Do Gamers DISLIKE Strategy? | New Study Says YES
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- Опубликовано: 3 июл 2024
- #study #gaming #strategy
A new study has been released that suggests the common gamer does not want strategy games. We're gonna talk about why.
Quantic Foundry Article: quanticfoundry.com/2024/05/21...
Gamer Motivation Profile Study: apps.quanticfoundry.com/surve...
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00:00 Intro
02:10 The Article
09:28 The Survey
20:00 Is Strategy Gaming Dying?
32:29 Outro 
Игры
Again, the aggregate demand for SRPG's has never been higher, even if it is relatively less popular among gamers overall, because gaming has become so mainstream. It is more normal to be a gamer as a male than to not be one.
I came here to almost say the same thing. I think strategy has always been in a "decline" since even the earliest of days. I know how small the chess and band programs in my school were, and we all know that "sit and think about things" isn't what the vast majority of people consider a good time.
I think that's OK. We all know strategy isn't "dying," because we see how good strategy games sell gangbusters when they come out. The video touches on societal factors that could be a cause, but ultimately the data shows what we already know: that a niche interest remains niche, only now the industry that contains that niche is no longer niche itself.
Unicorn was so good really a breath of fresh air
Without having watched the video, I'd say it's probably true. The game market is oversaturated. There's thousands of games releasing every week. Our backlogs are never-ending and people have just less and less time to play all the games they want.
And so it goes without saying that games that require you to invest more time into them, i.e. strategy games or would lose favor against more immediately rewarding titles. Just my opinion.
Yeah that's a good perspective to have, for sure.
That, and other games require less thinking overall
that explains something thats been annoying me recently. It feels like so many games I might have otherwise been interested in lately are giving up all semblance of strategic and tactical difficulty and rely solely on mechanical difficulty. No more difficult decisions to make or complex scenarios to figure out and all CANYOUPRESSTHISBUTTONQUICKENOUGH!!?!?!?! (tbh game, I'm getting older... I probably cant!)
That was a Mario PRG innovation.
It's also important to mention there's more of a reliance on artificial difficulty, purely based on stats. A lot of game doesn't care about your skills or strategy, but rather if you mindlessly grinded, or even worse, put raw stats roadblocks to make peoples pay microtransaction.
It is a cool little quiz, although I don't put much stock into these kinds of quizes. I got Acrobat/Architect, Acrobat is "solo gamers who primarily want to take on challenging gameplay and they want to practice over and over again" while Architect is "solo gamers that enjoy planning, decision-making, and progression. They prefer slow-paced, relaxing gameplay where they can plan and build something grand and enduring.".
It's funny though I scored pretty low on all the graph things, which felt rather wrong as I do like some competition and I love strategy games like...well...pretty much every Fire Emblem ever, I finally beat Triangle Strategy this year for instance.
RTSes are too slow for the fast twitch crowd but too fast for the strategic pondering crowd.
I do think that grand strategy is on the decline due to accessibility issues. When a game's tutorial feels like college class, you aren't going to get investment from the pickup and play crowd.
One aspect of strategy that wasn't talked about in the study was management games. While typically given the genre title "simulation" they are more in common with strategy these days, with the term simulation becoming more about the direct actions of the player on a granular sense (think Power Washing Simulator)
I think what has really caused a decline in strategy games is the senseless chasing of competitive and (especially on the Western side) the monetization models. Strategy games from Paradox for example aren't just unapproachable due to complex mechanics. They are also really expensive due to all the DLC. Combined with many Devs generally not being good enough to make good strategy games (just look at Homeworld 3 right now. Pales in comparison to its predecessors) due to knowledge lost over time, and you have a recipe for decline. RTS has probably seen it the worst tbh. MOBAs becoming popular has been a curse upon the genre as every dev wants to include MOBA elements now. Turn based, by contrast is a bit more evergreen.
"Architects are solo gamers that enjoy planning, decision-making, and progression. They prefer slow-paced, relaxing gameplay where they can plan and build something grand and enduring." yeah that tracks for me lol. On the permadeath topic, I think it is highly necessary (even though it can lead to some cheap kills like in tactics ogre)
Permadeath should just be a choice. Better for sales, on account of not everyone enjoying the mechanic, so both types of players get what they want without anything being taken away from anyone (aside from the egotistical types who just want the bragging rights for playing/beating a 'hard' game, but that type of mindset is simply neurotic and isn't healthy for anyone).
@@bo5935 For better or worse, you are entitled an opinion no matter how wrong it may be.
On that note, have you heard of the Flat-Earth theory? You might find it fascinating.
Team architect here, too =]
Permadeath is certainly not necessary in EVERY game. It might sound dumb said like that, but different games are built differently, a game made with permadeath in mind can feel consequential without it, and a game made without it can just feel like madness.
I don’t want a game to force permadeath but I don’t see anything wrong with it being an option. Weird that anyone would say it should just go 🤷♂️
Or from a similar angle, weapon durability… Like, obviously it’s not for all games, but FE shows how it’s really about resource management; in those games you can give anyone multiple weapons to carry but certain ones are rare so you can’t just give them to everyone and you can’t simply keep smashing at your enemy forever.
Look at how FE7 has a recruitable character with a Killing Edge, who can survive the onslaught… for a time; once they run out/get unlucky they’re a sitting duck. Conversely, in FE8 one character is given a Steel Blade, a powerful but heavy weapon which said character has the Constitution stat to double most enemies (so you can’t maximise its output but it really sells you on the character). And of course the unique often legendary weapons…
Maybe it’s more frustrating in TLOZ games (specifically BOTW or TOTK) but it’s not inherently a bad system to design around… Not like you want it in say, UniOver though but again, different mechanics in the same genre.
@@borjankosarac3645 On the weapon durability front, I'd argue that while it *can* make sense in a game, it needs to be tuned very carefully around it. Even within FE, durability can feel like a vestigial mechanic. Like in 3H, where money is effectively infinite (and therefore smithing stones are too), durability just serves as a checklist item for you to take care of between maps. They could easily have made half the weapons in the game unbreakable (and shrink the funds they give you from free battles), since the only ones that *actually* have limited uses are the ones that use rare forging stones which can't be bought. I suppose it might look weird if your standard silver sword has infinite durability, while a legendary weapon doesn't, but in practice that was the case anyway.
I like Strategy games a lot. But sometimes the learning curve of some strategy games is just overwhelming. Too many items, magic spells etc... to learn
fr like hearts of iron and victoria 3
That's called a "learning curve", or perhaps more accurately in this case, a "learning cliff". In games like that, 90% of the numbers on screen are irrelevant 99% of the time.
That study was surprisingly on point, and it made me incredibly happy to see that the One Vision Mod was actually on their list of official releases. These guys know what they're talking about.
There's also some kind of out of left field developments, like how the New XCOM guy, Solomon, left Firaxis because he felt emergent stories were his calling, so he's just kinda making a new Sims like now.
Sometimes we just don't know what we like for sure. I had a relative who was telling be he was a hardcore strategy gamer, and then told me he exclusively played the gacha Fire Emblem phone game....😨
I wouldn't really call myself hardcore at all despite liking strategy RPGs including Fire Emblem games but even I winced at that last part.
I’ve put in 195 hours on Unicorn Overlord right now. The problem is we don’t get GOOD tactics games anymore. Every single one of us still had Ogre Battle as the standard until Unicorn came out.
Ill be perfectly honest i do enjoy strategy games and stuff like that but some of them have a decently steep learning curve which can turn some people off. Like for instance when i first saw UO i really was interested in it cause i mean its Vanillaware they always come out with fantastic games but the strategy part worried me. Then i found your channel and your explanations of how the game works and tips and stuff really helped and now im figuring out squad compositions and having a lot of fun with it. I think if there are people out there that are willing to help other people out with the games then that would only be a good thing. It would make the strategy type games less intimidating to somebody like me who isnt used to them
I really only enjoy strategy games. Sadly- I lose interest in others and have a hard time finishing them. Unicorn Overlord- I am obsessed with.
This is pretty cool I'll be diving into the full article soon. I personally got the Bard/ Architect which is a interesting combo, I don't play a lot of online games yet I love talking about games in general with others and the survey seemed to pick up on that.
I personally know that I had a higher tolerance for strategy obviously when I had more time to spend, but also when life was simpler, less difficult. When life is easy, you look for more challenging experiences that test you in ways you wouldn't be tested in daily life to offset that. That could take the form of strategy gaming. Right now we're in an age (at least in the US) of economic uncertainty, political instability, mass layoffs and job insecurity, people are struggling to pay for gas and rent, childcare is crazy expensive, MCDONALDS is crazy expensive for pete's sake...it just feels like people are struggling more over the past few years than they have in a long time. In that kind of a setting, I want less strategy and more immediate dopamine release, more power fantasies, more casual exploration, even just more mindless stimulation. If I play a strategy game when I'm stressed or pressed for time and I experience failure due to poor strategic planning it hurts EXTRA hard. Could this be a possible explanation for the trend? I don't know, and there's many other factors but I think it's a possibility.
This is true without referring to gaming. The current generation and prior are not on the same...thinking scale as prior and/or has deteriorated with the introduction of social media and failing education system. Critical thinking of any kind is avoided or difficult to do from what I've heard from many and a study I know of. They were niche before, so it can only have no place going forward if the "stock" is not capable of slow, methodical thinking compared to a culture of immediate gratification, fast cuts/edits and something always going on at high pace like a TikTok video.
The gaming landscape we can see what games are popular and how simplified AAA have become for the casual gamer. The pool of strategies gamers is smaller yet the games release more often for them that enjoy it and they buy it.
I took the test. It was fun to take, but I think a bit flawed with how they rolled certain topics together in the same survey question.
Your primary (dominant) player type is the Architect.
Architects are solo gamers that enjoy planning, decision-making, and progression. They prefer slow-paced, relaxing gameplay where they can plan and build something grand and enduring.
I was a bit confused about the "solo" part. I do play most of my games solo, but a couple of games that I mentioned required other players. Helldivers for instance. I marked "enjoy a lot" for "working with other players to accomplish a goal".
I also hate building/crafting for the most part, but I think because I marked "very important" for character customization (which had city/spaceship rolled into it for some reason) that it thought that I liked building?
I don't dislike strategy. It's just when I find an effective strategy, I use it until there's a better and more efficient one. Griffon Masters in Unicorn Overlord offers utility and mobility. I clear maps simply by bee lining to the objectives.
I think it comes down to how strategic choices are presented to the player. In a lot of games, the "strategic" choices you make are ones you can plan out from the beginning, and never change course. It often turns into following a checklist of things that someone wrote, and that "someone" just so happens to be an earlier version of yourself. However, the way these games are designed, you can't just set a plan and forget about it; you have to continuously devote brainpower to something you've already solved. This is unnecessary mental fatigue, and isn't fun. Problem solving *is* fun, but if you never have a reason to adapt your strategy, then you've already exhausted the fun part right at the beginning.
The essential problem of many cRPGs.
I'm all for having the rewind feature in Fire Emblem. I've played the older games
And the turn wheel saves a ton of time on resets
I realized this when Tactics Ogre Reborn got released and a ridiculous amount of people cried "ArtiFiCial difFiculLTy" because they were asked to figure out a solution to win that didn't involve just grinding levels to become more over powered than the enemies and had no idea what to do otherwise.
The bosses getting cards automatically really did artificially prop up the difficulty though
what about this is artificial
@@briankenney9528 The game gives you MULTIPLE ways to weaken the enemies and buff your attacks and defense. If some people couldn't figure that out or be bothered with learning the mechanics then that's on them.
@FLIK510 the cards were literally added to the gme from their absence in the psp remake this remake is based off of. They didnt balance the mechanic at all for the game
That is completely incorrect lol
When this study was done there was hardly many strategy games being released yet Fire Emblem, Stellaris, Anno 1800, Manor Lord, Unicorn Overlord are still going strong.
Just to pin my 2 cents on the board;
Strategy RPGs and C&C style strategy games are my favourite genres since starting gaming back in early 90's.
Many people I know seemed to just get 'obsessed' with other genres like FPS and other more popular genres, rather than be less interested in strategy games.
*plus - these genres are being made on mobile. If you have a look you will see how they seem to have just been watered down to be for casual or dumb gamers on their phone.
A couple of people have commented that strategy games are not as lucrative as other games, and I am inclined to agree. Strategy games can make good money from DLC. That being said, there are some limitations. Usually, I do not see DLC for costumes and outfits like other genres types of games. I know Fire Emblem: Three Houses had a few outfits, but those are nothing compared to StreetFighter costumes. Additionally, other types of monetization could be tricky to implement. DLC for new units must not be game breaking(Unless this is an SRPG), and making good new maps takes some effort. Ads can be distracting and ruin a player's train of thought. I am not even sure if a battle passes can be implemented.
I think it's a more nuanced issue than it appears. People still put in DotA-likes which are derivative of RTS. Grand Strategy games still get made every now and then to tepid receptions, and strategy RPGs are still being made considering that Fire Emblem and Disgaea games sell quite well and Langrisser continues to be one of the hottest mobile games despite being very old by that market's standards. Metal Slug Tactics just got announced and it's generating enough hype right now.
I can agree on the general consumers not liking the games labeled Strategy. I don't think it's the "strategy" part of those games that caused the downfall. As other games evolved, these games just fell behind. Players don't any longer care to memorize every units, or UI clogging big part of screen, or watching the same animations play every time any command is issued. Players don't like having to put up the same loadouts every time. Games should feel speedy by any means necessary. We need something clear and concise, something that can be enjoyed without the big time commitment. That's not anything to do with being casual or hardcore. That's just catching up to the current industry standards. There's no need for a lot of the old Strategy games' tropes.
So I took the survey and got a 65% in the Master Component, but Strategy was my highest subscore (92%) because Challenge was my second-lowest subscore (23%) behind Competition (18%). So I found that sort of disparity interesting. (FWIW I was labeled an Architect with Achievement not far behind. And I had a similar disparity in Creativity-64% overall, 28% Discovery subscore, 85% design subscore)
Thanks for giving me data to analyze 😂
I love unicorn and strategy games but there becomes a point where it becomes homework you need to get a notebook and pen. Depth makes games great but replay-ability like risk is where strategy games can grow
im mainly an rpg player. my results were pretty accurate i feel:
"Your primary (dominant) player type is the Architect, but you also lean towards a secondary player type, the Bounty Hunter.
Architects are solo gamers that enjoy planning, decision-making, and progression. They prefer slow-paced, relaxing gameplay where they can plan and build something grand and enduring.
Bounty Hunters are solo, action-oriented explorers who want game worlds that they can make their own through customization and discovery. They also enjoy power progression and unleashing mayhem."
Meanwhile, BG3, a game that is relatively high on the tactical thinking and planning side of things, is one of the best sellers we've seen for years.
The masses will always gravitate toward some mainstream things, Vampire Survivors is, ultimately, a Strategy Game in which your strategic choices change your autobattle options. There's a LITTLE more to it than that, but only a little. It's another best seller, and created an entire genre. It has MORE action to it, but the strategy element CAN NOT BE DENIED. It's a good example of what people gravitate toward (flashy, feels fast, lots of reward center triggers) while having a deep strategic layer.
Most of the more recent strategy games lack depth of options, or have a straight line "this is the one, single, best way to do things" set that is required to complete or tackle difficulty. That turns people away from the term Strategy Games that are PURE strategy, because they are not. They become a puzzle solving game where, once you've solved the "best combo/build" puzzle you are now playing a half baked story. That is impacting things as well.
I think the problem with SRPGS now a days is the genre is stuck in the 90s without much innovation to the games and by chance if we do have any new SRPGS they are usually dumb down and made easy for the casuals which takes away the fun of the games
I think my thinking is weird but their notion of strategy is not complete. For example for me, some action rpg could be considered strategy but belonging in another category. Take dark soul, grim dawn or diablo. There are long term (planning your build, skill, stats, equipment) and short term (when to dodge, when to heal, when to disengage, when to use X skill, what rotation of skill, ...) strategy. On another note, I think the appeal for strategy game is less due to people now want immediate result for their action (for that sweet release of dopamin/ serotonin combo). If I take TO as an example, a battle could be quite long.
Honestly I think the study gathers data in a bad way.
First of all there is no differentiation between online play/playing with people together and singleplayer games. This blends a lot of potential genres which value similarish behaviour but play out fundamentally different bc. the component of multiple people (e.g. tactical shooters and survival games)
Then there is no strict difference between action, realtime or roundbased. So is the RTS an action game? Hardly but according to the survey most likely it would be.
There is not at all any consideration for cardgames, which are huge, they are strategic and tactical.
A lot of the questions expect you to play online. Given that out of all the questions they have (maybe 20) at l least 4 are purely online focused, these have actually a 20% chance to dilude the outcome.
Also the study makes no seperation between longterm strategical "planning" and shortterm tactics which comes more down to choosing the best option on the fly.
There is actually not that much of an overlap of people who play strategy (e.g. Total War, Xcom or EU4) and people who play the snappier more tactical games (Slay the Spire, Loop Hero or Fire Emblem)
If you "game" the survey and approach it from someone who mostly would play very tactical and strategical online shooters, the whole "strategy" wording in it becomes a totally different meaning as well.
Then what do you do with the "strategic" survival games which are huge. This is about strategy in groups (v-rising, rust, conan exiles and the likes...). You would answer those questions quite similarly as any other strategy game, because the decisionmaking comes down to super similar stuff as shooters.
What about cardplayers who just enjoy percentages and planning? The cardplayers who don't play for gambling. You simply can't look over stuff like online cardgaming without betting, even if "gamers" don't usually see themselves much related, that stuff is a huge sector in gaming and it's totally not "casual". TGC and also Online TCG and singleplayer deckbuilder games are huge on a global scale.
Same goes for example if you think of a game like Sims and emulate a player profile of a person like that, as honestly you'd answer the questions for Sims quite similarly to Fire Emblem, because there is a difference beween "action" "depiction of violence" and "strategy"
If you don't really strongly feel about some things, you are in the middle and since the data is comparing you to others (the stat diagram at the end) if you make mostly mid decisions there is no good data interpretation for you in.
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I am a Developer and I know Steam, sales numbers and a fair bit about player behaviour and the study just has just by me trying a few things with it an amazing amount of shortcoming.
Looking at sales, they have been really good in the tactics and in the strategy segment as of late, but also there hasn't been anything which would compare to AAA production vales in the genre.
Darkest Dungeon and Slay the Spire on steam comfortably beat EU4, XCom2, Total War Warhammer etc. in terms of review amounts.
UO's sales also have been amazing, so the hunger is there.
I see a bunch of big fat problems with the study and how little consideration to a lot of important factors have been given, as they can't be seperated through the way they ask.
The change in attention span also affects action games.
Action games from 30 years ago also play way slower than modern action games, so games as a whole change in their design.
There however is no problem with the market, if we purely look at the sales numbers.
This survey felt weird to me. I was 51% immersion, 91% creativity, 64% achievement, 2% social, 0% action. I think immersion would have been higher if 'fantasy' wasn't phrased as how much I wanted to imagine I was the characters, versus valuing how engaging the character was as their own thing separate from my identity.
It did get me thinking about what it means to be casual. I wouldn't call myself a gamer. I would call myself casual. But there's a conflict here. I'm casual, but of course I've beaten Golyat 3 in Reborn (plus all heavenly generals). I'm casual, but I just killed Norbelle in Unicorn Overlord. I'm casual, but I'll do things like WoW's mage tower on every single spec of every single class. I'm casual, but I'll play through Ogre Battle 64 without using any male troops or Fell Seal without using any humans.
On the flip side, I can go a year without playing or buying any games. One of my best friends is a gamer who buys a game a week almost. They'll play a lot, love playing, and try a lot. I think for me, casual is more about... having a game I love and play (and probably 100% + challenge run) on and off for years.
Then again... I don't feel catered to. If a Unicorn Overlord, Hades, Ogre Battle 64, Tactics Ogre Reborn, Fell Seal, or Final Fantasy Tactics released every month, I'd probably play games all the time. But Ogre Battle 64 was 2000 and Unicorn Overlord was 2024, so there just weren't any good SRPG games for a quarter of a decade.
The last strategy games I remember making any sort of break into the mainstream consciousness properly were XCOM 2 and Civ 6, both of which came out in 2016, iirc.
XCOM was so dumbed down it really didn't do the OG PC-DOS original justice. It amounts to character customisation.
I enjoy tactics based games, but I've never enjoyed the aspect of restarting a 45-minute long levels due to a simple mistake late run (Gamecube Fire Emblem). That and games notoriously difficult that a meta strategy is the only way to win (Resonance of fate, Legend of Legaia 2).
Although Fire Emblem is not the same strategy game it used to be in the days of Radiant Dawn, I still like Three Houses in particular, because the story is actually intriguing, and there's a ton of customization available. That being said, I will always prefer pre-Awakening Fire Emblem, but turnwheel and casual mode should remain, because you are NOT forced to use it. I don't use it, but other players may wish to do so. And lastly, Fire Emblem entering the mainstream has allowed a lot of non strategy gamers who ended up trying other strategy games like Triangle Strategy because of it.
I got just Gladiator but I love strategy RPGs like FE and TO. I also love completing games and getting all the unlockables.
I spent more time playing uni corn than the past 10 years in any game..: besides 3houzes
Good taste
Something I think is hurting the market somewhat is mainstream media just seems to ignore the indie releases around strategy and especially turn based tactics titles so say search on meta critic they don't get a score - Kingsvein as a example - so they dont get that marketing that other more popular genres get but this could be blessing considering the mainstream gaming media at time haha
This was a really interesting survey and study. I feel like my results fit me perfectly. I also think it was interesting breaking down what I enjoy. It also made me a bit more conscious of the type of video game viewer I am. I’m not a big souls like player myself but I enjoy watching others play it. But when it comes to super heavy story intensive games, I want to play through it myself before watching someone else play. I totally agree that we shouldn’t have to worry about strategy games disappearing. And I’m curious if gamers who bounce off the idea of strategy games picture games like Civilization when imagining the genre. As opposed to games like Fire Emblem, Tactics Ogre Reborn, and Unicorn Overlord. As a side note, I would be interested in hearing you talk more about studies and data. I find these types of topics super interesting.
Here’s my results:
Your primary (dominant) player type is the Gladiator, but you also lean towards a secondary player type, the Architect.
“Gladiators are competitive gamers who are more likely to identify as hardcore, and they want games to engage them using a broad spectrum of features. They are looking for an epic, skill-based experience in the games they play.
Architects are solo gamers that enjoy planning, decision-making, and progression. They prefer slow-paced, relaxing gameplay where they can plan and build something grand and enduring.”
My favorite games growing up in the 80s and 90s were the obscure Japanese strategy games. All Kou Shibusawa games, ogre battle, etc. Other genres are boring to me. I credit playing those games in my youth as greatly helping me as an adult to successfully navigate my career and personal life. We need more strategy games with complexity that challenge the mind.
Your answers to those questions were eerily similar to what I would of put myself, at most some questions were one notch up or down. As well as the games you've enjoyed.
It's an interesting topic. My personal belief is genres are cyclical in nature rise and fall in popularity. I think Westerns somewhat prove this. Still some successful films in the genre and in gaming we have Red Dead Redemption. Still many strategy games than remain popular and I still see new players coming into the space. Rise of instant gratification with very short media and games all flash and no subsense will lead to people looking for more long for engagement. Another example would be fashion. Some things never go out of fashion others do and are replaced. Big or small strategic planning will always be a part of games, even if it's not obvious.
Loved this video and discussion!
I actually have been playing a game Balatro recently. And Balatro I think offers me a lot of the long term strategic planning I think that a fire emblem for example rewards. Weighing something that helps you in the short term, vs making long term investment decisions when choosing a joker. Rogue like games as a whole I think scratch that itch and didn’t exist 20 years ago in the same degree.
I think the point I disagree is with the divisiveness of the turn wheel. For me the Fates story discussion is the one thing that divided the community more than anything else, that is still being argued about to this day. But even as a GBA elitist I do have to admit, IS was ahead of this survey adjusting the direction of the series to be a little more anime waifu based. While still making great strategy games underneath
People have become dumber.... that's pretty obvious.
These kind of games require a higher level mode of thinking, that to put it bluntly the majority of the population are incapable of. Especially in this modern day age where the population is becoming increasingly more stupid for a myriad of reasons. There is a real lack of games with true strategic and tactical depth in the video game space, hence why I play more table top wargames, boardgames, cardgames etc these days, where things have not been dumbed down.
Current gamers Kryptonite are preperation, loading screen, durability, rare consumables, fetch quest, high mid puzzles and random encounters.
Favourite Phrase: Quality of Life and Artificial Difficulty.
After taking it, I feel like the survey is heavily biased towards saying the survey taker loves action games. I'm a big fan of FPS titles, but I enjoy strategy games (Tri Strat still being my favorite game I've played) even more. Despite that, the survey listed me as a "Ninja / Gladiator."
I think the western market for strategy games might be a bit niche, but this survey doesn't seem like it was very well thought out either.
This community can call people who play Fire Emblem for the story and characters weebs all you want it's not gonna get those sales up and considering how boring your standard strategy gameplay is they keep the franchise alive, you don't see anyone calling Disgaea boring cause they're too busy lauging at the comedy. There are solutions though, Fire Emblem could implament a gameplay style that gives the illusion of combat having momentum while retaining the same system, Three Houses tried something like this by letting you zoom in on the battlefield using the + button in place of the traditional top-down perspective but it wasn't promoted and the few players who discovered it encouraged others not to use it. Another option would be adopting a combat similar to Valkyria Chronicles where movement consumes stamina and your at risk of being attack on route from point A to point B but FE doesn't have guns.
Forgive the text wall.
it's true, if you include mobile game players as "gamers".
a totally worthwhile investigation piece and totally not bait, to be sure.
in other news athletes show surprisingly little interest in sports, people who have kicked a ball seem to have moved away from them.
Not sure if you caught this in the article, but mobile players were excluded intentionally.
i feel some of the struggle with strategy games is the lack of gateway games lately. I started on sega genesis with Shining Force and later with FF: Tactics and Fire Emblem on the gba. modern fire emblem has axed their writing department so the latest games kinda suck, and games like CK3, Stellaris, and Total War, you can easily get in over your head and not know what you're doing wrong which can be frustrating.
While the study brings up two valid explanations, I do wonder how much of the decline in consumption of games that require more demanding strategies is a consequence of game producers "getting out in front" of trends. It's already well established that the large game companies only produce the games they believe we should want (not even necessarily what do want) and that we shouldn't be consuming things if they didn't make them. Worse than that, it's in the nature of large and unwieldy companies to double down on bad predictions rather than admit a failed investment, so even when a poor choice (Anthem and similar) reveals itself to be poor, they refuse to change direction.
Yo, did you recolor Virginia to look like Momohime from Demon Blade?
👌👌👌
well people love baldur gatee 3 where there is alot of strategy
Is a common trend: they fail to do appealing games, so lets appeal a wider more casual audience, then the game lose all their original nature, spreads like butter and dies.
are we not allowed to post links? 'cause i don't see my post from a few days ago where i posted my test results.
since age doesn't show, i'm 40 and my results are
BOUNTY HUNTER / NINJA
Bounty Hunters are solo, action-oriented explorers who want game worlds that they can make their own through customization and discovery. They also enjoy power progression and unleashing mayhem.
Ninjas seek out difficult challenges that blend strategic decision making, fast-pacing, and competition. They see video games as places to test their skill and wits against other players.
Your Gamer Motivation Profile :
Analytical, Relaxed, Independent, and Deeply Immersed
Excitement/Destruction: 73/40
Competition/community: 46/27
Challenge/strategy: 35/75
Completion/Power: 17/49
Discovery/Design: 43/75
Fantasy/story: 76/64
The Real Time Strategy market is almost monopolized by the Total War franchise (which is actually a hybrid of Grand Strategy and Real Time Tactics).
I blame this "participation award" mentality that became prevalent with the last generation.
Everyone thinks they should win just for playing. So games started catering to this.
You see this in how simplified games have become. Even when there's a moniker of strategy and precision, you'll absolutely be able to ignore it with some type of "win button" feature. It started with all the button masher games that were coming out in the 2000s. Then you saw it creeping into fighting games, where they tried to make doing special moves, combos and super moves more easy to execute. Finally you see it in RPGs and the like, where it's pretty hard to miss anything. I remember when 1000 people could play through a classic and all notice something different. We'd compile what everyone found in order to truly know everything that a game had to offer. Nowadays you can get 100% accidentally.
So my whole thing in the west i think survival games are technically strategy games. Like Ark, neo scavenger, V rising, 7 days to die, Darkwood, Rust. Personally I think if strategy and survival games or city or town buildings games can sometimes combine that would good.
if devs ever stop making srpgs/tbs, that's when I will stop buying games. They pop out slowly enough that I primarily play older games. Retro games seems where its at for my tastes anyways but like you said Unicorn Overlord and Reborn are great recent additions.
Oh btw, I highly recommend Battle Brothers in case that one managed to slip your radar, awesome game and has a strong modding community too. Cheers!
Tell them to keep their mouths shut on those studies. I dont want it discouraging studios from making games in my favorite genre.
I've been playing strategy games pretty consistently since Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones. But I've never cared about difficulty in video games. I've been playing these games for decades and its never been strategy that keeps me coming back, even in the earlier days. I enjoy the characters, the worlds these games create and making my own badass army. As I've gotten older, I've come to appreciate them even more for generally being long games with lots of replay value - meaning I spend less money on video games than I otherwise would.
I think the Turnwheel/Divine Pulse (or Chariot Tarot) has actively made me a better player. I still play the games as if that mechanic doesn't exist - but its there to use if I do mess up. Instead of me sitting there not knowing what I could have done differently I can immediately go back and find out by trying other options. That way, I don't make the same mistake next time. The mechanic is a tool like any other mechanic - its all in how you use it.
Being someone who's on the older side of Gen Z, It is admittedly hard to argue against your Fire Emblem point since
1, I AM a weeb. I can straight up admit to that.
and 2, I became interested in trying out Fire Emblem around mid 2016 because I wanted to know the stories of the fighters in Smash Bros.
Some of my first games were Path of Radiance, Shadow Dragon, the Elibe games on the GBA and Awakening in that order. The pre-Awakening games I admittedly used save states on emulators like a motherf*cker so I might be part of the problem. But the gameplay loop was addicting enough for me to be curious about the rest of the series and by extension the turn based strategy rpg genre as a whole so... There's that at least?
Got to say, the one cool thing about this study is that it has Project +, a really in-depth mod, as a choice.
Part of the problem is the Game Industry has not really made new things in roughly 2+ decades in the statregy genre. Orge Battle, FFT, Civilization, and X-Com are still what is being made today, just with different coats of paint.
Your Quantic Gamer Type : ARCHITECT - well I like my strategy, city building and RPGs.
Checking in as someone younger than Warcraft 3 who enjoys SRPG's
I salute you, youngin'. 🫡
??? And yet turn based strategy games still sell. They are probably not going to be the top sellers, yet plenty of them do exist. And I'm not talking just about strategy RPG, but also 4x and games like Songs of Conquest. Understand games in general are being "dumbed down" in many cases, there is a group that resists that.
new study also says that gamers want DEI in their games, so.....
Strategy games have also lately become more rpg and less strategy too. Which I personally hate, but being objective I have noticed that most people seem to love this.
Architect and Bard
Challenge 15%
Strategy 64%
I don't like Soulsborn games but I've played through most FE games. A challenge is fine, but I don't want to waste time, I'm playing the game to have fun. That said Permadeath is fine if it serves a purpose like Shadows of Valentia, endings change based off who survives to the end credits. In Fates it's just frustrating to lose a unit to an 80% whiff and lose all of that investment.
I think it comes down too People just don't have the attention span of a lot of heavy tactic gameplanning and the time too do all that they just want too playout the campaign without having tons of game difficulty because they are games where you are having a tons of units and the enemy ai is just too sophisticated in difficulty too make you have too wrack your brain too take down and you can't so it loses player interest and they just stop playing.
It's a shame... At least the east will likely keep the player base to a point where some of our favorite tactical titles will continue to be developed, since they appear to be more popular there
This is a surprise? I don't know where the time frame of 9 years came from, but I can assure you that's always been the case. Maybe it peaked during the PS2 era, but shortly thereafter the masses started playing nothing but COD and Halo, which dumbed down the entire gaming industry.
At 25k subs, show us the leg
I've already shown the literal knee joint, doesn't get much better than that. 🤣
So incoming gamers don’t want to think. Shocking! I blame our schools, feminists, politicians and the drinking water.
I said boo-erns.
And going into your discussion on casualness in Fire Emblem: despite my low challenge score, I feel like I’m at least slightly less casual than you’re mentioning. I’m a Classic mode, easiest difficulty type because I feel like high stakes, moderate challenge is my wheelhouse. Idk if that makes me a filthy casual still, but I just want to make a gameplan and challenge how well it works without raising my blood pressure or disheartening myself to a point where my therapist will lecture me about self-anger and self-worth again 😅
Nah, you're not casual. And being "casual" really isn't inherently bad either. The only major takeaway is the fact that these casual focused modes exist at all. To me, that is what's worth investigating
@@TitaniumLegman fair play, sorry if that came off as aggressive. As someone who started with FE7, I also wonder a lot about the casual modes and their inclusion
@@itsjacobj no no no, don't apologize! I wanted to reassure you, it wasn't aggressive at all!
Makes sense my 15 year old boy gives zero fucks about strategy games or any complexity in his games.
Pairing challenge with strategy serms unfair. I hear challenge i think frame perfect inputs and precision platforming. A strategy game so difficult there's only one solution becomes a puzzle.
Maybe strategy isn't exactly pop culture when it comes to gaming but the gaming industry is so large now it isn't just 12 year old kids playing Fortnight. Also, this makes me want to go buy like 10 copies of Unicorn Overlord to help pump those numbers up 😆
I love strpg they are hard but hard in a good way
I think fire emblem should start letting us recruit generics and I will get on the bandwagon of permadeath. What's the point of that If it will prevent you from beating the game when you run out of main characters.
This is the wrong understanding. When studies talk about strategy gaming, they are primarily focused on the RTS genre which... has been dead since Starcraft 2 stopped being big. Which was about ten years ago.
And the main problem is LOL/Dota killed it.
Has almost nothing to do with strategy RPGs. The reason people aren't getting those is that before Unicorn Overlord the last A/AA level strategy RPG was probably the first Disgaea game. Indie strategy RPGs just aren't as popular. Unless Darkest Dungeon counts...
I know it’s not a popular opinion amongst strategy game vets but I actually like the rewind mechanic in FE.
I remember playing Path of Radiance and I had spent over an hour on one mission and had nearly finished it when I lost Ike due to a
Exactly. The various options can exist for accessibility, but no one is forced to use them if they want to play it the old school way. I prefer to play my souls games solo and FE on harder difficulties, but I'd also prefer for everyone to be able to play however they want. Games are supposed to be for fun, not for bragging rights and gatekeeping. If people want their bragging rights, they can simply not use the mechanics they believe to make things 'too easy' 'lame' or whatever they want to call them. It's that simple... but gatekeepers gonna gatekeep, cause they have their own little issues in the old noggin
I've always been of the mind that having the option for stuff is never a bad thing. I like to keep perma death on in some games (like how you mentioned fire emblem) cause that part is enjoyable to me since it forces me to think about every decision but I know that's not for everyone so the option for it should be there regardless. Not giving the option is a mistake
it's not because they're dumb, it's because those games are passive.
dumb people tend to seek more passive activities
I have been playing srpg's since shining force on genesis. I have never liked perma death or souls likes or civ.
I love sega saturn. Love shining force series on there and grandia and action rpgs like magic knight rayearth.
This is less about the demographic shrinking as the others growing as the percentage of overall people that play games increases. Strategic thinkers are natural gamers and have always been part of the hobby. People getting into the hobby late will likely want different things. I'd be more interested in seeing absolute numbers rather than percentages.
So, as usual, this is more about mass appeal than a shrinking demographic.
It isn't generstional. There won't be some great die off. Strategic thinkers and people who enjoy challenge have always been and always will be a small percentage of the population. As more and more of the total population gets into the hobby the ratios will converge on what they are in the general population, that's all.
Doesnt BG3 kinda poke holes in the data's results, though?
I think it's an outlier that should be disregarded. There's so many different reasons that people might want to play BG3 outside of it being a strategy title. Similar to Elden Ring, it became a cultural event. Doesn't mean all those people are now interested in more hardcore strategy or action RPG games.
@@TitaniumLegman I was gonna mention the multiplayer aspect of it but forgot to... during my streamathon of UO on launch I talked often about how amazing co-op would be in it. Whether it be for the story, or post game content.
I bet it would've got more widespread attention if it had some form of it. Although that's probably still nowhere near as big of a detractor in its reach (compared to BG3) as Vanillaware not doing PC ports either 🤷♂️
@@gotaplanstan oh man co-op could be so much fun with the right set up. 👀
@@TitaniumLegman right?!
I think my first idea was some super hard post game stages where each player would control 1-2 units of their own (and it'd be either 2 player, or 2-4, and the unit # each person controlled depended on player count), and the stage would be massive with like 100+ enemy units with catapults and ballista everywhere. Like some super hard co-op stuff 😁 It'd be pretty niche though too cuz the fights would take A LONG TIME lol. So probably would need to have the story be co-op as well, so the length of the post game stuff wouldn't deter people from trying MP
Big brains only bro.
I’m going to comment on perma death in games.
Permadeath for me, is a waste. What happens when I lose a unit under permadeath? I reload my save file. It’s not a fun, game changing mechanic. It doesn’t do anything for me other than make me spend time replaying something I just did but more carefully.
Instead of permadeath, I would suggest these games come out with a hardcore / ironman difficulty. One save file that auto saves after every command. No reload. No redos. If a character dies - that’s it for that file. No going back. To me, that changes the game.
Eh I dislike iron man more then anything, permadeath is fine, even if you reload you personally get better at the game. Iron man, is a lot more punishing, and the fact that running into a bug that breaks your game is pretty common in most games that have it these days. Self imposed iron man is how I mostly play those games if I want to challenge myself.
Perma death is fine as long as it's optional.
This is the only game type I play lol.
really ?
thats not all the youtubers and gamers playing all the strategic games
like total war, stelaris, ck3, eu4, hoi4, endless, and all the other gestion, tactical, strategy games is telling me
Oh believe me, we exist. But the idea is there's far less of us than there used to be. At least according to this study.
@@TitaniumLegman yeah there's plenty of gaming youtubers Who their entire channel is just strategy games, so its kinda hard to believe there's less strategy gamers than it used to be
I’d be interested in seeing the demographics data on Paradox’s stable of games in particular. My guess is they saw the writing on the wall years ago and developed their DLC ‘supergame’ model as a way to monetize a smaller playerbase as much as possible
A 30 min in-depth video from titanium legman!?
Tom, youre spoiling us
Not a surprise, b street games have never been as big as whatever dopamine rush the kids are playing. But we are big brain types, and as such are a smaller portion of the population
It's easy to hear things and they sink in without you thinking about it.
This video seems designed to put you off.
Strategy games have it harder when it comes to grinding, which seems to be something universally added to games to "increase play time" as a proxy for content. in unicorn, I kinda hated grinding for reknown/medals when you play tougher difficulties.
tf2_engineer_whatismyteamdoing.gif
Can't lie, not following the tf2posting this time.
@@TitaniumLegman just the whole, 'folks dislike this more?!' thing being a surprise. but maybe I'm just surrounded by folks that really like Strategy;
Those are not gamers, those people are CONSUMERS.
Eh. "Gamers" now includes women playing candy crush and wardrobe apps. I'd say the majority of "studies" now in gaming are trash.
Incorrect, this study specifically excluded casual mobile games.