Topic: How did the RTS sub-genre die so quickly?

[Highwind Dragoon]

The only major one coming out this year is Spellforce 3, and that has RPG elements in it.

[KaZudra]

All of the Above.

The RTS genre is great, but it has quite a bit of issues, most stemming from the lack of focus of using single player to climb the learning curve.

[Dracula9]

friendly reminder that IGW is coming back in the months to come

[Jazz Paladin Productions]

I blame MMO'S

[Shiroi Koumori]

I never play online for RTS or for any game since I have shitty internet. But I've seen videos of online competitive play and it is hard and frantic.

On other news....
Age of Empires is coming back in HD!!! SQUEEEEEE!!!!!!!

[Jazz Paladin Productions]

Saw that. I never was a big fan of AoE as opposed to Starcraft. But I loved Age of Mythology, I'd take a remastering of that...

[Lumi Kløvstad]

I always loved Warcraft and Starcraft's single player campaigns. Those stories were epic as anything made today, especially for 1990's pre-teen me. Dark as hell, yet surprisingly family friendly. Bunch of years later and I found Halo Wars was pretty similar, but on console.

My read on things is essentially this:

1) Blizzard post-Activision acquisition got out of the RTS genre almost entirely; they were a steam engine for that genre that could have almost single-handedly kept demand for it up via Warcraft and Starcraft

1b) World of Warcraft's influence on the above point cannot possibly be understated. It was far cheaper and easier for Blizzard to carry the story forward in the MMO medium once the framework was established rather than pumping out a new game with new graphics and entirely new assets every few years. Even without Activision, Blizzard ultimately would have let the Warcraft RTS games wither at the vine once WoW became a hit that just kept hitting for a solid decade plus. Furthermore, WoW nabbed more players than the first three Warcraft games ever did, and combined with monthly subscription fees, made Blizzard a hell of a lot more money too. The only reason that Starcraft 2 and Overwatch got made at all was because Blizzard was smart enough to realize that the free-flowing tap of money had started to slow into a comparative trickle.

2) Ensemble studios died before Halo Wars even actually released, which took the other king of the RTS field out of commission. I honestly feel lucky that we got a finished product at all, but events are what they are and Halo Wars wasn't going to have been the savior that reversed Ensemble's financial hemorrhaging. 

3) the RTS genre was simply never actually that big to begin with. The loss of its two biggest players inside of just a few years pretty much tanked the whole thing. It's hard to make money selling these sorts of games too as they lack the broader appeal of MMO's or Shooters. Ensemble, for its part, had been hurting for years as they routinely failed to sell as much of their new games as the game before had sold, and game development is itself an expensive proposition. It gets even harder when you're trying to develop a new game and you only just broke even on your last Hero Release.

Which brings me to the ultimate reason:

The Market moved on. RTS was always something of a niche market because while its fans have been and will always be dedicated to the ends of the Earth, its a proven fact that its very difficult to convince new people to buy into becoming fans. Advertising is a big factor: bigger and bolder RPGs, Shooters, Racing Games, MMO's, Fighting games, and even puzzle games like Portal are historically of broader appeal and easier to advertise and sell. Starcraft is unlikely to ever move as many copies as FIFA or Call of Duty in the same year. Once it became clear that the RTS target audience was not growing, and merely staying the same, developers moved on to something with more market appeal.

Now there's a silver lining on the horizon: Clash of Clans.

CoC and all of its ilk, while not true RTS games, have begun to pave the way for a resurgence of strategy based games on mobile devices, a field that DOES make a lot of money for relatively little development cost. RTS games could easily find a new home on phones and tablets, with the larger screen sizes current mobile users preferring already being in favor of the sprawling information-dense user interfaces that typically accompany an RTS.

RTS games will never be the must-have-hit of a given year of gaming, but after a lengthy sleep, it's entirely possible they may find new success on mobile.

We can only hope.

[Highwind Dragoon]

friendly reminder that IGW is coming back in the months to come

What's that stand for?

Also AOE definitive version is Windows 10 only, not on steam or GoG, either.

And hell no, Freemium games are the death of quality gaming.

[KaZudra]

What's that?

Also AOE definitive version is Windows 10 only, not on steam or GoG, either.

And hell no, Freemium games are the death of quality gaming.

Wouldn't count on it being there forever, Killer Instinct hitting Steam and all.
Which brings the question; What...exactly is the UWP platform for?

[Dracula9]

What's that stand for?

http://imperium-galactic-war.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

[Shiroi Koumori]

Also AOE definitive version is Windows 10 only, not on steam or GoG, either.

And hell no, Freemium games are the death of quality gaming.

I am sure it will go to Steam, eventually.

That is the future. You can still play freemium games without spending a single cent. It just takes longer to accomplish what the pay to win folks are at. It is technically a test of patience.

[Highwind Dragoon]

Yeah, thanks, but no thanks.

Any actual quality RTS made > any Freemium RTS made.

Patience is best reserved for work and school, not for the PC/video games that I choose to play.

[Lumi Kløvstad]

Yeah, thanks, but no thanks.

Any actual quality RTS made > any Freemium RTS made.

Patience is best reserved for work and school, not for the PC/video games that I choose to play.

I'm right there with you, but if you want Strategy games, sadly you gotta play by the rules set forth by the publishers.

If you play them, they'll say Freemium games work (and they do in the absence of other options), but if you don't play them, they'll say "obviously people don't want to play strategy games" and stop developing them entirely. The time to have voted with your wallet for pure pay-once-and-play strategy games was, regretfully, 15 years ago.

Now you're voting with your wallet on whether you want strategy games at all.

[Highwind Dragoon]

Not really, a small publisher like kemco could publish low budget RTS' for mobile, hell, they made one for GBA, THE ONLY ONE I MIGHT ADD.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mech_Platoon

So, don't tell me that modern smartphones can't handle a low-budget RTS.

I mean, they do low budget Rpgs for Mobile, and most of them are not half bad, so If they go back to pre-1995 RTS, I could get behind that.

Uh, no, If I want a strategy game that's good, I go get something from several years ago, so why the hell play by their rules?

Right now, I'm playing through Spellforce Vanilla and Company of Heros Vanilla, so your statement falls flat on it's face.

[Count Decebal II.]

Regarding why RTS-Games did die/ are dying:

Today’s gamers are looking for something fast paced and less time consuming.
Games like Call of Duty perform well every year, because it delivers what the mass' wants.
Running around shooting, dying, respawning. Matches can be completed in minutes. It is quick and you could squeeze in a match or two when you have half an hour to play.

Contrast this with RTS matches. It takes time to play. Time not everybody has.
Also console gaming has also had an impact on RTS games.
RTS games are not meant for controllers and though there have been well made attempts of RTS games on consoles, it still feels much better to play them on Computers.