Why did Real Time Strategy genre die out?

[Blutwurstritter]

Does someone know/have quantitative data on how rts games compared financially with contemporary games of other genres? I am under the impression that rts has always been on the less-lucrative side of things but I have never made the effort to substantiate that inkling.

 

[Lyric Suite]

The problem with that line of thinking is that no game can compare to shit like Candy Crush. So why even bother making anything at all. Just make mobile shit that scams people into micro transactions and be done with it.

 

[OndrejSc]

Because time is not real. It is quantized, ergo turn based.

 

[Blutwurstritter]

Because time is not real. It is quantized, ergo turn based.

Quantization does not necessarily imply discretization. Your conclusion does not follow from your premises.

 

[Johannes]

The late 90s top rts's (warcraft 2, starcraft, aoe2, c&c) surely made good bank compared to most games of the era and their budgets.

But later games in the 2000s couldn't reach same success, as they weren't novel anymore and also had to compete with the earlier games for multiplayer attention. Though there wasn't that much money in mp anyway, when you don't have a subscriptions or transactions of any sort. That's what blizzard was unhappy about with sc2 eventually also, they had lots of players and spectators too, but couldn't monetize it like WoW or the modern freetoplay micro transaction games.

 

[Johannes]

RTS still get made though, and can be financially successful, they just aren't blockbusters any more. And I'm not sure what kind of expectations the studios had for them in the late 90s to start with, their one time huge success can be the more surprising part rather than their failure to stay in the limelight.

 

[Blutwurstritter]

The late 90s top rts's (warcraft 2, starcraft, aoe2, c&c) surely made good bank compared to most games of the era and their budgets.

But later games in the 2000s couldn't reach same success, as they weren't novel anymore and also had to compete with the earlier games for multiplayer attention. Though there wasn't that much money in mp anyway, when you don't have a subscriptions or transactions of any sort. That's what blizzard was unhappy about with sc2 eventually also, they had lots of players and spectators too, but couldn't monetize it like WoW or the modern freetoplay micro transaction games.

I think the height of popularity was around 1998/1999. There were tons of feature articles in German gaming magazines when Age of Empires 2 and Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun were released close to each other, and the year before you had Starcraft. But I have no idea what the view on rts games was internationally back then.

Its understandable from a financial point of view that Blizzard focuses on its cash-cows, but its strange that no one managed to fill the gap that was left by them. Its also seems that the rts genre was hit harder than other categories where we still see big projects (fps, rpgs, racing/sports). I think the last batch of multiple "blockbuster releases" was around 2007-2009 with Age of Empires III, Dawn of War II, C&CIII:Tiberium Wars, Supreme Commander, although interest in the genre was already noticeably lower, and the budgets on these games were probably nowhere near the top of more popular genres. I don't know if these titles performed badly or if the studios failed due to other reasons. But it seemed that production values lowered considerably afterwards, with no signs of recovery.

There have also been a lot of duds in the loot-shooter/coop-fps/survival-fps (or whatever those games are called) genre in recent years but there seems to be no end to publishers wasting millions on these types of games, you'd think they could scrap a few bucks together for a rts once in a while. Selling stuff like skins, models, or special effect colors would work perfectly fine in rts games. I'm glad that its not common since its bulltshit, but from a publisher point of view it should be straightforward to implement monetization schemes like that.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Selling stuff like skins, models, or special effect colors would work perfectly fine in rts games. I'm glad that its not common since its bulltshit, but from a publisher point of view it should be straightforward to implement monetization schemes like that.

That's pretty much where CoH is at, along with, of course, selling extra factions outright. Considering the pricing on their shit and the kind of grind required to get things unlocked by just playing, I'm sure they've made a killing.

Total War, despite it's turnbased aspects, is also solidly in the RTS genre imo. Obviously a shitton of money going through there between the various franchises and the umpteen expansions for Warhammer.

AoE4 came out relatively recently as well. Again, pretty clearly a big budget spent there, though it seemed to flop fairly hard from a multiplayer perspective, I've no idea what their actual sales looked like or how much it drove M$ gamepass sales. Or how much it drove AoE2 sales, and sales for it's expansions.

So it's not like nobody is making them any more. Just nobody really cares about them when they are made. And it's probably not the kind of genre you can slap together as an indie developer in a garage so it's not going to see the kind of random success you get from that side of things.

There have also been a lot of duds in the loot-shooter/coop-fps/survival-fps (or whatever those games are called) genre in recent years but there seems to be no end to publishers wasting millions on these types of games,

Maybe I'm out of the loop here but aren't most of these just tiny indie studios tweaking assets and slapping them together in a generic FPS engine? I think the only place decent money got moved around was the L4D clones, the horde shooters, and even then there weren't all that many were there?

 

[Johannes]

So it's not like nobody is making them any more. Just nobody really cares about them when they are made. And it's probably not the kind of genre you can slap together as an indie developer in a garage so it's not going to see the kind of random success you get from that side of things.

Remember when the KoTC guy made an RTS, Battle of the Sands?

 

[Damned Registrations]

So it's not like nobody is making them any more. Just nobody really cares about them when they are made. And it's probably not the kind of genre you can slap together as an indie developer in a garage so it's not going to see the kind of random success you get from that side of things.

Remember when the KoTC guy made an RTS, Battle of the Sands?

I try not to. There was actually another indie company ages ago that made a game I liked that did the same shit; decided to make a shitty RTS nobody wanted instead of a sequel to their awesome open world mining/battle space game.

Huh, apparently they got their game on steam at some point: https://store.steampowered.com/app/20700/Starscape/

Also apparently their original website is now defunct, presumably the whole company is.

 

[Average Manatee]

Any competitive game worth its salt has an unreachable skill ceiling. How good someone can potentially get, isn't really relevant to how easy a game is to pick up for a newbie.

There's still a big gap between RTS and other games here. In RTS the best players spend hours playing alone testing build orders. I can't think of another genre that has even a substantial fraction of the amount of time devoted to the metagame as RTSs have. For the most part if you want to learn to play CS or DOTA you can just play a few games and you understand what's going on. Totally not the case for any competitive RTS.

Incidentally this is also probably a big reason why RTSs are worse for spectators. I could have my grandmother watch something like Street Fighter and she'd comprehend like 80% of the game, but to understand the intricacies of an RTS you basically need 1000 hours in the matchup, otherwise its just watching big armies run into each other until one wins.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

But later games in the 2000s couldn't reach same success, as they weren't novel anymore and also had to compete with the earlier games for multiplayer attention. Though there wasn't that much money in mp anyway, when you don't have a subscriptions or transactions of any sort. That's what blizzard was unhappy about with sc2 eventually also, they had lots of players and spectators too, but couldn't monetize it like WoW or the modern freetoplay micro transaction games.

I think one thing that, unless I've missed it, is that a lot of people build their bases and might want to keep that base. There were games back in the day where you got to keep your units from map to map, like Warzone 2100 and Homeworld. Flash forward to today, and look at a very similar genre in a lot of ways, the Colony Sim. Games like Dwarf Fortress, Gnomoria, Rimworld, and the like. You can't control your units most of the time - except in combat where it becomes very much like an RTS. After the battle, you still keep your base. You don't really move to the next map, you just keep building that same base.

Multiplayer doesn't typically enter in to the popularly with these games, though there are a few with multiplayer. Stonehearth has multiplayer, for example, but most are just single player.

 

[Johannes]

But later games in the 2000s couldn't reach same success, as they weren't novel anymore and also had to compete with the earlier games for multiplayer attention. Though there wasn't that much money in mp anyway, when you don't have a subscriptions or transactions of any sort. That's what blizzard was unhappy about with sc2 eventually also, they had lots of players and spectators too, but couldn't monetize it like WoW or the modern freetoplay micro transaction games.

I think one thing that, unless I've missed it, is that a lot of people build their bases and might want to keep that base. There were games back in the day where you got to keep your units from map to map, like Warzone 2100 and Homeworld. Flash forward to today, and look at a very similar genre in a lot of ways, the Colony Sim. Games like Dwarf Fortress, Gnomoria, Rimworld, and the like. You can't control your units most of the time - except in combat where it becomes very much like an RTS. After the battle, you still keep your base. You don't really move to the next map, you just keep building that same base.

Multiplayer doesn't typically enter in to the popularly with these games, though there are a few with multiplayer. Stonehearth has multiplayer, for example, but most are just single player.

We had city builders with combat back in the day too, Impressions Games with Caesar, Pharaoh etc being the most prominent that come to my mind. And those weren't typically called RTS. While these are indeed realtime (with pause) and strategy games, it's not the same genre or lineage of games. And with the individualized detailed soldiers in Rimworld, the combat often feels more similar to an RTwP RPG than a typical RTS.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

We had city builders with combat back in the day too, Impressions Games with Caesar, Pharaoh etc being the most prominent that come to my mind.

Those were great games. I still have them in their original box. I don't think they were ever very popular the way games like Rimworld is. I have Rimworld on Steam and I was thinking I'd love to get it on GoG as well, but that game's price has only gone up. I think I got it on sale for $12 before it got really, really popular. On sale, right now, Rimworld is $28. I never even bothered with any of the expansions just because the expansions, even on sale, are more than I paid for the base game.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Any competitive game worth its salt has an unreachable skill ceiling. How good someone can potentially get, isn't really relevant to how easy a game is to pick up for a newbie.

There's still a big gap between RTS and other games here. In RTS the best players spend hours playing alone testing build orders. I can't think of another genre that has even a substantial fraction of the amount of time devoted to the metagame as RTSs have. For the most part if you want to learn to play CS or DOTA you can just play a few games and you understand what's going on. Totally not the case for any competitive RTS.

Incidentally this is also probably a big reason why RTSs are worse for spectators. I could have my grandmother watch something like Street Fighter and she'd comprehend like 80% of the game, but to understand the intricacies of an RTS you basically need 1000 hours in the matchup, otherwise its just watching big armies run into each other until one wins.

Grubby lately started casting both pro-matches as well as matches between bronze tier scrubs and he explains a lot of the meta and the errors people make. I haven't played WC3 for over 10 years so it's very interesting stuff, especially his commentary on low tier players, which is super fascinating.

Watching him play scrubs is also kinda of illuminating regarding the disparity between pros and the average player, something that may not be as apparent with matches between pros:



Not only he knows all the hundreds of facts about the meta but he can make split second decisions and choices that are always informed and made with a precise purpose, all based on said meta.

An ability like this for me isn't something you can acquire just by practing a lot, it's likely as innate as virtuosity in music. That's why for me competitive games should strive to have robust match making systems and leave it at that. There's nothing developers can do to make things easier for the casuals that will allow them to ever be in the same universe as the pros.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Any competitive game worth its salt has an unreachable skill ceiling. How good someone can potentially get, isn't really relevant to how easy a game is to pick up for a newbie.

There's still a big gap between RTS and other games here. In RTS the best players spend hours playing alone testing build orders. I can't think of another genre that has even a substantial fraction of the amount of time devoted to the metagame as RTSs have. For the most part if you want to learn to play CS or DOTA you can just play a few games and you understand what's going on. Totally not the case for any competitive RTS.

Incidentally this is also probably a big reason why RTSs are worse for spectators. I could have my grandmother watch something like Street Fighter and she'd comprehend like 80% of the game, but to understand the intricacies of an RTS you basically need 1000 hours in the matchup, otherwise its just watching big armies run into each other until one wins.

Watching him play scrubs is also kinda of illuminating regarding the disparity between pros and the average player, something that may not be as apparent with matches between pros:

Not only he knows all the hundreds of facts about the meta but he can make split second decisions and choices that are always informed and made with a precise purpose, all based on said meta.

An ability like this for me isn't something you can acquire just by practing a lot, it's likely as innate as virtuosity in music. That's why for me competitive games should strive to have robust match making systems and leave it at that. There's nothing developers can do to make things easier for the casuals that will allow them to ever be in the same universe as the pros.

Haven't watched the video, but this is why these things remind me of fighting games and why if you want to be a pro or even approach it at a fighting game, you need to play that one game religiously, like a job. Probably applies to FPS games as well, re: knowing maps, etc.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Any competitive game worth its salt has an unreachable skill ceiling. How good someone can potentially get, isn't really relevant to how easy a game is to pick up for a newbie.

There's still a big gap between RTS and other games here. In RTS the best players spend hours playing alone testing build orders. I can't think of another genre that has even a substantial fraction of the amount of time devoted to the metagame as RTSs have. For the most part if you want to learn to play CS or DOTA you can just play a few games and you understand what's going on. Totally not the case for any competitive RTS.

Incidentally this is also probably a big reason why RTSs are worse for spectators. I could have my grandmother watch something like Street Fighter and she'd comprehend like 80% of the game, but to understand the intricacies of an RTS you basically need 1000 hours in the matchup, otherwise its just watching big armies run into each other until one wins.

Watching him play scrubs is also kinda of illuminating regarding the disparity between pros and the average player, something that may not be as apparent with matches between pros:

Not only he knows all the hundreds of facts about the meta but he can make split second decisions and choices that are always informed and made with a precise purpose, all based on said meta.

An ability like this for me isn't something you can acquire just by practing a lot, it's likely as innate as virtuosity in music. That's why for me competitive games should strive to have robust match making systems and leave it at that. There's nothing developers can do to make things easier for the casuals that will allow them to ever be in the same universe as the pros.

Haven't watched the video, but this is why these things remind me of fighting games and why if you want to be a pro or even approach it at a fighting game, you need to play that one game religiously, like a job. Probably applies to FPS games as well, re: knowing maps, etc.

Even musical virtuosos have to work hard, that's not in question. But it's also a fact there's an innate talent there (part of which comprises, among other things, an instinctive feeling for how to practice correctly, which is an underrated aspect that often gets overlooked among those who practice a lot but never seem to make any progress).

BTW, aside for his casting videos, i'd recommend watching his WC3 "rankings" on his second channel:



He goes into a lot of detail about the meta and it's all very interesting coming from someone who knows his stuff inside out.

I never followed Grubby before, just occationally watched his matches on his primary channel, mostly because he used to do streams about the various MOBAs which i never cared to see, but his latest stuff is more interesting. As far as streamers go, i like his style becuase it's very relaxed. No screaming or constant memes and spazzy editing. I think the guy is probably too autistic to do that stuff even if he wanted to.

 

[gurugeorge]

Yes, I know there is a gasp here and there, like Age of Empires IV or the recent re-release of Command & Conquer games, but it's such a minor genre today. Years ago, it was thriving, with major hits like Starcraft, Age of Empires 1/2, Age of Mythology, Warcraft 2/3, Total Annihilation/Supreme Commander, 2160 games, Cossacks, Spellforce, Stronghold, Command & Conquer, Red Alert, Dawn of War, and many others.

There is a theory that MOBAs/DOTAs killed it, after the Warcraft 3 mod took off, targeting the same crowd, but I dunno if I buy that as the full explanation.

What I think happened was the genre never understood its true appeal and went into the wrong direction. Companies seemed to think that RTS games are primarily e-sports competitions (Starcraft, Warcraft, AoE), but this is exactly where RTSs were most vulnerable to DOTAs. First, DOTAs start with the action immediately, whereas RTS require some build up time, which becomes boring after n games. And in general, DOTAs capture the competitive aspects better, imo. Plus, with e-sports, there is only so much room for games, once you have your leader, say Starcraft, everyone competing is playing that, not much need for new games.

Another false path that RTSs went down was the story driven campaigns (whether in Starcraft, Company of Heroes, Warcraft, etc). If somebody really wants a narrative driven game, they will probably prefer an RPG anyway.

Where the real squandered potential of RTS games was, was the stuff in games like Stronghold or Dwarf Fotress, where you had complex supply chains, structures that interacted with each other and weren't just one-offs, and settlements/economies with a lot of deep, interesting aspects. No other genre can offer this, and I think in general people do love playing with little units, and building stuff, and defending it, so if RTS games could develop this side of the genre, there is no reason they couldn't have a great Renaissance.

I think it was basically a very simple genre that peaked with Total Annihilation. Well, maybe there were a few glimmers of a different approach here and there after that, like Ground Control, but basically the formula was set and exhausted in a few years. All you can do is re-skin it and give it snazzier graphics.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Lmao, those bronze league castings are the best:

 

[Ol' Willy]

Probably the very first example of a QoL feature that we now take for granted is the ability to select more than one unit which Dune 2 did not have. Does it mean subsequent RTS games were "decline" merely because they removed this unique form of skill expression from Dune 2, where you had to click on every single unit in order to move your army?

People good at Dune II used chains, ordering units to follow one another - thus allowing mass orders

Not the best example

 

[Lyric Suite]

Probably the very first example of a QoL feature that we now take for granted is the ability to select more than one unit which Dune 2 did not have. Does it mean subsequent RTS games were "decline" merely because they removed this unique form of skill expression from Dune 2, where you had to click on every single unit in order to move your army?

People good at Dune II used chains, ordering units to follow one another - thus allowing mass orders

Not the best example

It's a good example because the ability to just select a group of units was a QoL feature that removed a form of skill expression.

The question of balancing QoL features with freedom of expression goes to the very heart of this discussion.

For me a good analogy of how things can go wrong is software companies developing interfaces that are designed to make it "easier" for novices to use but makes it harder and removes options from power users or hides them away behind needless layers of obfuscation. This is the first way in which QoL features or "casual" features can go wrong even in a game. I mentioned already assists in driving simulators and there's a potential for competitive games to go that route (for instance, RNG autoaim in shooters to downplay player skill and punish those with better accuracy to give the rest a "fighting" chance). I forgot the specifics but Grubby mentioned in one of his videos he tried to order his builders in Stormgate to do a specific series of actions but the AI went out of it's way to override what he told his units to do because there was some kind of "casual" helper feature in place. That's a good example of how things can go wrong with this.

The second aspect to this is that what makes real time games "fun" is precisely the freedom to do whatever the player wants, or to have the game become an extension of the player's will. It's a very visceral thing that is all the more powerful precisely because of how basic it is. The very reason RTS games became popular is that unlike turn based games, people could just click on a unit and make it do whatever they wanted it to do. It is this freedom that makes RTS "fun" to play for the casuals, but also allows for the very high skill ceiling we see among the pros. People who are convinced curtailing what the pros can do is the best way to invite the casuals may find themselves surprised the casuals may be alienated by the things that would alienate the pros, not the least because the casuals aren't exactly outright retarded. It's not like grandma who has never touched a computer before is playing this shit.

 

[Lyric Suite]

BTW, if someone wants a good example of making something require extra manual dexterity that ends up just being unfun and pointless i present to you the Trespasser arm:

 

[Damned Registrations]

For me a good analogy of how things can go wrong is software companies developing interfaces that are designed to make it "easier" for novices to use but makes it harder and removes options from power users or hides them away behind needless layers of obfuscation. This is the first way in which QoL features or "casual" features can go wrong even in a game.

The thing is, in a pvp game, the skill ceiling is never reached because part of that ceiling is predicting your opponent. Obviously the two guys at the top can't both predict what the other will do with 99% accuracy because that would run you down the whole 'I know he knows I know he knows...' paradox. Which is why even a dead simple game will have people at the top level who have been there for years.

The other thing is, people who've invested their time in learning the nuances of a game will scream bloody murder when literally anything about it is changed. Since the people who invested the most time are also likely the most successful and regarded as the most knowledgeable, this opinion gets an outsized level of respect it often doesn't deserve. Hence why fighting games are full of glitches from their franchise that are 20 years old but the 'pros' insist that it couldn't be a good game without that glitch, despite it only appearing in that one fucking franchise.

You can see this to a lesser extent with QoL stuff in RTS. AoE has automated scouting, WC3 had simplified resource gathering, TA lets you queue up 500 units to build while only paying for 1 at a time... but if you suggest sharing any of that between games the 'pros' will lose their shit and pretend the game will be reduced to Tic-Tac-Toe without it's repetitive task of choice. Hell, look at real world sports- you get fucking baseball players claiming they can't throw the ball without hitting the batter unless they can smear fucking superglue on their hands. It's all a bunch of 'fuck you-got mine' from people terrified of losing their throne to a new generation that can focus more on a different (probably deeper and more interesting) aspect of the game. Listening to these people is like letting an oil tycoon tell you how high fuel subsidies should be for an ideal economy.

Obviously you can't develop a good game by doing everything the lowest common denominator wants, but there's a god damned middle ground between painful retarded traditions and reducing the game to a coin flip. You want good advice about how to improve the genre? Ask a high level player what he'd change about the games he doesn't play. He'll have enough general knowledge to have good ideas without the personal bias of needing to keep his own skills relevant.