RTS games don’t have to cost a lot of money to make, but the lack of a clear console success is a problem when it comes to publisher funding. Someone will figure it out, though.
A great deal of what people like in RTS games can be achieved with simpler, smaller, cheaper games. i.e., I’d argue that Tower Defense games have sucked away a lot of the casual players who might have looked for RTSs years ago.
Hmm, never really thought of that, but it makes some sense.
The near total collapse of the turn based strategy genre has also eliminated one of the paths that led up and coming gamers to RTS.
I’d argue this is largely irrelevant because RTS games draw in action gamers, whose numbers far exceed those of fans of turn-based games.
I personally feel that a bad (and by “bad” I mean lopsisded and not instructional in a way that rewards future attempts to play) RTS loss in MP is a. more likely and b. more demoralizing to a new/casual player than a bad loss in most any other genre of MP game.
True, and the RTS communities are mostly toxic and 100% new player unfriendly. It may have something to do with the time commitment for an RTS game; if you get a lousy teammate, you can lose hours. So the solution is to berate your teammate for playing the “wrong way,” then tell them to leave if they ask for help on a forum.
Another issue: Laptops. This is the big problem for many types of PC games that rely on 3D graphics and precise/fast mouse input. Laptop chipsets and touchpads aren’t really a good way to play an RTS.
Someone will use Natal/Sony Wand Thing to make one that works, more likely. I don’t think traditional console controls can really be adapted into something the mainstream audience wants to play. See: Brutal Legend.
Do you guys really think PC RTS games will still be ‘dead’ after Starcraft II hits the sales charts? Suddenly RTS projects will be greenlit right and left because silly suits will think they can get a piece of the pie that Starcraft II pulled out of the oven.
It’s all about out-of-control production costs as best as I can tell. When a AAA title needs to sell 3 million plus units to be successful, then you can pretty much kiss goodbye anything that’s the least bit complex. Of course, there will be some exceptions.
Speaking of which, how’s the indie scene for RTS games?
One other point: RTS games have a hell of a lot of replay value. I still play Starcraft and Total Annihilation myself. I’d be content with getting one really good RTS every year or two. But I guess that’s just me…
…So no one’s counting SupCom 2, C&C4: Tiberian Twilight, Dawn of War 2: Chaos Rising or Napoleon: Total War, all of which are scheduled for release first half of next year? None of them are blowing the lid of sales charts, but they’re all doing well enough for developers to keep at it (well, except for C&C4).
They’re not a good way to play an FPS either. Or anything else. The only people who are designing games to be played on laptops without plugging in a mouse are casual game makers like PopCap.
I think the biggest factor by far is that RTS games don’t work/sell well on both PC and console. PC exclusives in general have become incredibly rare, and the reasons for that are almost entirely financial. Publishers and developers tend to aim for the maximum return on their investment, and the best way to do that in the games industry these days is to go multi-platform. As soon as that’s not an option, a project becomes pretty unattractive. This is why FPS games dominate the market. As soon as Halo “figured out” the console FPS it opened the floodgates.
This was my first thought, as well. Just look at all the RTSs, big and small, that have come out this year: Dawn of War 2, Hearts of Iron 3, Demigod, that King Arthur game, Battleforge, all of those DotA clones, Empire: Total War… it’s not like it’s been a light RTS year, or even that the genre is stuck in a rut. There’s a huge amount of variety in this year’s releases, and they run the gamut from indie projects to AAA games.
People who think that RTS games are dead are nutty.
Not necessarily. However, it does means that if developers want their red Ferraris they need to make multi-platform games. And really, who doesn’t want a red Ferrari?
I have a MS Sidewinder mouse plugged into mine thank you very much. It is an accurate mouse and works wonderfully when I load up DoW 2 or CoH, or any other RTS which I have loaded on here. Sure, I may not be able to use a mouse when I decide to pull out my laptop in public, but then, who is going to fire up a game when they are mobile.
I think the real clincher is what was said about the anti-newb side of the RTS multiplayer aspect. DotA is a classic example.
Then you’ve got the people who have their perfect ‘cookie cutter’ tactics they apply in other RTS’ with their start builds etc. Sometimes I wonder if there is any real depth to the tactics in an RTS. But then, I never really play RTS games online so I’m not one to comment, again because of the anti newb element which makes me somewhat apphrehensive.
The perceived failure of Brutal Legend—since that’s all we can call it, despite forum threads of doom—assumes that metal is a mainstream topic/setting for a videogame. I don’t think its style of gameplay had any impact on its success/failure, since I’m pretty sure everyone assumed it was a “run around and kill stuff as Jack Black” game. I follow this stuff, and thought that’s the kind of game I was getting.
Give your console RTS a more mainstream setting—say, Age of Empires—or put a bigger franchise like WarCraft on a console and you may see more mainstream success.
But here’s the thing: You shouldn’t need to reach 3-4 million in sales with an RTS. They cost less to make than other genres because they don’t have all of the “cinematic” expectations others genres do, and you’re not as close-up to the action so you don’t need all of the fancy character models and such. Therefore, they don’t need to reach Modern Warfare levels of sales in order to be a success.
I think they are just down to manageable numbers as opposed to the massive onslaught we had for several years. Personally, during that deluge, they all began to run together. I was a pretty big fan of Myth, Kohan, and Majesty and then early Age of Empires and Settlers titles. (I am sure I am forgetting a couple). Then, I perceived them all going the way of C&C and AoE and only making small, incremental changes from that formula for years.
I just got bored with them. CoH did bring me back a bit, but those early, very different RTS-types were not successful enough to keep the genre varied. Companies keyed in on the successful formulas (perfectly reasonable since it is still a business) and the genre stagnated.
I like the Tower Defense comparison and I would add that one of the earliest that blended the TD genre’s mechanics and some RTS features was Netstorm. I thought that was a fascinating game.
Always happens, a genre blows up and innovation dies. The blowing up is over. Hopefully, some innovation can creep back…maybe through Indie developers. I think there is still a lot of room for blending genres that is not being executed well. I am looking specifically at the RTS/RPG hybrid.
Is it really a bulletpoint worth spending a ton of money and time trying to achieve? Count the ratio of art personal to AI programmers in any giving project. Look at the sales of Empire: Total War. It’s not like there’s a lot of FPS games that tout better AI than Half-Life 1.
I’d be really surprised if there wasn’t a resurgence of RTS games in the near future. I think there’s a Sup Com 2 in the works. We just recently got a new C&C and DoW, so they’re going through their expansions phases now; no reason not to believe those franchises will continue. Also, if someone were smart they’d pick up the Rise of Nations license and make a new of those. I’m not sure what happened to the Act of War people, but that was a damn good game in need of a sequel too. I’d also be somewhat surprised if we didn’t see a new Age of Empires sometime soon.
I think we’re just seeing a lull in the genre, not a death. At least that’s my hope.
