Why did Real Time Strategy genre die out?

[flyingjohn]

A genre with two conflicting elements (slow base building and micro quick combat) does not make for something most people will enjoy.
The slow building fans moved to city builders/4x/Grand strategy and the combat fans moves to Total war/mobas/Tactical games.
Dota's popularity proved that, it become popular too quickly because people were getting annoyed by RTS mechanics. It also doesn't help that pathfinding issues are a big problem that still isn't solved today.

 

[mondblut]

Natural selection did something good for once. Good riddance!

 

[Lucumo]

Gaming has become a "social" hobby over the years.

But it always was a social hobby. Competing for highscores in arcade games or directly playing with/against each other, games with hot seat, LAN, the internet.

Damn a lot of guys who don't play rts multiplayer, educating ppl on what makes a good rts player

Not to mention different RTS games have different priorities. Starcraft: Brood War, for instance, is definitely not a micro game, unless we are talking about rushes or ZvZ here. In Wacraft III, however, micro is much more important. It's also a much slower game in comparison.

 

[Fedora Master]

Yeah so what, who is gonna play that shit seriously with a controller.

You'd be surprised how insistent some people are on playing things with controllers.

 

[sebas]

The genre just stopped evolving in the 90s. That is unless you want to consider Warcraft 3 a revolution, which it wasn't really at all. So name all your favourite RTS games, compare them all the way back to Dune 2 and what you'll find is that it's only in flavour that they differ. It's the exact same game: go ahead in resources and come back through battle micro.

 

[tritosine2k]

Exactly these post 2000 devs wouldnt last a week in 90s hi octane development and less and less so plus late stuff mostly functions as glorified model viewer MTX carry vehicle. And polar opposite of RTS that runs on unit count.

 

[Anomander]

Because the devs (or the execs) completely misunderstood players or just ignored them in pursuit of profit. After Starcraft every RTS (I mean war RTS C&C style, not some city builder or something) has been developed with multiplayer focus. Multiplayer was a huge minority interest and most of the players played only the campaign. After Starcraft focus shifted on multi, so the players left. Additionally creating a good campaing is hard and costly.

The problem with this theory is that most RTS games after Starcraft never actually focused on muiltiplayer, they all stuck to single player.

The only exception to this was Dawn of War, a game which last i checked had more than a moderate amount of success.

Meanwhile, some notable RTS games failed because of the lack of good multiplayer. Battle Realms failed because it couldn't compete with the online capabilities of Warcraft 3.

What games are you talking about?
After SC2 I remember one RTS with standard base building - Grey Goo and it was focused with multi. There was a campaign and it was OK. I have no idea how good it sold.
Besides this I can only remember some low effort/low budget games like Meridian New World, WarParty and likes.

I am only talking about subset of RTS with the standard base building -> create army -> destroy enemies

 

[JarlFrank]

- Very hard to monetize DLC for

Age of Empires 2 DE disagrees with you.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Have you played Multiplaayer RTS and how taxing it is to play? The "Craft" series (SC, WC) arguably the most famous RTS requires significant focus and is very taxing to play, even when you are low ELO scrub playing against each other. Even DoW 1 likes are pretty taxing as well. Never really get into MP for AoE or C&C but I doubt they are much easier.

There was a time when RTS was just a game with single-player mode with a grand campaign and skrimish against AI is a bonus that we fired up in our spare time but since mid 2000s Multiplayer has been a big part of RTS and RTS is basically just hard to get into. Most people will be filtered by equivalent of Hard AI in these games then even after that get trounced in MP.

And unlike Fighting Games (that is also notoriously hard to get into, for different reason), RTS can't be casualized to the point of attracting casuals because at that point the RTS will be so shallow that even casual will get bored and RTS veteran will have 0 interest with game with no depth.

Fighting games maninly Tekken through 8, SF through SF6, GG through Strive in many way lower the barrier of enty by simplifying input and having easy to trigger mechanic that allows casuals to feel great when playing, and even looks flashy. There is no easy equivalent to RTS. Maybe by reducing APM/Attention Span tax. To some degree CoH abd DoW 2 managed to this by making lower scale, more moment2 to moment gameplay instead of micro focused but even then they really never breakthrough the casual barrier.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

That's kind of my point though, going the multiplayer route was the wrong thing to do for RTS games as a genre. It's so very niche, and only allows space for 1-2 leading games, and MOBAs are better at it anyway (more fun).

The right approach should be to expand on elements introduced in games like Dwart Fotress, Stronghold, Warlords: Battlecry, Spellforce, Rise of Nations, etc. I do think people love messing around with little units and buildings, and RTS games give it a lot more immersion and instant feedback compared to city builders, or 4x games, or grand strategy games.

So they should forget multiplayer, and even forget massive single player campaigns, and instead focus on depth: introduce super deep supply chains (e.g. mine iron here, smelt it into steel here, have the blacksmith turn the steel into swords, have the peasants train here, give them swords, turn them into men-at-arms, etc), also introduce interesting dynamic and complex structures (instead of a fixed building, have it change based on what it's placed next to, have the walls combine into fortresses, wells like in DF, where you gotta build them piecemeal over water), introduce unit experience, so units can level up and rise in rank, have systems that affect areas, and many other things like that. THAT is where the real potential of RTSs is, imo.

 

[Lyric Suite]

After SC2

Genre was already dead by the time SC2 came out.

 

[Lyric Suite]

The right approach should be to expand on elements introduced in games like Dwart Fotress, Stronghold, Warlords: Battlecry, Spellforce, Rise of Nations, etc.

Dwarf Fortress lmao.

Muh multiplayer being too teh hard certainly explains the massive popularity of Blizzard.

Yeah so what, who is gonna play that shit seriously with a controller.

You'd be surprised how insistent some people are on playing things with controllers.

That's because everybody is a consoltard now. Thanks, again, to the Xbox.

Genre was dead the second the PC echo system had to be "shared" with consolefags.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Blizzard tried hard as fuck to make SC2 a success on the level of SC1. They funded an assload of tournaments for like a decade with substantial prize pools. I think they tried to monetize a DLC like thing later in its life but that all failed (not that it was unprofitable but that it wasn't profitable enough). Apparently a single cosmetic for WoW made more money than all of SC2. Why spend so much time and effort on SC3 when its far less profitable? I assume games like Overwatch had a similar profitability disparity.

Cannot really rely on the lack of success of SC2 as a measure for the genre, because SC2 was fucking shit. The absolute travesty that was Battle.net 2.0 by itself made the game dead on arrival. The only reason it even took off at all is because there was literally nothing else Starcraft players could have jumped on.

 

[Cross]

The genre just stopped evolving in the 90s. That is unless you want to consider Warcraft 3 a revolution, which it wasn't really at all. So name all your favourite RTS games, compare them all the way back to Dune 2 and what you'll find is that it's only in flavour that they differ. It's the exact same game: go ahead in resources and come back through battle micro.

What you're describing is the current state of the genre, with Kickstarters wanting to cash in on nostalgia by making a successor to WarCraft/StarCraft. But back then, there were plenty of unique titles, like Majesty, Sacrifice and Impossible Creatures, that shook up the standard RTS formula.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Muh multiplayer being too teh hard certainly explains the massive popularity of Blizzard.

It's vestige of "remaning of old RTS series", there is reason why SC 2, AoE 4 succeed comercially: they are those games the 90s oldfags played and love. And they have certain brand name to them. Hence people will play them. As dead as the genre was/is, if Blizzard made competent SC3 or WC4 it going to get millions of players still.

Even WC3 with reforged albeit the massive controversy now has a big resurgence in interest with old veterans now coming back to stream, people are watching, and small tourneys are being made.

The competitive appeal has always been there, but unless you have big enough name you aren't going to survive. This is also a "snowball" problem. Without healthy player base, your game devolves into 500 - 1000 ultra sweaty guys that going to destroy any MP lobby. With SC2 during its life period having hundred of thousands active player be it for melee lobby or custom games (not to mention Blizzard did make MP only Lobby free iirc?) it means there are enough players for low ELO player not to get crub stomped to dust.

It's the death spiral problem of MP focused games.

 

[sebas]

What you're describing is the current state of the genre, with Kickstarters wanting to cash in on nostalgia by making a successor to WarCraft/StarCraft. But back then, there were plenty of unique titles, like Majesty, Sacrifice and Impossible Creatures, that shook up the standard RTS formula.

That's a fair point and we could add Uprising, Myth or Dragon Commander to the list but none of these games were very good, mostly just novelty trips. Well ok, Spellforce was very good but that's hardly an RTS.

 

[JarlFrank]

So they should forget multiplayer, and even forget massive single player campaigns, and instead focus on depth: introduce super deep supply chains (e.g. mine iron here, smelt it into steel here, have the blacksmith turn the steel into swords, have the peasants train here, give them swords, turn them into men-at-arms, etc)

Ok but now you turned it into a city-builder or at least city-builder/RTS hybrid.

 

[Lyric Suite]

The competitive appeal has always been there, but unless you have big enough name you aren't going to survive.

The point is that claiming MP is the reason the genre "failed" is a bit of a Codexer's cope given the most massively popular RTS of all times were all MP games.

I get it's hard to compete with Blizzard, but Blizzard themselves became "big" precisely because of the MP.

Not saying the MP is the only reason people ever played RTS games, but as an explanation for why the genre "died out" it is a bit weak.

BTW, the lack of quality releases has to be factored in somewhere. It's very strange to me people are ignoring this problem. If SC2 hadn't been shit we might have seen a resurgence. COH 2 being much more popular than COH 3 shows that quality matters.

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

I think the answer is rather pedestrian. For the general public, late 90s RTS were interesting for their graphics, the fun campaigns, and the freedom offered by the mouse and keyboard interface. Don't underestimate the novelty of ordering multiple units around with the mouse, it felt liberating compared to most games people had grown up playing; or the wonder of seeing so many things on the screen at the same time. When I saw Warcraft II as a kid, seeing that kind of game for the first time, it felt like something from the future. None of the people I knew, who actually bought an RTS game in the store, were into competitive multiplayer.

In the early 00's came Rome: Total War, which was a big mainstream hit. If you were into RTS for the aesthetics and the single player campaign, that game was more likely to capture your attention(and imagination) than WC3. It had huge armies fighting in full 3D, which was what people wanted. With or without WC3, RTS was going to become niche, just like many other genres of the 90s.

 

[Raghar]

Single player is fun with RTS, you can pause anytime, if you are not playing Dawn of War. And you can do stuff. In MP it's about APM.

 

[mediocrepoet]

With the caveat that I've never been a huge RTS guy, I've always viewed that genre's decline as having two primary factors:

1) Rise of consoles and gamepads instead of KBM which is just cancerous for this genre.

2) Basically a parallel of the decline of fighting games which I am/was into:

• As the genre progresses, players want more options and are building on a knowledge base of past games that may span decades. Meanwhile, new players don't have any of that and find it overwhelming to get started, whether due to control schemes such as how to organize battle group and ability hotkeys, how to micro/macro, etc.
• Similarly to above, the speed of the games and that people are expected to react can be overwhelming if you're new or casual and don't have hotkey strings memorized, while experienced players are going to get bored if you slow things down or make them easier. Conversely, most RTS easy modes seem to be aimed at mentally retarded toddlers. There doesn't seem to be any easy way to manage this difficulty curve.
• Focus on competitive multiplayer instead of single player experiences. A significant portion of every player base prefers to just chill and game at their own pace rather than go online and play multiplayer anything. This can be seen in many spaces, whether RTS, fighting games, MMOs (weirdly - but cf. raiding guilds and the overall decline of that genre), etc.

There are other things as well, such as the genre being niche because the RT part of RTS doesn't mesh well with most people's preferences for the S part of RTS when gaming. It depends on what you play for and what mood you're in, I expect, but the average person doesn't work all day and then want to come back to try and unwind with making decisions under pressure in real time.

 

[ind33d]

What would an RTS playable on a fight stick look like? It should basically play like Tekken where you make reads and whiff punish the enemy's formation. That's the direction the genre should have gone. Why the fuck do you need so many keybinds? In real life, soldiers are either shooting or running away: I don't see them drinking Red Bull and using Burrow micro to dodge Marine fire

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

So they should forget multiplayer, and even forget massive single player campaigns, and instead focus on depth: introduce super deep supply chains (e.g. mine iron here, smelt it into steel here, have the blacksmith turn the steel into swords, have the peasants train here, give them swords, turn them into men-at-arms, etc)

Ok but now you turned it into a city-builder or at least city-builder/RTS hybrid.

That's fine, the labels aren't important, good gameplay is. The problem with typical city builders is that they are too ... bland and large scale. Too many buildings, too much bland uninspired combat (if any at all, some are peaceful), some nameless peons on the screen. I think RTSs like the ones I described before could step into that space and take the good stuff about city builders and add the intimacy of controlling cool looking large units with actual combat abilities and depth (and even RPG-like skills/stats/appearances), and relatively small number of important structures. Hell, you could even do quests like in Warlords Battlecry. It would be a sort of a city builder/RTS/RPG hybrid, but that's totally fine. Would be fun as hell to play imo, if implemented well.

 

[Ryzer]

Because every company making them has gone bankrupt.

 

[Baron Tahn]

I think it was E-sports. I think that these games are fun versus regular people, everyone building their castles and enjoying an afternoon of AoE or having slow games of Starcraft, but when you go into the online community and everything is dialled up to maximum speed and the competition is high it just kills the fun for anyone who plays more games than just the one. You need to practice and most people just don't give that many fucks- they leave it to the dedicated community which usually isn't enough to keep the genre flowing. The communities were often very vicious.

You see it in SC2 even now where there are macrotransactions for content, harvesting the small group of dedicated grognards that still play for big enough sums that many players just go 'wtf?! No way!' When they see the prices.