CotA has been bought and downloaded. Now working through the 200+ pages of manual, tute guides and tips! groan. I like it tho.
10 years later, it appears I was right–turn-based games have not only proven to be viable, but sometimes wildly profitable (look at Hearthstone). I’m extremely glad that things worked out this way; there’s a ridiculous amount of choice in the market now.
My one disappointment is the area of big-budget RPGs. They’re overwhelmingly not turn-based (or even tactical) nowadays. As much as I love The Witcher and Bloodborne, I’m sad that there’s no real turn-based/party-based equivalent.
It’s just a matter of time until someone makes a XCOM combat / RPG mix. After all, we’re living in a world with a turn based strategy Mario game, sky’s the limit…
There are some of these things already on the way, in fact.
Well that mix has definitely been done for the small/mid-budget RPGs, and it works well. The Shadowruns and Wasteland 2 come to mind.
However, it’s been totally absent in big-budget RPGs, which is unfortunate. I think part of that is that there’s so few big-budget RPG developers nowadays. CDPR and Bethesda, both of which are unlikely to swerve from their real-time combat. Maybe Bioware, if the next Dragon Age is a megahit and they try a turn-based spinoff or something? Nintendo with Pokemon. Square, if their TB games overperform and their real-time games underperform–problem is, that’s been happening for a while but they can’t seem to get the message.
Bioware is owned by EA and I cannot imagine EA allowing them to make a turn-based game ever. If anything, they’re moving further away from that, as witness Anthem.