, as most nitwits who think of shmups as some kind of stagnant genre filled with nothing but derivative clones can already imagine the possibilities that such a mechanic brings for a shmup.

Even mainstream reviewers had to admit how cool that is despite how difficult the game is and almost none of them having ever 1cc'd the game. Of course, the game also looks cool with its 3D graphics and sounds cool, on top of being actually well designed with a strong variation in stage design which appeals to 'stage design without stage hazards is not real stage design' faggots. Mainstream reviewers called it good, after which the masses learned of its existence unlike with most shmups and knew it was some kind of hidden gem. So now you have every clown who hasn't even played any other shmup via MAME clamoring how Ikaruga is their favourite shmup evar.

Advance the art. Genres are defined by certain patterns. Improve upon them. Examples:

Innovation is the best way for a game to be recognized, in my opinion.

grand civ
not too simple but not too difficult combat, leave it to the rng
uniqueness to characters, ala ck2
ck2, stelaris
ck2 lets me play as my own country, unlike any other vidya, also every character feels unique
stellaris is shit, but it has the best star trek mod out there

While that's true, there's also plenty of examples that did just that and utterly failed, as well as examples where games that were considered for niche audiences got way too popular with normalfags.
I guess the biggest points are:

- Lack of actual competitors. It's easier for a title to break away from the mold if what you're doing is either original or if you have an at least competent game and all your competitors either don't exist or have made subpar titles for that genre. I.E. Paracucks keeps making increasingly worse Grand Strategy Games (prepare your anuses for Vicky III), yet they're extremely popular because no one else is doing what they're doing with the same amount of resources and scope, even if the overall experience is utter garbage.

- Modding capabilities. This is more of a recent trend, but back in the day, a good or average game with an expansion pack coming out later on would attract increasingly more customers. Basically, you want the game to keep on being as fresh as virtually possible, since it's more likely that word of mouth will keep it alive over making the same game over and over with increasingly sloppier quality that only attracts whales and fleeting normalfags. I.E. Mario Maker is a barebones version of those SMW editors, yet it's still enjoyed by the average Nintendrone and normalfag-kid because the amount of content it produces is insane. Another example could be the various mods for Brawl or G-Mod.

- Pander to the current tastes and/or try to predict them based on observing what people like instead of loving. Some genres tend to saturate the market because they're following the trend way too much (i.e. the backlash against the "vs Zombies" additions to games). Then all of a sudden, a game understands what will be popular within the next years during their development and make a run for it. I.E. the way oversexualization has taken over traditionally more "pure" representations of characters because of the backlash against the socjus tier folk that want that done away with.

supreme commander was sadly not considered successful. at least, not successful enough to let gpg make the sequel they wanted.

I was just talking about that one mechanic. It wasn't good enough. The story was shit and the destruction was unsatisfying. Still, it had a following and I'm sure that taylor guy got his millions.

...

Care to provide examples, as I can't think of anything. Well maybe NMS, but that had giant disparity between what was advertised and delivered, and still got shitton of sales, that drones refused to refund.

keep it away from Hideki and Kojima

He can't provide examples. Every point he made only appeals to people that actually give a shit about vidya. Those people are a very small minority right now.

For rpgs I like being able to make different builds, and as a reward I get different playstyles or better clear times. Being able to powergame (not cheesing) by knowledge of the mechanics is a great feeling because of content skipping.

The only way to be successful is to completely ignore success. This is the same as everything else in life: the only way to acquire anything is to not try to acquire it.
(sage because everyone should already know this)

devil's in the details. How a unit dies or how a RNG pack opens matters. Blizzard does these things right. SC2's units die in pleasant ways.

In recent years, I think Yokai Watch would be a good example in the West, since despite Nintendo shilling it a lot in partnership with Level 5, outside of the resident Yougay fag, I don't think it gained the level of popularity they were expecting.
Games with the Grasshopper Manufacture or Suda51's logos also didn't do well even after they went from cult to bazinga tier Japanese weirdness, despite getting a lot of public attention and having publicity stunts and ads going on for them towards "le gaymer" type of customers. The only one in recent years that got any attention was Let It Die, because of the exact opposite - F2P, not really that advertised and completely different from the original, much more grim concept.
Didn't the Division also do really poorly?

We might be but unless you're selling to literal children or you're making GAME+1, it's getting harder for publishers to make the exact amount of money back that they wanted.

I'm sure that's why the game was so successful. Nothing to do with name recognition.

that's not my point