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The RTS genre will never be mainstream unless you change it until it's 'no longer the kind of RTS that I want to play,' says Crate Entertainment CEO (www.pcgamer.com)
submitted 9 months ago by nanoUFO@sh.itjust.works to c/games@sh.itjust.works
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[-] peanuts4life 96 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I disagree with this premise. I think games like age of empires and StarCraft had mass appeal and success. They brought in audiences who don't normally like games, and broadly were well received by young, old, and different genders. Especially age of empires 2.

Modern RTS games are just (mostly) sloppy, unfinished, cashgrabs with no vision. They suffer the most from the transition to 3d as well. If a major studio actually put work and time into a polished, 2d, isometric, RTS that wasn't solely focused on being an esport, I think there is a major vacuum for them to fill.

[-] kbin_space_program@kbin.run 50 points 9 months ago

Hell, starcraft created the concept of a professional gamer being a thing. To say that RTS games dont have popular appeal is just outright wrong.

3D isnt a bad thing though, C&C Generals did it fantastically.

[-] peanuts4life 8 points 9 months ago

Definitely! Just to clarify, I think that good RTS games make good esports, but fundamentally on the basis is being carefully made, captivating, and nuanced. I think an overt focus on developing an RTS as a esport tends to lead to low risk, streamlined designs which while fun, lack some of the staying power that older, more established titles have. Perhaps, I'm disillusioned about the genre in general, and that's not the case!

Also, yeah 3d can be good, but I do think that Sprite based graphics are easy to parse and very pleasing to look at. I wish we had a healthy balance of the 2. 2d also tends to look more, evergreen, with 3d RTS looking dated on release due to the quantity of animated units. Though, strong art design would help offset this.

[-] Dettweiler42@lemmy.world 7 points 9 months ago

Generals was really fun. The C&C series really started to decline once EA went balls deep on what was left of Westwood studios for the games after that.
3D is great. I just don't trust most AAA companies to make a decent RTS these days.

[-] trebuchet@lemmy.ml 17 points 9 months ago

That doesn't really contradict their premise about making modern RTS. StarCraft and Age of Empires 2 are ancient at this point. An entire generation of kids has grown up since they came out.

I don't think the fact that you could make a successful mainstream RTS way back then really says much about whether you could make one in 2024.

[-] kbin_space_program@kbin.run 20 points 9 months ago

Starcraft 2, at this point, is 2 years Older than Starcraft 1 was when it was released.

[-] JokeDeity@lemm.ee 6 points 9 months ago

Shit that actually hurt.

[-] DarkThoughts@fedia.io 12 points 9 months ago

Or Command & Conquer, which didn't had as strong of a competitive community comparatively, but were very successful through their fun story campaigns. Also, there's some pretty successful real time 4X titles too that very much hit mainstream audiences, despite being even more of a niche due to their scale. I think a lot of RTS games often tried too much to compete with the esport niche too, trying to replace the established titles, which is kind of an impossible task. Doing an RTS that doesn't aim for this goal can still be successful however, if one puts the focus on that instead of targeting unreachable heights.

[-] MudMan@fedia.io 9 points 9 months ago

A lot of the competitive RTS crowd transitioned to MOBAs and it's hard to scratch that itch with an old-school RTS now. Having the full offline and online package was key of the time when those games were popular and you don't get that when the competitive space has moved on.

But you have a point. RTSs at their peak were super triple-A stuff, with mind blowing execution and production value for the time. Point and click adventures have a bit of the same problem, they used to be these massive technical showpieces and as a mid-size or indie thing they are a tougher sell when the modern equivalent of investment is going to absolutely insanely huge games in other genres. Even when a triple-A studio does one of those you tend to not get as much of a massive investment, and when you do (say, Total War: Warhammer, or even Manor Lords) they do see success. It's just never going to be the same because you're never going to call your friends over to show them Warcraft 2 running on your PC.

[-] MysticKetchup@lemmy.world 8 points 9 months ago

I mean, StarCraft was mentioned in the article. He just doesn't think RTS is big enough for AAA dev companies when they're all trying to sell tens of millions of games

That's not to say RTSes can never be any kind of hit: StarCraft 2 sold many millions of copies, Bruno noted, and Crate Entertainment only needs to sell a million to make "an OK return," he said. The series has also been an esports phenomenon. But for a company like Blizzard, he doesn't think that's enough anymore, which is why the developer stopped making new RTSes, or at least seems to have for now.

[-] umbrella@lemmy.ml 7 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

fact is nothing ever seems to be enough for these companies now.

they will sometimes make a smash hit and proceed to pump it full of microtransactions, then lay off half the staff.

also selling tens of millions of games is unrealistic when the hardware people run them on went through years of terrible availability, and they keep pushing the requirements.

im honestly stumped on what the fuck they are expecting at this point.

[-] Dettweiler42@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

To Tiberian Sun and StarCraft were my obsession for years. SC2 was pretty awesome, but I would not trust Blizzard to make another good RTS at this point.

[-] Klear@sh.itjust.works 3 points 9 months ago

How about ex-Blzzard people? Stormgate is coming.

[-] Renacles@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago

Are we going to pretend Age of Empires 4 doesn't exist? The last expansion outsold every single one from AoE2.

[-] peanuts4life 2 points 9 months ago

I didn't realize that it sold so well! That's good to hear it is successful. I'm not over the moon with the game, but I did get 30 hours or so out of it, and don't think it's bad at all. My biggest annoyance was that it felt too similar to AOE 2, which I saw as the superior game at launch. Still, that's a bit of bias from an old gamer, lol. I think it's fun!

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[-] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 2 points 9 months ago

Modern RTS games are just (mostly) sloppy, unfinished, cashgrabs with no vision.

As were many classic RTS games. I fondly remember Machines, a fully 3D example from the late 90s. I recently noticed the CD case describes it as "3D Real-Time Startegy."

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[-] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 27 points 9 months ago

The RTS genre will never be mainstream

StarCraft: exists

Lmao what the fuck is this guy even talking about

[-] icesentry@lemmy.ca 29 points 9 months ago

Starcraft hasn't been mainstream for over a decade.

[-] yamanii@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

Grandpa...

[-] Emmie@lemm.ee 17 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Battle for Middle Earth was my favourite game ever probably or at least among top 3. Honestly between the 4x warhammer total war and rts bfme I think bfme was slightly more fun.

It’s a real shame the genre is so forgotten.

RTS is more organic genre without incessant thinking about numbers and save scumming while 4x always feels like Math.

Every game session of RTS game is slightly different even with the same map and enemy parameters providing for a way more replayability value and unpredictable chaos that you need to manage in real time. It’s much more engaging this way.

It’s still about numbers under the hood but more organic while 4x feels like an excel spreadsheet sometimes. There are less solutions to victory, sometimes even only one proper, predetermined before playing and that’s boring.

Another gem was Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Dark Crusade. They made 2 sequels but none captured the gameplay of the first one. For some unknown reason they scrapped everything what made the original good in the second game, making it completely different. The third one was an attempt to go back to the mechanics of the first one but it was mediocre.

[-] foxglove@lemmy.world 7 points 9 months ago

And you cannot play it anymore due to the BS drm crap. I don't need a remake, just let me play it somehow

Games of that era are also just to big to easily pirate. A SNES ROM? Ezpz. But a full DVD game? Not without torrenting

[-] Emmie@lemm.ee 10 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I think this is all you need nowadays, it’s one click install I think. https://www.moddb.com/mods/battle-for-middle-earth-patch-222/downloads/patch-222

Hell, I will give it a go myself tomorrow

[-] foxglove@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

Dang, thank you!

[-] Emmie@lemm.ee 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Yw yw have fun (hopefully it works, haven’t checked myself yet)

[-] Emmie@lemm.ee 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I played it quite recently I think the community has solved that problem, even online iirc it worked. Don’t remember the links though. It’s still fun and a good escape when warhammer gets stale.

I do remember it was bashed for drm on release though. I also remember these things called no-dvd cracks you pulled form the shady websites with disgusting porn ads to not have to have the disc in your drive at all times. Also avast antivirus shenanigans. I wouldn’t say it was good old times but it all had certain flavour though I probably wouldn’t want to go back in time haha.

Gaming is generally in an amazing place now with an exception of few things lost along the way one of which is aaa RTS and another early Bethesda rpg genre, they totally changed their games starting with oblivion.

[-] Iceblade02@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago

Oh yeah bfme is a real gem

[-] Evotech@lemmy.world 14 points 9 months ago

Rts is mainstream, it's called dota and league.

[-] SkyezOpen@lemmy.world 21 points 9 months ago

Those are bastard offspring of rts

[-] Klear@sh.itjust.works 16 points 9 months ago

Those are not the kind of RTS I want to play...

[-] Blackmist@feddit.uk 5 points 9 months ago

Last year brought us Baldur's Gate 3.

In what way can "nerd things" not be mainstream?

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[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I think someone should reboot the Dune RTS game from like 30 years ago. I played it as a kid on my Sega Genesis, and right now it's a ripe time to do it. Interesting parts:

  • feels like C&C, but with spice worms
  • lots of factions, but could stick to three: Atreides, Harkonnen, Corrino/Emperor (optionally add the Fremen as a fourth)
  • cool, unique tech and setting

So, here's what I suggest:

  • copy C&C gameplay with updated graphics, and swap units appropriately
  • add spice worms as a "random" event based on greed (keeps stronger players in check)
  • balance like in Starcraft - harkonnen are like Zerg, corrino/empire are like protoss, and atreides are like Terran; Fremen faction could work like Zerg, in which case harkonnen works more like Terran

I think that could sell well.

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[-] RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Look at every mainstream game and youll easily see why RTS games could never go mainstream. They're all the same, like the wall of Buzz Lightyears in Toy Story. Over the shoulder camera, action adventure. Batman, God of War, Resident Evil, the list goes on. None of these were mainstream games until they all started looking and feeling the same.

[-] MudMan@fedia.io 16 points 9 months ago

This is demonstrably false. I mean, if "mainstream" means "successful to broad audiences", that'd be games with crafting/building elements (Forntite, Roblox, Minecraft, The Sims), sports games (FIFA) and a bunch of competitive games (League of Legends, CounterStrike, CoD). Plus a couple of outliers, too (Mario Kart, GTA V, Animal Crossing). Batman, God of War and RE do... fine? They do fine. But they're not the "mainstream" of the gaming industry, they are games for a specific slice of players, they would need 10x the reach to compete.

RE4 Remake sold what? 5-7 million units? Mario Kart was breaking 50 million last year. People don't have a grasp on what games are actually popular.

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[-] blazera@lemmy.world 7 points 9 months ago

Oh yeah God of War did horribly on PS2.

Wait no, it did phenomenally.

[-] RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

Sales aren't a good metric of determining whether something is mainstream or not. Notably, Anthem had over $100 million in sales. I wouldn't exactly consider Anthem to be a mainstream game.

[-] blazera@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago

What metric would you approve of? Awards? It got a bunch of Game of the Years

[-] rebelsimile@sh.itjust.works 2 points 9 months ago

I honestly didn’t know that sales figure for Anthem, that’s gross. They stole peoples’ money. That said, Anthem is an exceptional outlier. The difference between God of War and Anthem is that people play and played God of War.

[-] derin@lemmy.beru.co 4 points 9 months ago

Other than the slightly similar camera angle - and emphasis on slight: those games have very different styles of camera - those are completely distinct games.

I get the idea that you're not a fan of those titles for their design choices which led to mainstream success, but holy crap give them an iota of credit.

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[-] AceFuzzLord@lemm.ee 4 points 9 months ago

For a moment, I was swapping 4X and RTS in my head, making me absolutely agree that it'll never be mainstream.

Yeah, I don't know enough about RTS games to make a claim, but I'd like to think games like Civilization are well known enough to make them mainstream.

[-] Ookami38@sh.itjust.works 4 points 9 months ago

Unless I'm missing something new in later civs, the civilization series is missing the "real tine" part. Unless we're talking about the fact that it takes place during real time periods. Hah.

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[-] Balthazar@sopuli.xyz 4 points 9 months ago

TF is crate ent. on about? They've not even made an RTS, let alone one with love and care out into it? They've got an RPG* (grim dawn) and a city builder (farthest frontier) on steam. Neither come anywhere close to what an RTS is supposed to be, and like others have said, Dune (don't know the specific name), C&C, warcraft and StarCraft we're all impressive mainstream games, all RTS.

Haven't read the post, but what if kind of detached world do they live in?

[-] all-knight-party@kbin.run 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

The first sentence says they're working on an RTS currently. Even if they weren't, the CEO is probably allowed to share his opinion on RTS games even if he hasn't made one, just like all of us can. I think what's missing is the qualifier "will never be mainstream across all major continents again"

[-] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 3 points 9 months ago

I haven't seen an RTS with enough marketing to promote itself that actually was like how the best RTSs were back when it was a popular genre. Perhaps devs should try going back to what they were like when they were good? 🤷🏻‍♂️

[-] SlothMama@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

Halo Wars made a dent. It had marketing.

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this post was submitted on 11 May 2024
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