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Part 8: What happened actually to the RTS audience ? Analysing the downfall of RTS genre.
StarSauron
Part 8: What happened actually to the RTS audience ? Analysing the downfall of RTS genre.
Well it's actually should be quite logical,
1- to sell a franchise you need an audience for it.
2- to have an audience, the franchise needs to have a certain "quality".
3- and to be what the audience does want.
And here starts the actual 1 million dollar questions.
4- What the audience does want?
5- Can you do what the audience does want?
Some recent events did inspire me to take a closer look:
Problem is, the industry run by people who try desperately to find an audience,
but do come up with not really good ideas. Alienating old audience and in same time not getting new one.
If you make nonsense, a lot people wont be interested.
Like the recent announcement for Command and Conquer: Rivals
A game designed for investors, not the actual gaming market,
doomed to flaw and fail, to be released anyway like DoW3. 
Em, it should be common knowledge what people actually want, so why is it so hard to make games accordingly ? 
So yet again, it's obvious not MOBAs fault as new genre,
what was the excuse for DoW3 creation,
RTS developers simply did and do screw it up.
Let me guess next Space Marine is battle royal like PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds or Fortnite ?
Chasing trends without to understand them doesn't work.
Look recent failed and dead Radical Heights, Warface - Battle Royale
or Robocraft Royale.
https://kotaku.com/radical-heights-developer-boss-key-games-shuts-down-1826015127
http://steamcharts.com/cmp/804810,809960,754660#All
If we do take a look at "Strategy games market" its actually still healthy.
Total War scam DLCs sold as own games, still sells like hot cakes.
4X games like Stellaris do make tons of money
Turn Based Sid Meier’s Civilization since 1991 does make money, even by latest 2016,
Civ 6 sells in over a million units to become fastest-selling in franchise
https://www.pcgamesn.com/civilization-vi/civ-6-player-numbers
And a lot of Indie RTS like Northgard, They Are Billions or recent Frostpunk sold over half million copies.
What means each of them made more money than battle royal and MOBA genre games combined.
"if we don't count LOL, PUBG, DOTA2 and Fortnite" battle royal and MOBA genre simply isn't profitable,
but investors do enforce their creation, despite there is no room in real gaming market for games similar to it.
So the Strategy Audience is still there,
it just they don't get the right game from gaming industry.
Comments
TooMuchHair
This mobile game look better to me than any other mobile game Ive seen. I don't see the problem.
Draconix
Hmmmm..........Not sure about it, but I as I check SteamDB, it is shown that Steamspy is no longer accurate.
Recently was checking Northguard on that site, and it now shows that recent 24 hour peak of players is 1, 674 even if all time peak was 7, 758. I wouldn't be so suprised if its 24 hour peak will fall below 1,000 in the next days.
Same with Frostpunk, its 24 hour peak is 3,116 despite its all time peak being 29, 361 players.
But I think its just because that hype is slowly, but still fading away. This almost always happens with every new game even with those with good quality.
Opinion post.
Chronoslayer
Eh. I mean we know no one on the backlash bandwagon has actually played that game to speak on its actual quality as a mobile title. For so many the internet is just the "++heresy redacted++-post/vote your slightest negative whim with no consquences" playground. In this case, they are expressing their displeasure that a mobile title instead of an actual C&C RTS for PC isn't being made.
StarSauron
Well gain new Audience is a valuable point,
still its obvious by that product it won't reactivate the old Audience.
Put RTS into mobile gaming had already some attempts, butcher a famous IP won't rise up the usual small numbers.
"I did not want to post too much examples, just took the most obvious one."
Anyway here a list of some such products, that try to get new audience, but do alienate old audience.
Teen Titans Movie for example, that does not represent the actual Teen Titans characters.
I don't understand how that SJW redesign is supposed to get anybody into this franchise,
all characters look ugly and don't fit.
Warhammer Adventures for target audience age 8-12 year old with books,
sounds on every level dumb. Because kids at that age play Call of duty or Fortnite
And again Books in the year 2018 ? Books an item kids today ask a manual for.
Its obvious a bad idea, because if you want reach kids you have to make a cartoon or a game.
I would compare to level of DoW3 redesign.
Because you simply don't have the stuff you like the franchise for.
And the new stuff doesn't compensate it.
StarSauron
It's a general problem for the audience to be always confronted with "final versions"
You can't avoid to come up with a bad ideas, simply because you have to start from somewhere.
That's why you need plans for pre and post production.
I actually wonder why they always do present the final "not changeable" product,
instead of the early drafts where you can approach bad design choices.
Whose idea is it to lock for years dev teams away from public
and never do a reality check till it's too late to fix ?
Like Blizzard does do it for example, yeah Starcraft 1996 Beta looked horrible,
but that's what beta are for.
Or why not take approach like Westwood team and fix on the way?
Make some kind of game and based on feedback make a better game.
Well it's the numbers we have to make our interpretations
https://steamdb.info/app/285190/
It does quite show, how badly DoW3 is designed as a game.
DOW3 are just 122 In-Game and lol it was recently for 10 bucks.
In same time by other RTS titles, Northgard are 460 / They Are Billions are 1607 / Frostpunk 983.
As AAA RTS after all it should have all those people, not some kind of indie games.
Yet again it was obviously badly designed to gain new moba/esport audience and obvious alienated RTS audience.
Draconix
Fact, but don't care about it so much. Cause I enjoyed Dow3 so much!
Besides, about indie games getting so much appeal, I think that time of AAA RTS games's shine has finally come to a end. Its sad, but nothing continues eternally. Even Blizzard isn't safe from that.
Draconix
Fact, it was bad designed for most, but I don't actually care so much about it. Cause I enjoyed it so much!
As for Indie RTS getting so much appear, I think the time for AAA RTS's shine has finally come to a end. AoE4 might be the last AAA RTS title at the moment, but we will see. Thought even if it will be successfull, I don't think it will surpass AoE2 of course.
Gorb
Saying something is bad because "it's aimed at children" simply shows that your own analysis is biased by your own age and perception. We were all children once, and the starting age for being allowed to play Warhammer (at least when I was young) was 10. Supporting that demographic helps grow interest in the hobby.
Saying something is bad because "something something SJW" simply shows that your own analysis is biased by your own politics. I'm posting as a user here, not a moderator, but you should probably try and work out a way to avoid doing that. For the sake of the quality of your analysis, if nothing else, @StarSauron.
Opinion post.
StarSauron
Lets take for example another Franchise.
Star Wars was almost ruined by George Lucas, it just in the originals the people did talk him out of it.
That Dwarf for example was supposed to be the Yoda.
Later on a monkey was supposed to play his role, instead of a puppet.
While its funny today, back there such design flaws might have ended as franchise killers.
You see it's a big difference if the entire team does work out of preservation to make a good product
or George Lucas does make the prequels he wants to and nobody has to say something about it,
so you get Jar Jar Binks.
It's a hard job to convince people for a game or franchise.
Honestly I would not call RTS games from last 10 years as AAA.
They all are somehow missing a fun story and interesting design.
When did we have last time a character like Kane or Kerrigan?
When did we have last time an iconic faction like Nod or Zerg?
When did we have last time an unique unit like Stealth Tank or Hydralisk?
Somehow all recent AAA products don't focus on the Audience at all.
Most important part is to make a good story that is interesting to follow,
but recent products are at best shallow.
Try to get a new audience is always a risk, we should not forget that.
Well "it's aimed at children" is one thing, "bad designed" is another.
Its legit for Games Workshop to aim for more customers, but Warhammer Adventures ?
they should ask themself" if they are doing appropriate approach.
Why would 8-12 year like it ? Say in same time 8-12 year old Kids and Books, just sounds bad as marketing.
In my opinion its one of the examples that are "debatable" simply because a cartoon or a game is more efficient.
Let's say it's this way, in modern day there is a lot of Franchise leeching.
In good old days 1980 you could simply make your advertisement to convince people for your franchise.
Today, Internet does fire back, its not filtered and does draw people away.
Today we have to take it seriously, a so called hate storm can anytime occur for certain reasons.
That does change the opinion about the product.
Jet again the person here in right that looks like a dude, is supposed to play a mayor female role.
"SJW design" is a common slogan in Internet if something is designed to be ugly and makes no sense.
Perhaps Teen Titans life action movie is going to be good, but that single picture does indeed lure a lot people away.
StarSauron
Also speaking of hate, a lot of people simply hate the direction the genre did take.
here are some good posts.
http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/508464-i-hate-rts-games-now
https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/3g093q/why_dont_you_play_realtime_strategy_games_what_if/
https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/why-do-i-hate-all-blizzard-rts-games-so-much.2079430/
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/939643-starcraft-ii-wings-of-liberty/
I would say a lot, really lot people hate micro management games,
in the end our genre did become brainless fast button smashing,
blob vs blob, same opening repeats, stuck nothing you can do, wanna be E-Sport genre.
Gorb
Four threads is not a lot of people
I don't really know what you're getting at with the Star Wars example. Nobody has brilliant ideas all of the time.
Anyhow, with regards to new audiences. The new 40k books are aimed at children. You're now making the claim that they're badly-designed, but you don't explain how or why. You just say it.
Why would a 10 year-old child not like these books? You haven't explained in any depth at all why this would prove unpopular to that demographic.
You've demonstrated why you don't like that, but I'm pretty sure you've talked about how long you've played RTS games for before. I don't think these books are aimed at you - just like they're not aimed at me.
On the topic of "franchise leeching", backlash has existed for a long time. It didn't have the Internet, sure, but it has always existed. People complained about Games Workshop in the 00s, and in the 90s, and in the 80s. People have complained about Wizards of the Coast for decades, for different reasons over every decade or so.
You're pushing your own issues with these things (like a single shot from a Teen Titans . . . movie? Series?) onto other people. You have no idea if it's good or bad. You're not even giving it a chance. You're making a premature assumption based on what you think will happen because they seemingly changed a character a bit. We don't even know if that's a good or bad thing in of itself - you haven't even given it any time to prove itself.
That seems to be a problem with media consumption, I feel. And I can understand where it comes from - all of these things are important to us. They become important to us, over time.
But I recommend you never confuse that with having ownership of it. You don't control it. You are simply a consumer, who has the right to enjoy it or not. And everyone can enjoy it, or dislike it, for entirely valid reasons.
I'm explicitly avoiding politics here, as per the forum rules, because - of course! - there are exceptions. But this is not the place for them (assuming they relate to political ideologies or anything else that falls under the rules of this community).
MegaDerpLord
People still definitely want strategy games it's just that the traditional model of RTS game doesn't really work anymore. PvP centric, base building games have basically matured and the formula is now very dated. RTS games do pop up like Act of Aggression, Planetary annihilation and Desert of Kharak that try to do something differently but for one reason or another it's not enough in spite of their best efforts.
My personal belief is that the fundamental problem with traditional RTS games is that they have one foot firmly in the PvP balance design mindset to the point where it constrains creative freedom and design. If you look at the more successful strategy games and/or games focused on strategic planning the good ones do not have multiplayer PvP as their central focus. The games that come to my mind are as follows:
Frostpunk : Centrally focused on adapting a city and its citizens to survive the harsh rigors of the cold and has no MP focus whatsoever to start with.
The Total War series: Even though it has multiplayer it never really makes that it's main focus(exception being Total War Arena of course). It focuses on a grand campaign where you can build your empire through conquest and it does extremely well because of it.
There Are Billions: That one has alot of traditional RTS elements but it is considered pretty successful. It doesn't have any PvP focus whatsoever and is more focused on getting your cities to survive waves upon waves upon waves of infected until they end up wiping you off the map.
These games definitely have alot more creative freedom to pursue the game that they wanted to make since they didn't end up constraining themselves to focusing on PvP experiences. They are allowed to take more risks and to pursue more radical gameplay mechanics and systems for their game.
This does leave the question though about those PvP strategy games that are actually successful. Well even the successful still have relatively small playerbases. Wargame:Red Dragon comes to mind as it has at least in recent memory had a really good following for its PvP and it did so many things that were different from traditional RTS such as the pre-game deck building which you can just absolutely get lost in and the minimal base building in favor of a heavier focus on military tactics and strategy on a grand scale. It's a strategy game all right but it's actually unique in that does very very little to follow PvP basebuilding RTS style of game. But here's the kicker, even with all that clear care and focus put into that game its still an extremely niche game.
You can even look at the most successful RTS game to date Starcraft 2. The popularity for that game is dwindling as well. Interest in PvP matches are still reasonably strong but on the decline. Thankfully though Starcraft 2 does have an extremely diverse arcade mode and Co-op which supposedly dwindled PvP multiplayers popularity during launch.
The only game that I can reasonably think is a fair counterargument to most of what I said is the existence of Age of Empires 2:HD edition which ALWAYS has people playing. I might have to argue that they are really more the exception than the rule as they have a very good formula to work with which basically revolves around symettrical assymettry(if that makes sense), on top of offering plenty of options such as robusts fun campaigns aplenty and like starcraft, plenty of different game modes and maps to play on. But on top of that as well its basically a really good restoration of a really good classic.
All that said, there is still definitely a niche of people who rightfully love RTS PvP games. But its pretty much gonna remain a niche for quite some time to come. And judging from the increasing mountain of high profile misfires its extremely difficult to get a PvP basebuilding RTS right. It requires alot of thought and effort with lots of moving parts but any one of those moving parts can royally ++heresy redacted++ over the gameplay loop to the point where it's extremely noticable. And that's just not good to have when RTS PvP games can be potentially extremely stressful and intimidating for people just coming in. Unless developers can definitely, absolutely deliver one hell of a PvP RTS experience it's going to feel like climbing mountains to get a molehill. Strategy games are not going to go away anytime soon that much we can say with certainty. But the future for traditional RTS games is very much uncertain especially if it keeps down its current path.
StarSauron
People do prejudge on their previous experience.
In old times it was possible to convince George Lucas not to do bad choices,
that's why Yoda is a timeless character and Jar Jar Binks the shame of the franchise.
There are a lot of Studies why kids don't read books.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/readership-among-kids-and-young-adults-falling-wayside-180951421/
Yes, but today they do have a rating system, like steam reviews or Microsoft reviews, that do influence people.
For Example, I did not buy the new Age of Empires Definitive Edition,
because it has bad ratings, is on MS Store and according to them does not work.
https://www.microsoft.com/de-de/p/age-of-empires-definitive-edition/9n2kmdvlk85d#ratings-reviews
Indeed here starts the RTS problem since 1998, "PvP balance design mindset" does require a company that does listen and constantly change the product based on the feedback. The common prejudge based on previous experience is that except Blizzard nobody does do it. Blizzard is the only company that can do "PvP balance design mindset", while other companies are forced to do other projects, Blizzard does make another Balance Patch.
Look by any RTS, its quite clear they will be after some month be abandoned and not revisited,
that's how we did experience the Situation since 1998, only Blizzard does make 1 or 2 years later a balance patch.
Blizzards company polices do set the Standards for "PvP balance design mindset" too high.
Blizzard is the only company that did keep its good reputation.
I think we can add to it Jurassic World Evolution peak players 60,296, its more than doubled compared to launch of DoW3.
A base build focused game with dinosaurs did already sold between atleast 200.000 till 500.000 copies after 2 days.
https://steamdb.info/app/648350/graphs/
http://steamspy.com/app/201830
Point is by RTS games it should be possible to influence bad design during Betas or else you end up by a product people will never like.
DoW3 was condemned to fail as first as it was told to have PvP focus.
For people such word means a balance patch each month or the game is a failure.
PvE focused RTS does not have such problems, simply because people won't expect such quality from it.
StarSauron
We have indeed to deal today with several bad prejudgements,
that do prevent people from buy games, we did not have back there.
RTS games today just don't keep up to the expectations.
Over the year Prejudgements did become facts.
On one side we have an E-Sports lobby with paid reviews that do push PvP agenda,
but the actual niche of RTS games is PVE, Story and skirmish.
That does lead to games that do mimic Starcraft and do it badly,
loose identity and are boring to play.
Its not like the audience did give up on the genre,
its just games market does not listen what people actually want.
DoW3 is a literal just another Embodiment of everything that is going wrong with the genre.
Decepticats
IMO Traditional RTS (because MOBAs are mostly RTS games, just a subset) is dead for one very simple reason: It's too hard for most people.
Everyone talks about how hard DotA2 is to learn. "Ooh ooh the learning curve! Welcome to DotA, you suck! So pro!" But in truth, DotA (and other hero brawler maps and Tower Defense maps) was created by people who were struggling to succeed at Warcraft 3 multiplayer and thought it might be fun to pair down the mechanics to just the simplest bits that they liked. For Tower Defense players that was just sitting in base waiting for stuff to mindlessly walk at their elaborate labyrinth of death. For MOBA players that was focusing on microing just ONE unit. People like to talk about how deep or challenging MOBAs are but that's not why people play them, they play them for the opposite reason. They play them because it is like playing a traditional RTS but stripped down to one unit with a handful of abilities and builds already mapped out by other players. Not to mention you have 4 teammates to blame if things go wrong. Just look at how few players can handle the absurdly minimal tasks of microing the Druid with his bear or Meepo or other "complex" characters.
So along comes Dawn of War 3 into this market. An RTS designed to mash together the complexities of DoW1 and DoW2. From DoW1 large army management, base building, and workers. From DoW2, Heroes with big abilities, and abilities on most squads. Then they give the game the input response speed and intensity of modern RTS games. It's an incredible game with a high skill floor just to get to the point where you can reliably beat the mediocre AI. And beyond that there's endless depth with Elite and doctrine combinations.
But in reality people who loaded up DoW3 didn't want a challenging, deep, new RTS game to learn because the market at large no longer presents players with those kinds of learning curves in multiplayer games. They wanted a game they already knew backwards and forwards so they could go "Oh that looks cool in better graphics now. Neat." So when they started losing horribly every match on the way up that learning curve it didn't feel good. And there were no reward mechanics in place like in MOBAs to keep people grinding (also the Skull System was terrible and lethality too high at launch).
Into that volatile stew throw the legion of anti-DoW3 propagandists who seemed to make it their purpose to deride the game in every place anyone spoke of it and you have a highly corrosive mixture to a nascent community.
Ultimately, it would have taken a feat of herculean marketing and PR to make ANY competitive traditional RTS successful in this market as we'll soon see with all the RTS games on their way out:
I hope one or all of these games succeed. I love playing Traditional RTS games. But the current gamer culture trends towards more social, less competitive, highly rewarding, low skill floor games. Traditional RTS falls down on all of those categories.
Draconix
Well said, @Decepticats . Well said.
My favorite of those you mentioned is suprisingly Iron Harvest, due to setting and, especially, mechs. Who knows, maybe it will be very successfull, which Dow3, who I also liked regardless, could dream of it. But to be honest, I will still not overhype about it too much, there is always a risk of promising project going wrong.
AoE4 is right now the only AAA RTS, but I won't buy it due to not being in my taste. Ironically, while I was checking AoE forums, there is dissapointment from AoE fans due to no info about AoE4 and even AoE2 DE at E3 this year. What's more, I discovered that there wasn't any info about AoE4 for long time.
Forged Battalion.........Even if it is maked by Petroglyph, who made another RTS liked by me, Grey Goo, I don't see need to buy it due to mostly having no set factions, even if you actually make own factions. But most units look similar or same.
StarSauron
But did RTS audience dissolve itself into competitive and simple games ?
What if RTS audience was never competitive and does play complicated games ?
If we take Blizzard out of the picture, there was actually never another successful competitive RTS developer.
Still we had games that sold over million times like Company of Heroes, C&C Tiberium Wars,
Starwars Empire At War, Battle for Middle Earth, Dawn of War Dark Crusade, Supreme Commander.
Sure you can run them online, but most people did remember them for the single player part.
I mean most people today play old or Indie RTS games, turn based games, RPGs or 4X Strategy games.
Jurassic World Evolution for example is right now on place 8 of Steam charts, our RTS genre is back by top 10!!!
http://steamcharts.com/
Perhaps there was never a competitive traditional RTS genre at all ?
But rather a single player, skirmish and story genre ?
I mean it's definitely not multiplayer part that did lead to success of
Jurassic World Evolution, They Are Billions or Frostpunk, because those games have no multiplayer.
Or is it developer/publisher culture fault?
I mean the mayor narrative is to design a multi player game.
Look all recent 2018 E3 announcements.
Battlefield V = gets Battle Royale mode
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4= no story, but Battle Royale mode
Fallout 76 = no NPCs, but get Fortnite mode ?
Again they turn single player story RPG Fallout, into a multiplayer focused co-op game.
Why should Fallout people like it if you remove the dialogues or Fortnite people like a reskin?
Yet again we are talking after all about the big IPs,
that are redesigned for "today's" multi player market,
despite you can play Fortnite for free.
Honestly I do expect them to alienate the own audience and not convince the new people.
Decepticats
@StarSauron I agree with you there is a lack of focus on the single player. But I dunno about you, I always played RTS games against people. It just used to only be against people I knew (my brothers or my friends on dial up or at a LAN) or had cultivated a relationship with online. So I could play against them again and again and again and we would learn each other's styles and strategies and respond back and forth. There was a dialog to the play that was changed forever in Warcraft 3's matchmaker. It scared people away from multiplayer because now instead of my buddy and me practicing against each other almost exclusively, I practiced against strangers that were better than both of us and got better as a result. Instead of only playing strategies we'd come up with ourselves, I watched top ranked replays and participated in discussions on unit combos and strategies and came at him with advanced techniques.
In short, competitive online play caused a fissure. The people who didn't go along with that and instead gravitated towards MOBA or other simpler, gentler games will never come back to PvP RTS. They might give one a try out of nostalgia for old times but they're never going to put in the effort to get good enough at one to compete unless the population is large enough that there is a casual league of players (think true Bronze tier in SC2) against whom they will exclusively be matched. But when you have a low population like DoW3 had/has, that doesn't work out for them. They quickly have a series of bad games and never try again.
They may come back for a good single player or a good COOP (As starcraft 2 is showing with its COOP mode and DoW2 showed with the Last Stand). But as far as competitive is concerned... I don't think there's a new market for that or any way to cast that net wide.
The problem is most people don't realize that and there's a vocal group (myself included) that are misleading developers like Relic into believing there's loads of us just dying for a competitive RTS. And honestly, Relic delivered on that with DoW3. And I LOVE it as a result. But most people don't want that because it is hard and complicated to figure out an RTS with this level of depth and micro skill involved. But that's what my post was about. The COMPETITIVE part of a traditional RTS.
I think a coop or singleplayer anything can win over groups as long as it is enough fun, has enough flavor, has good levers for managing difficulty, and is presented well.
StarSauron
There is also a large amount people who think RTS developers are bad at handling competitive mechanics.
They do instant see how unbalanced the factions are and do exploit moves you can't counter.
So we end up with a really small group of people who are OK to play unbalanced PvP games.
There is also a large single player vocal group,
but they are almost completely ignored by the gaming market.
Despite sells numbers, again numbers that do say what sold best,
actually tell that single player games are more successful.
God of War Sells Over 3.1 Million Units in 3 Days, Becomes Fastest-Selling PS4 Exclusive,
but what is gaming market doing ?
https://blog.us.playstation.com/2018/05/03/god-of-war-sells-over-3-1-million-units-in-3-days-becomes-fastest-selling-ps4-exclusive/
Ah yes, they make another redundant MMORPG World of Warcraft, MOBA DOTA2 or Battle Royale.
there are countless MMO failures
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-biggest-mmo-failures-in-history/
Also dozens of failed MOBAs.
http://massivelyop.com/2018/03/07/perfect-ten-a-dozen-mobas-that-didnt-make-it/
And right now the same Goose chase is after Battle Royale.
https://www.pcgamer.com/battle-royale-games-2018/
It's not going to happen for AAA RTS. It does contradict most Big Company Politics.
There is always an influential person or group who mistake market research
Copy best sold game, is not the same like copy best sold genre.
Gorb
1 :: It's possible to convince anyone of what can be argued to be a bad decision. That doesn't mean they're not going to follow it up with another bad decision. What you're doing here is understandable, but you're basically saying "things worked out because things worked out". If George Lucas had listened to people and made worse decisions, your entire argument would be different. It only works because a) he made arguably better decisions, and b) you personally approve of those decisions.
For example, I approve of the decision to make childrens' 40k books / comics / things. You don't. But you're saying it's a bad decision primarily because you dislike it. You're fitting in supporting statistics after the fact.
2 :: That is one study, from four years ago. If you read the article, the youngest age mentioned is 13. The oldest? 17. Significantly older than the target demographic for people entering the 40k hobby. The study itself isn't linked; the subsequent analysis goes to another article on a different site.
This is what I mean by you fitting in statistics after the fact. This isn't a source you came prepared with. This is one you found that maybe-kind-of supports the claims you're making.
My reasoning is simple. Games Workshop like to make money. As much of a backlash as they've gotten from Age of Sigmar, for example, it seems to be making them money. They're not going to publish a bunch of books without figuring that those books are going to earn them some money. And they're already got the whole Black Library going on. Games Workshop has been licensing novels for decades. You're going to need more than a study we don't know the details of, a study from four years ago, to suggest that GW licensing more novels is a bad thing.
3 :: Games have had ratings for years. Ratings just work differently nowadays, and that doesn't always mean that newer systems work. Nor does it mean the old ratings systems worked. You're free to not buy the AoE remake. That's your personal choice based on you personally not liking it. It's completely understandable. But this isn't relevant to talking about the backlash developers face over their projects. I don't know what you're getting at, here.
4 :: DoW III was not condemned to fail. vDoW had a competitive, or PvP, focus. It had a straightforward campaign, which was a tutorial for the multiplayer. It had ESL tournaments and a lively competitive scene. Again, you're fitting conclusions to your personal views of the game. That's not how analysis works.
I mean, it's completely valid as your opinion. But it's not an analysis of the game.
DoW III's design was influenced. Repeatedly. Map design evolved. Lethality was changed from the game's release. There was so much that got put into the game that the community directly asked for. It is factually incorrect to suggest that the design of DoW III was not influenced by this and other DoW communities.
You simply disagree with the end result. And that's fine - but again, you do not own it. You do not control it. You merely consume it. As do we all. Bit of a grey area around modding, but not many people went for that
MegaDerpLord
@Decepticats I doubt that people skip RTS games because they are considered too hard for people. People are always up for a challenge in video games and those who are able to build a well designed and difficult game are the ones with the potential to reap great rewards. The Dark Souls genre is after all built around the 'git gud' mentality and that franchise is pretty much a rip roaring success. In strategy games a recent example that I can think of that is considered challenging but is still successful is Rimworld. Less recent I'm thinking of is Crusader Kings 2. Both of them can have very difficult challenges but they are also both considered to be successful. It being considered too hard is not likely to be the fundamental reason why traditional RTSs are a niche but it is derfinitely part of a problem.
People are willing to play challenging games. But it also has to be a fun challenge and it has to be a fair challenge. The more I think about the more it seems that traditional RTS's are not exactly built to offer fair challenges in PvP mode even though that's certainly not their intention. I seriously doubt any game dev goes out of their way to hurt you for messing up hard, these things usually happen by accident but they still pretty much happen anyways and any attempt to fix them usually ends up being difficult. I don't know how old some of you are but I'm definitely old enough to remember Dawn of War 1's Defiler Spam in patch 1.3 which I am absolutely certain happened by accident. Basically the Chaos faction was able to spam these powerful arty mechs ad nauseum and basically ruin everyones day while the opposing players had very very little paths to take to bounce back. The problem is that with that many parts moving, messing up one thing can have a severe adverse effect on the ecosystem of everything else. If you lose because of BS its kinda bad. If you lose because of extreme levels of BS with no way to do anything about it then its really really bad especially when its another playing exploiting it and hammering you while you're down.
It's pretty much why I think for the time being, RTS games should probably step away from PvP focused design and focus on other avenues of play like more creative single player experiences or being solely focused on delivering Cooperative experiences.
StarSauron
It's a big difference if the game is properly designed for 2 years of development or 2 month post release.
Of course as customer, I can only judge the result once I have the game in my hands
and the most earliest point to do so is a beta, where it's too late to fix.
On Steam a lot of people, me too did tell after Beta DoW3 is a complete nonsense.
Based on facts like previous games that failed with same design,
DoW3 should have been cancelled already after the early drafts.
here article from 2009 about Red Alert 3 from 2008 that has sold only about 100,000 copies.
https://espion4ge.wordpress.com/2009/03/12/command-conquer-red-alert-3-an-indepth-review/
The list is quite long actually for failed PvP competitive RTS like Universe at War: Earth Assault, Atrox, Armies of Exigo , Dungeons & Dragons: Dragonshard and ParaWorld.
Its like if every battle royle game fails "exept 1or2 games",
Call of Duty series does die because they make battle royle mode
and you say 5 years later by Battlefield, hey guys lest make battle royle too.
It should be obvious for people who work on such projects,
what designs are successful and what designs are financial suicide.
DoW3 is literally another Titanic that does hit an Ice Berg.
Exactly this is the biggest mistake of RTS games,
not to let the actual gaming market control the games design,
but do an own weird thing nobody asked for.
People have simply enough of it,
of games that don't have basic RTS options
of games that can't handle basic RTS mechanics
of games that can't stay alive and don't get enough balance patches
of games that can't provide any kind of challenging gameplay in Skirmish
Why is Blizzard the only company,
that does ask people, as early as possible if they are doing the right thing ?
And does do the right thing actually ?
+1
I personally do see there a problem on the developers end.
I mean if they are going to design a competitive RTS,
shouldn't they like know to have a competitive design team,
that does always adjust the balance according to the meta?
It's not a secret by Blizzard, you always did know it some guys who are really good at play the game.
I always wondered why by other teams who did try to make PvP competitive design, you never had such team.
Without a massive man power behind it, competitive design simply doesn't work.
Decepticats
@MegaDerpLord The big difference with an RTS that is PVP focused over the games you listed is that you are losing to actual players and you can't easily rematch them. With Dark Souls if you fail you've only lost to an AI that isn't going to BM you and you can instantly reload and face off against it again or look up a strategy guide for tricks on how to beat it. It's really apples and oranges to compare a single player experience to a primarily multiplayer one and that was kind of my point. People aren't up for challenging multiplayer anymore. They want easy, they want team-focused (so they have someone else to blame) and they want a heavy emphasis on obnoxious reward mechanics like cosmetics, currencies, and (uughhhh) loot boxes. Single player is a different animal because there's no ego or MMR at stake.
@StarSauron Your blaming the RTS games as being "imbalanced" is more evidence to my argument that they are too hard for people so it's easier for people to blame the game. "UGH THIS SUCKS IMBA" is the RTS equivalent of people saying "UGH ++heresy redacted++ TEAMMATES" in a MOBA. They are blaming a game which may have slight imbalances but probably doesn't have anything extremely out of line instead of what would happen in the old days (when games rarely if ever got balance patches) which is just apply your mind and think "What could I do differently. Let me review the replay and think about where I went wrong." (heck in the old days a lot of those games didn't even have replays)
MegaDerpLord
@Decepticats I'm glad that you mentioned how dark souls allows you to bounce back and find new ways to relearn and figure out a new solution. Traditional PvP RTS games offer very little room for that kind of bounceback and it's especially galling when you consider your average RTS match lasts longer than 20 minutes locked in with your opponent.
I would counter the apples and oranges argument by saying that people will prefer to get the oranges if the apples leave a really bad taste in your mouth. The apples in this situation being PvP traditional RTS games. And if the apples are bad for too long you're not going to get many apple buyers.
The notion that people in general prefer easier MP these days isn't necessarily true. As I said they like a challenge but they want a fair challenge. But the kicker is that these days we got so many options we can pick our own challenges.
Generally speaking there are always people out there that will prefer an easier experience than a really hard one. That's not an exception of this current generation that's just us humans in general. And honestly that's fine people's got absurdly busy lives these days it's ok to find something easy to play to unwind. But there's always those who also want those challenging experiences and the market place has a dragons hoard worth of games like that.
Wanted to make a note about MOBAs as well. MOBAs are at least comparatively speaking allows for greater chances of come back compared to a traditional RTS and having that chance of comeback is critical since it can potentially keep you going. Though granted rage quitting is still something of a problem.
StarSauron
Well guys lets say there are 2 ways to look at the core issue,
from PvP and single player stand point.
Exactly this is the point, people don't believe that those games are balanced,
except its from Blizzard who did put a lot of money into guides and manuals.
Those "competitive games" always had a small player base, always did fail,
already before the MOBAs did even exist.
There was never a large pure PvP Competitive RTS audience, its just a myth some people did come up long ago, to convince publishers to make such games based on the success of Starcraft. There was a massive snow ball effect, a game alike Starcraft does get released, everybody does praise it, so more and more teams in gaming market did assume to copy it too. And the lie was repeated till it was believed to be truth. Already during Golden age of RTS 1by1 those imposters did went bankrupt. Sure I admit I did like to play them too, but from financial perspective those games never reached RTS audience.
We could already see 2001 by Atrox that there was no audience for it.
Decepticats
@MegaDerpLord I think you're right that comeback mechanics are needed. But to that end I think DoW3 was really good for this. Power Core mode gives you some fallback positions and because of the heavy emphasis on skill shots, playing well can almost always tip the scales. As for the time commitment issue you raise, I felt DoW3 addressed this too! Games are intense and action packed but 1v1s rarely exceed 30 minutes and even 3v3s usually end by that timestamp even without conceding.
My prescription for PVP RTS is this:
Even then it is likely not to do as well if it doesn't pair up with a strong PVE component. Preferably a strong co-op campaign or a replayable co-op mode.
@StarSauron You're right. There has never been a huge population of competitive RTS players. And most/many of the ones there were have moved over to MOBAs. There's nothing wrong with that on an individual level. But it is a lamentable fact for people who prefer traditional RTS such as myself.
The biggest change for me, is as I said previously, with the advent of matchmakers people started playing RTS games differently. It used to just be with/against friends or people you had socialized with so you could rematch them and learn and laugh about it later. Now it is a brutal and cold environment where people will BM you even if they are beating you and after you play against somebody you're unlikely to see them again on the ladder for a while (assuming the population isn't dead) so you can't even try again. Because of this, my CASUAL RTS playing friends pick up an RTS game such as DoW3, play with me or against the AI and have tons of fun. Then they go into the matchmaker and get roflstomped during calibration and aren't sure why. Sometimes they even get BM'ed. And then a few matches of this later they are done. It's not fun because the skill floor is so high that the difference between novice and even a mediocre player is gigantic.
I'm not enshrining how traditional RTS have done things as the best way to do things or saying that competitive RTS used to have a population that could ever dream of rivaling competitive FPS or fighting games. But it used to have a bigger population than it does now. There's a lot of reasons for that. Part of it is the community of us that are left is not really welcoming or friendly. We're quick to blame balance or blame the game. We're quick to logical fallacies like bandwagoning, strawmans, and bad faith arguments.
I don't think the genre will die. But it won't be OK without some kind of renaissance. A cosmic shifting of what and how an RTS game can be. I thought DoW3 was it. But not enough other people agreed. Bummer.
StarSauron
OK maybe competitive PvP players did go to MOBAs and Starcraft2,
but what happened to the single player crowd ?
Well gaming Market did completely forget about story, co-op and skirmish single players.
Nevertheless if we take a look at actual successful RTS titles, it was always about a story and fun skirmish. C&C Tiberium Wars and Supreme Commander have really nice AI options, like Rush, Turtle, Balanced, Steamroller, Adaptive that do influence the AI behaviour and how it does stack up unit formations, also you have there several difficulty levels. Company of Heroes does manage it very well, you have AI that does mimic real players' behaviour with retreat mechanic and goes quiet efficient after the resources. Recent RTS AI like from DoW3, did completely lost its dignity, does simply spam some same units into death what is really lame, with just 3 easy to defeat possible difficulty settings.
Also for Example 2015 StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void sold 1 million copies day in 24 Hours.
StarCraft II was basic free to play "arcade and multiplayer since 2011.
http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/StarCraft_II:_Starter_Edition
This means 1 million people did buy a Story DLC, for a game that was free2play for over 4 years already.
My personal perception is that the gaming industry does design RTS games from the wrong end. Based on this numbers, I personally assume a large part of RTS player base is simply playing single player games, they might be by old RTS, RPGs, turn based strategy games, indie RTS games or 4X games.
So Perhaps to gather RTS audience back the gaming market should design RTS games again from the Single player perspective ?
Decepticats
@StarSauron You're being misleading about SC2. When LotV came out, the multiplayer was not free. You could play the multiplayer for free ONLY if you grouped with somebody who had LotV. But otherwise you were stuck doing skirmish and the base campaign missions. So most of the people who bought it did not do so for the campaign (Most people never finish campaigns) but for the multiplayer and the CO-OP mode.
But yes, people will buy campaigns. I do agree that for traditional RTS, most people now prefer co-op or single player experiences. But that doesn't solve my problem. Because I WANT an RTS game that has a competitive multiplayer with lots of people playing it. So that's the problem I'm trying to solve. And it's definitely true that having a good AI and a good story mode will just through osmosis bring more people in the multiplayer but it's not enough.
I think DoW3 definitely had a bad AI. If it had launched with a better AI, last stand, and tighter campaign missions maybe there would still be a bigger crowd playing it. But I dunno, it's a very challenging multiplayer.
I think one of the keys may be in lowering the skill floor without lowering the skill ceiling. This is what Super Smash Bros. did to the fighting game genre. And it may be possible to do the same with RTS but I'm not 100% sure how.
StarSauron
Problem is by certain types of games, there can only exist max 1 or 2 of them.
If such "Multiplayer game" exists already 1 or 2 times, there is little till no room for similar games.
I also would like for competitive RTS to have something instead of Starcraft2,
but that's not how the market works.
It has nothing to do with genre, skill, design or content, its just usually people don't move from such game to another game.
As I did start the thread Battle Royale Genre is right now in same situation as competitive RTS.
I would say PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS is for Battle Royale genre, like Starcraft2 for competitive RTS genre.
lets look at numbers
PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS has right now 1,471,233 player
Robocraft Royale has 1 player
Radical Heights has 223
Totally Accurate Battlegrounds has 13.500 (launched for free recently)
Darwin Project has 1249
Realm Royale 51,179 (launched for free recently) from AAA developer
http://steamcharts.com/cmp/578080,804810,823130,809960#All
Sure as Multiplayer competitive Shooter PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS team made lots of money,
but other teams won't make such profits with it, just look dozens of other failed games.
jet again if we would check Totally Accurate Battlegrounds and Realm Royale 1 month later we will see by them population drop.
That's the mean thing by competitive games you either are the top played game or you are nothing.
Gorb
I'm not sure you understood me when I said "vDoW was competitively-designed". At least, to the same extent DoW III was.
You keep repeating this apparent PvP focus for DoW III. The developers stated that their intent was a fun, engaging experience. Whether or not they achieved this people will happily argue about, but my point is you can't claim a design focus that never existed. You're incorrect. There was no PvP focus other than it having a MP mode much like previous Dawn of War games had PvP MP modes.
There are no "facts". There aren't previous games with the same design, because "has PvP" is not the same design.
The games industry is full of many things, but one of the biggest things about it is successes and failures aren't easily predictable. Some can be, sure. But the industry lives on exceptions. Nobody saw PUBG becoming as successful as it did (however temporarily that may be). The exceptions are what consumer see; what they shape their expectations around. It's a benefit and a drawback to the industry.
The actual market, as you put it, will never control the design of a game. That's what the developers do. They do market research, they look at the data from previous games. They look at fan expectations all over the Internet. But at the end of the day they're still making the games. All the "market" can do is decide whether or not it's popular. Not even whether or not it's good.
As usual, you can't stop referring to a large group of unnamed people that all share your opinions. This is why I said your analysis suffers. You try and word everything to make it seem like a majority already agrees with you, when you're just you, talking to me and two other people in a forum thread (that a few more folks might be reading). You don't need to prove anything. Make it about yourself; your opinions. It comes across better that way!
To finish, Blizzard are an exception to most usual games development stories. They have more money than most other studios combined. Their graphics department is as large as some entire developer studios. If you're going to use Blizzard as an example, you should do some historical research on their earnings, their development cycles, and why their games take so long to make.
Opinion post.