@@Man_3336 RTs isn't exactly dead but lets not pretend its 'alive' either the community is full of oldguards and its not growing because the RTS genre isnt appealing to zoomers
RTS was overcrowded which led to its slowdown? Ridiculous. FPS has always been more flooded with shovelware and had no issues. It's a lot harder to make an RTS of equivalent quality to other genres, and it's also harder to play them at an equivalent level of skill. Doesn't mean they can't make money, they just don't have as high of a projected fanbase. Too much focus on maximum possible money for shareholder, no room for anything else. WoW and CoD were huge, but there is also room for smaller projects. Especially considering all the extra money lying around because of WoW. Chasing money at the expense of everything else led to the state of mediocrity we've been in for a while in all fields of entertainment. People at the top who are too stupid to stay out of the creative process. Game publishers, record labels, and Hollywood used to be run by people who weren't necessarily good at or knowledgeable about the products they sold, but they were at least run by people who understood that it was better to stay out of the way, just a little bit, and let people who have passion for their work do their thing. A lot of people made a lot of money by keeping their stupid nose out of the creative process, and taking the smallest of chances on something that didn't *initially* appeal to the lowest common denominator. Whether it's games, music, or film, it is the nerds doing the actual work who know what is good because they are truly interested in it. They need reeling in sometimes, like George Lucas and the prequel trilogy, but that's another rant entirely. Every time these corporate douches get control of something good, they can't help themselves. They, or their predecessors, made money off of other people's work and so they think they have some idea wtf made it successful. They get the idea that they should get more involved, and get marketing involved, with reaching some demographic that doesn't really exist or care about what they publish. It might sort-of work short term, but they always run their companies into the ground and scorch the earth behind them along the way. Buy every single company and IP in the field, watch it slowly burn to the ground, and steal as much money as they can on the way out.
totally agree this guys just WAY off base. the difficulty of RTS games is the reason. so many people were into SC2 in 2011 when IDRA was the big thing at that MLG - just long enough for them to get home and play SC2 and be like - yeah this is hard. I'm going back to shooting at things.
What are you guys talking about no game is harder that others inherently it comes down to how many people are playing and how competitive it is, its harder to reach top 100 in x game than sc2 just because of their player bases its not about, every one plays the same game this point has to die@@ion1984 They might be precivied to be more difficult but what does that really mean. Give me a kid and i guarenteee i could make him better at sc2 over lol or dota what does equivalent mean when your skill is relative and we are not playing bots?
Kids these days aren't even into esports like the generations before, they don't want to be called bad, kids aren't playing any competitive title really
RTS = single player = less toxicity moba = 5 ppl in your team = a lot of toxicity Which is better, hard to say. I'd say moba is nice because you don't have to have perfect mechanics so it's more casual. but the toxicity of the games is pretty rough. But in RTS, it's really annoying to play, because of the match making system. Every game you have to play crisp, or you get your ass kicked. And if you take a break from the game, you'll be getting your ass kicked the next 2 weeks. So overall, I kinda prefer moba, it's less stressful - and the toxicity can be mitigated by muting your team and just having the attitude of not caring.
@@pupper5580 Most people play games as an activity with friends so team games are just going to be better. It also doesn't help that RTS games feel very empty these days. It didn't matter so much when every game was just the basics in terms of art but these days where games are making you care about the units it just feels less enjoyable. In the end, starcraft and warcraft were successful because their single player campaigns made people care enough about what was going on to want to experience more in multiplayer. Very few people are into competitive games for the sake of competition alone.
@@TheInfectousDunno, what got me into competitive SCBW was 1) friends to play with and 2) Korean esports to watch with those same friends and 3) having fun watching Korean progamers pull off cool stuff and new tactics. (3) is the biggest advantage I think RTS has over Moba, when you watch a match you can see each player's signature style very clearly. As opposed to watching 10 players all doing things. The Proleague format was so good for this.
I just think RTS is not meant to be too popular because it's not "social" games, requires generally all your attention for very long periods of time, and most people want breaks during gameplay, makes the game feel less stressful. MOBAs or FPS titles all have pleeeenty of downtime mid game (when you die in CS / Valorant, or back to fountain etc.), and are meant to be played with friends, even if a lot play it solo, they do so with in mind "I'm getting better to play with friends later on". I just think a huge majority of the PC playerbase would not enjoy RTS for a long time, even if a "perfect one" would come out tomorrow.
RTS was dying like 10 years ago because of MOBA's but I think now, it has been long enough, that a big new RTS like Warcraft 4 or Starcraft 3 would be very successful and revive interest in the genre. Even if it's very hard to play with high skill ceiling, and inaccessible, casuals still love to watch the Competitive aspect of an RTS because it is mind blowing impressive how skilled the top players are and how they are able to control and multi-task so many things. It's more impressive than watching pros control 1 hero in League.
warcraft 4 and starcraft 3 will never happen. no matter how much we scream and cry for it in our dreams, it will never b a reality. the only time it will ever happen is when companies wanna milk the franchise to death for one last time with very little effort that they know that they can get away with just so that they can please shareholders.
@@growtocycle6992 it is, but the only problem with RTS games is that RTS games have a learning curve that new comers might struggle with. learning an RTS game takes some time to learn before you actually get good at it and most people dont have time for playing games as they're too busy with their own lives.
Depends what you mean by "very" successful, but I would disagree, I think an RTS could blow up again like SC2 did, but it would be short lived. Just observing my friends and how they played SC2 / RTS, it's always short lived, they enjoy it for a few weeks, and it dies down, because RTS are too demanding, too "lonely" in the sense you have to focus so much on the game, communications even in team modes are pretty non existent. And it's not as flashy, social, and repeatable for most people compared to the popular genres, Mobas or FPS. I think an RTS could blow up for a year or two again, but not even to the levels of SC2 ever did, and then it would go back down to the core of passionate RTS players, which is a much smaller community. But that's completely fine too btw, you would only need 10% of CSGO / mobas playerbase to be a massive success and maintain a healthy community and pro scene tbh. I just dont think RTS are appealing in that way for a majority of gamers, I wished it was, I wished we had good RTS games for 2v2 and 3v3s, Starcraft always completely failed on that front, but, yeah.
Wasn't this topic already tossed around a year or two ago from that GGG video? Basically, the genre suffers because the vast majority of people who play RTS have zero interest in playing it competitively. They'll play campaigns or custom mods or mess around in team games, but they won't grind out a ladder. Developers and pro gamers try to force RTS to be this hyper competitive genre, and fun is an afterthought. The problem is the 2nd group needs the 1rst group to buy and support the game, even though the first group has no interest in the goals and interests of the 2nd group. You kind of need to just create a really fun, enjoyable game for the first group and then let the ladder nerds latch on to that success afterwards. Trying to do it in reverse doesn't give you the base needed. It is like a parasite without a host, but I don't mean that negatively. Trying to create a RTS with only the parasite without a host, and the parasite can't survive.
I think something alot of people need to realise is that 1v1 will always be smaller than team games. Nothing wrong with that. It's true in real sports and true in e-sports. Table tennis, tennis and badminton are still absolutely massive sports, but will never rival football (soccer).
Yeah that's a huge part for sure, even on my gamer friends, from all backgrounds, clearly a lot just dont want the "stress" of the 1v1, and the loneliness of it. Most would get massive "ladder anxiety" and not queue on SC2, but would not have that problem on Mobas or CSGO.
@@Maho2109imo there’s something strangely personal about 1v1 in rts, or in games in general. Maybe it’s the knowledge that come success or failure it’s all on you and you alone
@@berengerchristy6256 Yeah absolutely, most of my friends were terrified of that. Mobas are also popular (and toxic) because you can blame your teammates, or bad matchups for your loss, and queue up again with your "ego untouched". RTS has none of that lol, some people still cope with the race whine, but it doesn't go far, mostly you KNOW you got outplayed and it's a sobering feeling that not everyone enjoys.
@@Maho2109 I only got into halo wars on Xbox 360. I can’t keep up with mouse and keyboard. I remember actually coming up with my own build order so that I could get Spartans with veterancy into grizzly tanks asap. Really excited for storm gate to be supporting co-op for longer than SC2. Supposedly metrics showed people LOVED SC2 co-op (I sure did) but nearly all the good developers have left blizzard, so no more co-op, which is a shame. Activision ruined a legendary company, and Microsoft overpaid for their desiccated husk
Pretty much mobas and team games took over. RTS is mostly 1v1 games which are less apealing for averange gamer, you have nobody to blame but yourself for being bad, its harder to make friends, or play with friends, games are harder
It's funny to look back at the evolution of PC gaming in the 90s. Original Doom technically didn't have any elevation, so you just aimed horizontally, and once your gun aligned with an enemy you'd always hit
I think we are not that far away from RTS having a resurgence. "Just" needs some innovation. It's clear that the current RTS format is not gonna appeal to the mainstream but all it takes is for someone to have a good idea. A good idea is how MOBAs and Battle Royales came into existence after all.
RTS aint really dead. they just dont have as much as passion and soul in them like they used to. on top of that, they have learning curves that new comers might struggle with and the huge problem with greedy and disgusting monetary practices from companies.
RTS used to be one of the best genres for mouse and keyboard. But FPS took over with game consoles and controllers becoming more popular for gaming, and Mobas took up whatever space was left for RTS.
I've got a suspicion that one of the reasons RTS declined is the way people use their computers nowadays. Naturally, people prefer team oriented games now because they're always on call to a group of friends over discord or skype or whatever-but also, I think it's because people do stuff like spreadsheets/tables less nowadays than in the 90s/00s, and the web design has changed also, in a way that makes the RTS interface alien where it once seemed more intuitive to an earlier gen of PC users. Gaming / culture in general now is very personality / personal profile driven as well, so that a lot of the most popular games allow you to play a single character who you can change the skins/appearances of to reflect who you are; RTS games, by comparison, seem way too impersonal & abstract.
I think the next big game genre is one where you have the next 3 elements. 1. a good game to play 2. social element, and 3. toxicity (of the social element) is somehow managed and funneled. To talk more about reducing toxicity: I think there should be like behaviour score rankings, similar to there being MMR rankings and MMR based match making in Dota 2. Toxic people only interact with toxic people. Good people interact only with good people, or if they choose to do so, they can interact with lower behaviour score ranked people. Something like this.
Quite a few people playing classic RTS games on game ranger. Even Warcraft 2 and AOE1. Seems that people never stop playing the great games but space is crowded for new games.
its dead because some people keep pushing generic trash as hard as they can just because its all thats out there. not sure if those certain people are being paid to shill this generic trash or not, but they sure are.
Sanctuary is the first title since Sc2 that has me excited. If it was branded Halo... it would sell millions of copies on its own. We need the voices of the RTS genre to get behind the small studios and push them. Not Blizzard or MicroShits copy paste crap. They're never going to take a risk and do what we need for RTS to survive... we need the passionate few to do that.
4:20 i feel it so much. we, as a species, traded value for comfortability. i think this is a factor across a lot of different things. main things come to mind, obviously the going to the store, looking games up, buying 1 or 2 and have fun with it. and books. u can't even buy a lot of the older books as a real bound book. as an example. warhammer book "Khârn: Eater of Worlds". bound book is not produced anymore. thats why a bound book today costs 475$. on kindle its 10$. i really wish i had a bound book of it. i've read like 100 pages and got bored out of reading it. its not easy to pin point whats missing. i think it just feels more real. feeling the pages while reading. smell the light scent of wood from the pages. idk. i never read a lot, but the only books i finished, were "real".
I think if a really interesting and good RTS comes around, that incorporates team games in interesting ways while maintaining balance could hit big, but it isn't Stormgate.
To me the problem with RTS was always that getting better at the basic macro stuff was always a punishing experience, not a rewarding one. Maintaining production, supply, defences, upgrades and so on is so hard to keep up, and if you don't do it you can't do the cool strategic things you were planning. Like, if you were juggling a bunch of knives, when you get good at it, the juggling itself doesn't inherently feel good - you're just not getting stabbed all the time, which is cool, I guess. Yes, the euphoria of executing your build perfectly does feel good, but until you are good enough to experience this, its just painful and frustrating. This is a useful concept in many cases, as in pain being the greatest teacher and so on, but I believe gaming should be more fun and less frustrating. The next RTS's would have to find a cool way of rewarding good macro, like if you queue an SCV as soon as you hit 50 minerals and the previous one finishes, the new one builds faster, mines more per turn, has better stats, or something along those lines. Or if you are not supply-blocked, the next depot gives +1 supply and this bonus persists until you hit a block. Just something that gives a direct reward or advantage to someone with great mechanics. Balance-wise it wouldn't be a problem since your opponent can gain these advantages aswell.
I love this idea, automate macro so new players can enjoying battles, but reward players that take the time to learn and develop the skills manually to master the game. If you can't keep new/causal players interested, the game dies.
The moment the developer figure out they should prioritize custom map and campaign over 1v1 and think about how to appeal to casual gamers, the genre will comeback
this is what drives most people out. i have 10 different friends I've played starcraft2 with, and they all basically confess they like the game, but it was too hard to play competitively and they just didn't want to put in the time and work to get good. the genre feels like work to most people, more than it does gaming. especially when you get competitive.
That's not really true tho, the same can be said of Mobas, you have to know what your opponents spells are, there's hundreds of heroes / champions in LoL or Dota, if you dont know what they do you generally die and have a terrible lane. Yet people push thru. I think Mobas prove that complexity / amount of knowledge required isn't really a barrier for player retention, imho
what did me in was the constant patches in starcraft 2. I hate how they change the entire game every 3 months. Well, the real reason I stopped sc2 back in the day was b ecause my comp couldn't handle it. There would be a big protoss death ball battle - my computer would freeze for 2 minutes, and I would lose because of that freezing. So I didn't see the point of playing further until I got a better comp - but I never returned. I think the reason I didn't return was because I didn't like the constant patching.
@@pupper5580 I agree, the huge decline in playerbase came with HotS for SC2, and these changes were too massive and unecessary, I think they really misjudged what makes an RTS good, and constant change really isn't good. Mobas require that, else the meta gets stale, but RTS no, and for me I quit at HotS, few months into it, like most people I believe. So for sure, SC2 was mishandled, but I doubt even with perfect management it would have had a comparable success to major titles in gaming. Maybe if they had focused on a "casual friendly" side of the game, with team-modes being looked at, maps and balancing for it has always been awful, that could have helped. Like one guy said somewhere in these comments, there's almost no "1v1" game in very successful esports and games. And the ones that do rely on 1v1, like Rocket League, still put an emphasis on teamplay, and tournaments are mostly played in 3v3.
you are heavily delusional if you think that lmao.. yes it could be very successfull, but its 1) not a guarantee and 2) starcraft 3 would be a much smarter option, because the fanbase was always bigger and the universe much more fleshed out for the RTS purpose
nop Blizzard cashed out on their reputation with Diablo3, Diablo 4 and WC3 Reforged. Even a good clone of WC3 with a good story and campaign, but literally the same style of gameplay, will bomb. Devs need to make RTS games that are fun. Either through innovation or through making mass clicking fun.
Before WoW, Warcraft was a far more developed RTS... but WoW made them billions... so they basically made Sc2 as a pet project. Sc2 made them what a cosmetic skin makes... If they made Wc4... all the WoW people would have been all over it. Take into account too... that from WC3 came the entire MOBA genre. It was literally created in the level editor... I hate that WoW ruined Blizzard and Wc... completely robbed us of a LOTR scale story line so a bunch of mouth breathers could run around in a game between their shifts at Walmart.
We use to play on LAN starcraft, W3 or DOTA whole night and when we had zero energy left we would just play some tower defence or some scenarios like that. DOTA was also scenario in W3 at that time but it was so popular and competitive that it was like regular game to us.. 🙂
I love hearing everyone opinion on this topic. whether is positive or negative. My favourite part of RTS game is watching it. My worst part of the genre is playing it as the skill , or learning curve, is crazy.
It's not that it's dead. The biggest problem it has is overcoming a lot of its own design problems. Developers need to create rts games that are more fun/casual (rts game have a lot of design features that aren't fun) and something with enough depth/skill to keep competitive players interested.
Nothing killed the genre, it just fell out of popularity. This is completely normal, it's abnormal and impossible for something to stay peak forever. RTS still has plenty of games coming out constantly, no it will never be like sc/sc2 again for the forseeable future. Entering pop culture is random and can't be designed or planned for, it's a silly goal and a silly measure of success.
the genre is dead. mostly because it suffers from exactly what the rest of the industry suffers from, "the life of all art". all art forms have a life cycle which goes 1. people create the artform 2. people compete in the artform creating new pieces and techniques to try to improve on previous creations. 3. someone discovers that people will pay for garbage because x reason(latest of the series, they were told to by a source paid to tell them to etc) 4. all artists turn to competing to make the cheapest pos people will pay for. 5. it stays like that till the medium disappears or the world ends. the video game industry is in part 5 already, a quality rts has not been made in over a decade not because they are hard to balance or any other excuse people make to avoid admitting their favorite game is bad...nope, its because no quality game has been made in over a decade. people proved again and again that they will pay for absolute dog shit no matter how often they cry about how bad it is(dont believe me??? go look at the last 10+ years of forum posts for fifa 10-24...or madden, or virtually any other game made since about 2010) all anyone does is buy bad products, complain about how bad they are...then buy the next bad product made by that company.
I think comparing playerbase sizes is important. But a lot of popular games such as fps ones and mobas are multiplayer which can heavily inflate the numbers. RTS is also a multiplayer game when competitive. I do think that while we have people casting games in RTS and still playing them professionally can make us think the games are more alive than they are, I don't think the genre is doing well. I would call it more dead than not. Its also important to define terms because just saying people playing a game is keeping it alive is a bit silly. Scenes can last for awhile with a small passionate amount of fans. It doesn't mean it is a big drop in the ocean when you zoom out to including other genres of games across the overall gamer playerbase. Saying RTS is niche is fair even if I largely view it as dead and I think thats why it is where it is. Competitive RTS is nerve wracking and puts a lot of pressure on the individual to perform and improve. I think it makes it a lot harder to want to enjoy the game casually. They can have single player modes and campaigns but thats not going to last very long and while someone might go back and replay them, its not exactly the sort of genre that is intended for a player to play the story over and over again. It would then just be a game you beat once and move on and possibly revisit. So how well the competitive feels to an average gamer is important. I think a big part of what makes fps and moba games so popular is the team aspect. You can get carried, you can do the carrying, and you can just feel more relaxed and chill with your friends when doing it more casually. There is a lot less pressure for perfect play when a game is setup with a team. RTS is right in the middle between being a single player experience since you play alone and a pvp one since you play vs others. You don't get that single player experience in competitive since you aren't laddering vs bots. And you don't get that comfort of playing with friends in a team when you queue up to pvp. I think this is the core of why the genre has struggled. I think new games can make the experiences more interesting and maybe a game like Stormgate can bring in new potential RTS fans. But I think RTS at its core will always be a more niche minority compared to its bigger competitive siblings. Its very entertaining though because it is so focused on the 1v1. The games demand so much perfection and humans have limited actions they can perform every second. Thats why I can keep falling in and out of watching Starcraft all the time over the last 15 years or so. A game where it can kinda be boiled down to who makes the least mistakes rather than who makes just 1-2 mistakes, is a really interesting format for a competitive game. The sheer amount of management that only a single person is in charge of means you are likely to fuck up a lot. You just need to fuck up less than they do. Its a chase for human perfection when we can't be as perfect and as everywhere as a machine could be. Thats the double edged sword of RTS. Edit: Yea it seems like Tasteless feels the same sort of way about the teams.
Wouldn't put Factiorio in the RTS category, but you could if you decided to do factory VS factory 😂. Even the PVE aspect is more of a design challenge than "strategy" - that said the game is amazing and the engine is just crazy well done.
Competitive RTS games are just targeted at a very niche audience. Playing a 1v1 game is a lonely experience. Most gamers nowadays prefer online games with more players, e.g. survival games, team shooters and MOBAs. But there'll always be a small part of the gaming community that's drawn towards hardcore 1v1 games. As developing games is expensive, we shouldn't expect a triple A RTS coming out soon - Stormgate is AA and decent, but very shallow in comparison to SC2 and other big RTS games like WC3 and BW. And honestly, that's fine. I don't want to play dozens of different RTS games. Learning such a game takes time and effort. I still play SC2 and BW and I'm still enjoying them.
If they had a semi auto mod for scrubs like myself I play it way more. Like comp would handle some peon/building etc and yes I know it would affect build orders or have it that you put it a build order etc.
Do any of y'all like that Supreme Commander game? Though it has been out for years, I never even knew about it until the other day and have watched some games. They seem. full of massive battles and tons of strategy. It's definitely going to be the next RTS I pay for. Not Storm Gate or Tempest rising.
Part of the decline that a lotta the old guard don't like acknowledging is how RTS has become unappealing for people because its fans keep jerking themselves off about how difficult the genre is. Every aspect of it is "too much for these entitled young zoomers who'd rather play those simple MOBAs" when it really isn't. It's especially bad for StarCraft 1 and 2. I've seen so many people who might have otherwise enjoyed the campaigns for these games be turned off because they get the impression from ladder sweatlords that even singleplayer is a stressful experience that you couldn't get into unless you had 600 APM and a Korean citizenship. The elitism from mfs who do nothing but whine about balance on every available online forum or backseat actual pro players like they know wtf they're talking about have given onlookers who wanted to check out the genre a bad first impression, even when those voices are the minority when you actually get into these games and these communities. But there's been little in the way of changing that. Hell, you'd see a few even just in this very video's comments.
There was a lot more places to buy physical pc games back in the 90s and there was also mail-order which shouldn't be forgotten about as a actual player at the time. Best Buy, Babages, EB games, CircutCity, CompUSA, Wal-Mart heck even Toys R Us carried PC games at the time. PCs in general boomed in the 90s. Most had massive retail PC game sections at the time as well, not just a dozen or so titles only at one time. Also, companies like Columbia House even did mailorder for PC Games not just albums, as did most game publishers as seen in almost any pc game magazines ads from that time. Not sure availability has anything to do with anything here. PC games were very available in multiple ways duringthe PC boom and the rise of the early home internet. Didnt need or even want digital releases at that time. IMO, RTS games just like every genre that isn't FPS of some sort, driving sim or MOBA isn't made now because game publishers are afraid to make anything that isn't "in" right now or would require anything that wasn't built on a premade stock game engine like unreal. This has happened to the music and the movie industries in many ways as well. No one takes any chances and it all looks, sounds and feels exactly the same now. No variety. They just stay in the predefined lane and for cheapest way possible to please the investors looking for the quick buck. The actual game or gamer doesn't matter much to them nor do actual game designers as they are mostly hired on contract only now. It is starting to really show across these industries as well. If things don't change, these industries will crash again. Seems pretty inevitable now to me really at this point. To make matters worse RTS specifically has been taken over now by crappy mobile freemium pay to win games. So sadly most new gamers will not even know how good this genre once was and associate them with that garbage.
@@MrTBSC just kidding, but scbw is a master piece, since the 90s and we still see the game vigorous, while others like the starcraft 2 is going down, its like tibia for the mmorpgs
Every point in that guy's video was... well, random, and with no backing to support it. A single quote from an Age of Empires 4 director doesn't necessarily reflect what actual consumers thought. There were so many quality, well-known RTSes out there that you'd have to get unlucky or so comically uninformed to get a bad one. Tasteless even admits he's never heard of those first 3 examples that were brought up by the dude, but in terms of quality RTSes, there were plenty. WC2+3, SC1, AoE2 (and to a lesser extent 3), Empire Earth, C&C, LotR, Age of Mythology, Warlords Battlecry 1-3, Rome: Total War, etc. MOBAs and casual TD games didn't "steal" players either because "steal" implies exclusively drawing people in to playing them and only them. Also, MOBAs like League got more popular than SC ever did very quickly, showing that it reached a far bigger audience than RTS ever had access to. RTS has nothing to do with that besides its distant roots. I played moba custom games within SC2 plenty, and then eventually did league, but I kept playing both (SC2 less so, but I still played it) back when I was addicted to league, but that has more to do with game stagnation and that I felt I did most things i wanted to do with it by then anyways. I've never heard of novelty of an *entire genre* wearing out, that's ridiculous. Maybe if the only notable developers in the genre fail, but that's the developer's fault, not the genre's. Here's the obvious answers: 1. High barrier to entry genre combined with the increased general popularization of gaming as a whole made RTS a smaller part of the larger gaming market than it used to. Tastosis *constantly* says RTS (and Starcraft specifically) is the hardest game ever made basically... and you don't think that had an impact? Gaming is more casualized and accessible than ever before, no duh that a complex genre wouldn't be as big relative to the overall gaming space that it used to be. Its comparatively speaking, a niche genre now relative to the *huge* gaming juggernaut that it is. 2. Expensive, complex and lengthy to develop games for Combined with the above problem, its an issue. Indie RTSes are practically unheard of (and usually haven't been great) and so its basically up to AA and AAA studios, and they haven't been doing great. RTSes are extremely difficult to develop for for obvious reasons, the scope is far greater than most games and combined with the real-time aspect, its just a headache. It creates a reverse snowball effect where nobody can get the ball rolling. 3. Overall shrinking due to a lack of quality games over time The above factors led to some level of decline in the genre, which led to a shrinking of the overall playerbase and demographic. In the last decade, the only RTSes I played were SC2 (which I only enjoyed WoL, and custom games in the expansion years) and maybe tried replaying some older games. I played most of my RTSes before 2014 or so and I had a great time with them, but I've basically dropped off to just watching SC1 and 2 (and 2 less so because of all the changes and problems with the game now, plus the stagnation of the competitive circuit). Less players creates a multitude of problems unfortunately. Weak/dead community (many custom games that used to be alive can no longer be played in the current day even in the highest selling RTS like SC2) leads to less content, less competition, less enthusiasm, and just less fun. There's also some tertiary things one can mention like the generally mediocre console experiences with RTS (as consoles exploded in popularity in the 2000s) and the nonexistent handheld experience for it, being unable to access a huge gaming market segment. LOTR's RTS on the XBox 360 was great and I wish more RTSes were intuitive to play on consoles like that so more people could have enjoyed them.
dude im sorry but the difficulty of RTS games is absolutely the #1 reason they are not played. I have so many friends that have just been like yeah - "I'm not good at them and I'm not willing to put that much effort into getting good at a video game. I want something more approachable to relax in my downtime"
I love RTS, I love watching it. I can't play it that much, because playing it well means a crapton of apm is necessary. And a crapton of apm makes the experience feel closer to a working job than a relaxing and fun experience. So I only watch.
lol imagine calling tournaments with 1 million viewers (and that is peak viewership, not overall viewers) and a 500k pricepool "a very small group hidden in the corners of the internet" cause that was kattowice 2024 a couple days ago.
mobas have taken the spotlight because they managed to keep the most exciting and remove the most tedious parts of RTS it is easier to get into, understand and view they were also free to play from the start
It’s cause rts games generally take more time and practice than every other genre. And the feelings of spending 30 minutes to build your army only to get destroy by someone else’s. It’s not for most people.
yea playing half an hour to hour long matches to lose in an onesided manner is not exactly fun in the long run .. thus matches need to be more digestible in 15 to 25 minutes also play games like total annihilation or supreme commander and things can quickly overwhelming and stressful
What is the most successful RTS, I'd say AoE2. Small Incremental updates and DLCs. RTS is not a genre that needs to absolutely decimate the predecessor and atomizer the wheel to replace it with a half ski half propeller that might due the job as a wheel sometime after release. If a game is just waiting for "___ killer" to come around , there is something fundamentally wrong with the game and everyone knows it. You make me a broodwar with better AI and pathing and you have a good chance of getting player interest. Add in tutorials and co ops and campaign fun stuff. P2W, just cosmetics, big overhauls are going to make a mess. You need people to throw thousands of hours into a mess of a game to find a stable statement while retaining interest. Only ever worked once, pretty much pre internet times in Broodwar. Although one could argue starcraft launched half made. And the game hadn't even fully released in some regions. Mobas hardly ever change key mechanics, they just play around with the minor stuff that isn't readily obvious. I think it's easier for players and viewers to accept and adapt to.
That's funny you say you'd think you would know every RTS and you only named 2 RTS's coming out this year when there are many more. Sure they may be the only RTS's aimed at competitive online play at their heart but that doesn't make the other games not RTS's. I honestly wish you and Artosis would check out BAR (Beyond All Reason) as they actually have a growing 1v1 scene and is a fun game to play, even for those who aren't 1v1 diehards.
Short answer: RTS takes a lot of mental stamina, making gaming more stressful than fun, so people moved to simpler versions like MOBA's or tower defenses.
I've seen young people who do insane, needlessly difficult, and exceptionally skill-based challenge runs in FromSoftware games who don't wanna touch RTS because so many its fans talk this type of BS. RTS doesn't take a lot of mental stamina when you're playing campaigns, co-op PVE, or screwing around in a LAN party. This comment screams "OUR GAMES ARE TOO HARD FOR THESE NOOBS", and it's the same shit that has turned people off for years because of this false impression that every RTS needs to be played like you're going against the pros.
@@andrewplatt7076 You laddered for years. Great. 1v1 is not, and even for the original StarCraft, was NEVER the ONLY draw for RTS. It's singleplayer content. It's tools that allowed for user-generated content. It's stupid custom maps like that vulture race. It's the large scale battles of Total War games. It's RA2's campaign with all its prime cut ham. But these aspects have been sidelined in favor of new RTS games trying to be the next big e-sport, instead of refining their mechanics and making their campaigns engaging. How did that go for Iron Harvest and AOE4, I wonder? Hell, same thing happens even outside this genre. Think Overwatch League. Ladder sweatlords aren't the center of the universe.
cRPGs were in slumber for over a decade until a resurgence in the last few years. It's definitely possible RTS makes a huge comeback, but honestly the games releasing in the next year or so are not going to do it.
Think it's investment time. You can get a lot of life out of a game but it takes a lot to get decent at them. There's a reason Starcraft 2 is still the top game. People stick with these games when they get good in them.
The level of complexity to balance the games means they don't really introduce new things into the game to get people to come back or keep them excited. So while the meta at a finite level changes and maybe a new strategy pops up it often looks like your just watching the same game when you do see it. Something like a mobo with the characters changing/new ones being added gives people who arn't purely in it to compete coming back.
I think if RTS games focused on team modes instead of sweaty try-hard 1v1 mode then they'd draw more attention. Playing games on a team is just more fun.
Yeah true. It took way too long for SC2 to get that one mode BW had where two people can control the same race when that was a requested game mode since the beginning.
"Left Behind" was a long series of Christian fear monger novels that became a movie. They were based on the Rapture and follow characters "left behind" by God. The games allow you to either play as the pacifist christian resistance OR the murdering UN New World Order forces. Absolutely nuts stuff
RTS isn't dead, every RTS made in the last 10 years has sucked ass. I don't trust Frost Giant, they clearly left before the axe was swung on them. Stormgate is creatively bankrupt and looks like a chinese mobile game with spyware installed. Game plays like trash, got into the top 200 in 2 days. Units are uncontrollable garbage and unreal is not made for RTS. Zerospace might be good, haven't played it yet. The games just NEED to be good. A good RTS game will sell, just like a good CRPG game just sold like hotcakes. Nothing else matters, not pandering to audiences, or trying to make an e-sport game. Just make a good game. Total Warhammer 3 is the best RTS to come out in decades, why? The game is good, the pricing model is predatory, but the game is good.
Aoe and civ killed RTS who want to play paper scissors rock with just scissors scissors scissors scissors scissors. Starcraft walks on streets paved with terrible, horrible & hollow games (because of the 'i wanna be a game designer' generation)
Take a look at Godsworn (made by two guys) the RTS killer of StormBait or TrashGate child friendly mobile game where millions of dollars have no soul or character
I just love that the dude has Starflight playing on his TV in the background. He has the Genesis version on the TV, but I grew up w/ the PC version. Sitting with my dad when I was 6, watching him play on our Tandy 1000 computer. No mouse, no hard drive. It's where I fell in love w/ games. I still have his original copy of that game. It's my most prized gaming possession.
"As long as RTS diehard fans are alive, RTS genre will live on.." - Anonymous RTS Philosopher
It's not dead. It's just niche.
thats what dead means.
@@BananenbaumEY Dead means no players and no servers to play, stop the cap. RTS genre far from dead.
@@BananenbaumEY So turn based games are dead then?
@@Man_3336 RTs isn't exactly dead but lets not pretend its 'alive' either the community is full of oldguards and its not growing because the RTS genre isnt appealing to zoomers
@@Frank_144when square enix stops making turn based and makes live action games, yes turn based games (rpgs, at least) are mostly dead
RTS was overcrowded which led to its slowdown? Ridiculous. FPS has always been more flooded with shovelware and had no issues. It's a lot harder to make an RTS of equivalent quality to other genres, and it's also harder to play them at an equivalent level of skill. Doesn't mean they can't make money, they just don't have as high of a projected fanbase. Too much focus on maximum possible money for shareholder, no room for anything else. WoW and CoD were huge, but there is also room for smaller projects. Especially considering all the extra money lying around because of WoW. Chasing money at the expense of everything else led to the state of mediocrity we've been in for a while in all fields of entertainment. People at the top who are too stupid to stay out of the creative process.
Game publishers, record labels, and Hollywood used to be run by people who weren't necessarily good at or knowledgeable about the products they sold, but they were at least run by people who understood that it was better to stay out of the way, just a little bit, and let people who have passion for their work do their thing. A lot of people made a lot of money by keeping their stupid nose out of the creative process, and taking the smallest of chances on something that didn't *initially* appeal to the lowest common denominator.
Whether it's games, music, or film, it is the nerds doing the actual work who know what is good because they are truly interested in it. They need reeling in sometimes, like George Lucas and the prequel trilogy, but that's another rant entirely. Every time these corporate douches get control of something good, they can't help themselves. They, or their predecessors, made money off of other people's work and so they think they have some idea wtf made it successful. They get the idea that they should get more involved, and get marketing involved, with reaching some demographic that doesn't really exist or care about what they publish. It might sort-of work short term, but they always run their companies into the ground and scorch the earth behind them along the way. Buy every single company and IP in the field, watch it slowly burn to the ground, and steal as much money as they can on the way out.
zappa said it best ruclips.net/video/xP4wsURn3rw/видео.htmlsi=5ONKuyQh1hQt9lQx
totally agree this guys just WAY off base. the difficulty of RTS games is the reason. so many people were into SC2 in 2011 when IDRA was the big thing at that MLG - just long enough for them to get home and play SC2 and be like - yeah this is hard. I'm going back to shooting at things.
What are you guys talking about no game is harder that others inherently it comes down to how many people are playing and how competitive it is, its harder to reach top 100 in x game than sc2 just because of their player bases its not about, every one plays the same game this point has to die@@ion1984 They might be precivied to be more difficult but what does that really mean. Give me a kid and i guarenteee i could make him better at sc2 over lol or dota what does equivalent mean when your skill is relative and we are not playing bots?
Kids these days aren't even into esports like the generations before, they don't want to be called bad, kids aren't playing any competitive title really
And what does equivalent mean! when skill is relative?
the RTS genre was eaten by moba games
and it's corpse is being desecrated by grand strategies
RTS = single player = less toxicity
moba = 5 ppl in your team = a lot of toxicity
Which is better, hard to say. I'd say moba is nice because you don't have to have perfect mechanics so it's more casual. but the toxicity of the games is pretty rough. But in RTS, it's really annoying to play, because of the match making system. Every game you have to play crisp, or you get your ass kicked. And if you take a break from the game, you'll be getting your ass kicked the next 2 weeks. So overall, I kinda prefer moba, it's less stressful - and the toxicity can be mitigated by muting your team and just having the attitude of not caring.
@@pupper5580 Most people play games as an activity with friends so team games are just going to be better. It also doesn't help that RTS games feel very empty these days. It didn't matter so much when every game was just the basics in terms of art but these days where games are making you care about the units it just feels less enjoyable.
In the end, starcraft and warcraft were successful because their single player campaigns made people care enough about what was going on to want to experience more in multiplayer. Very few people are into competitive games for the sake of competition alone.
@@TheInfectousDunno, what got me into competitive SCBW was 1) friends to play with and 2) Korean esports to watch with those same friends and 3) having fun watching Korean progamers pull off cool stuff and new tactics.
(3) is the biggest advantage I think RTS has over Moba, when you watch a match you can see each player's signature style very clearly. As opposed to watching 10 players all doing things. The Proleague format was so good for this.
I just think RTS is not meant to be too popular because it's not "social" games, requires generally all your attention for very long periods of time, and most people want breaks during gameplay, makes the game feel less stressful. MOBAs or FPS titles all have pleeeenty of downtime mid game (when you die in CS / Valorant, or back to fountain etc.), and are meant to be played with friends, even if a lot play it solo, they do so with in mind "I'm getting better to play with friends later on". I just think a huge majority of the PC playerbase would not enjoy RTS for a long time, even if a "perfect one" would come out tomorrow.
RTS was dying like 10 years ago because of MOBA's
but I think now, it has been long enough, that a big new RTS like Warcraft 4 or Starcraft 3 would be very successful and revive interest in the genre.
Even if it's very hard to play with high skill ceiling, and inaccessible, casuals still love to watch the Competitive aspect of an RTS because it is mind blowing impressive how skilled the top players are and how they are able to control and multi-task so many things. It's more impressive than watching pros control 1 hero in League.
warcraft 4 and starcraft 3 will never happen. no matter how much we scream and cry for it in our dreams, it will never b a reality. the only time it will ever happen is when companies wanna milk the franchise to death for one last time with very little effort that they know that they can get away with just so that they can please shareholders.
AoE4 was not successful enough. 😭
@@growtocycle6992 it is, but the only problem with RTS games is that RTS games have a learning curve that new comers might struggle with. learning an RTS game takes some time to learn before you actually get good at it and most people dont have time for playing games as they're too busy with their own lives.
Depends what you mean by "very" successful, but I would disagree, I think an RTS could blow up again like SC2 did, but it would be short lived. Just observing my friends and how they played SC2 / RTS, it's always short lived, they enjoy it for a few weeks, and it dies down, because RTS are too demanding, too "lonely" in the sense you have to focus so much on the game, communications even in team modes are pretty non existent. And it's not as flashy, social, and repeatable for most people compared to the popular genres, Mobas or FPS. I think an RTS could blow up for a year or two again, but not even to the levels of SC2 ever did, and then it would go back down to the core of passionate RTS players, which is a much smaller community.
But that's completely fine too btw, you would only need 10% of CSGO / mobas playerbase to be a massive success and maintain a healthy community and pro scene tbh. I just dont think RTS are appealing in that way for a majority of gamers, I wished it was, I wished we had good RTS games for 2v2 and 3v3s, Starcraft always completely failed on that front, but, yeah.
@@growtocycle6992 AOE4 playerbase has grown since the expansion last year, it's bigger now than it had been since the first month after launch
Wasn't this topic already tossed around a year or two ago from that GGG video? Basically, the genre suffers because the vast majority of people who play RTS have zero interest in playing it competitively. They'll play campaigns or custom mods or mess around in team games, but they won't grind out a ladder.
Developers and pro gamers try to force RTS to be this hyper competitive genre, and fun is an afterthought.
The problem is the 2nd group needs the 1rst group to buy and support the game, even though the first group has no interest in the goals and interests of the 2nd group. You kind of need to just create a really fun, enjoyable game for the first group and then let the ladder nerds latch on to that success afterwards. Trying to do it in reverse doesn't give you the base needed. It is like a parasite without a host, but I don't mean that negatively. Trying to create a RTS with only the parasite without a host, and the parasite can't survive.
I think something alot of people need to realise is that 1v1 will always be smaller than team games. Nothing wrong with that. It's true in real sports and true in e-sports. Table tennis, tennis and badminton are still absolutely massive sports, but will never rival football (soccer).
Yeah that's a huge part for sure, even on my gamer friends, from all backgrounds, clearly a lot just dont want the "stress" of the 1v1, and the loneliness of it. Most would get massive "ladder anxiety" and not queue on SC2, but would not have that problem on Mobas or CSGO.
@@Maho2109imo there’s something strangely personal about 1v1 in rts, or in games in general. Maybe it’s the knowledge that come success or failure it’s all on you and you alone
@@berengerchristy6256 Yeah absolutely, most of my friends were terrified of that. Mobas are also popular (and toxic) because you can blame your teammates, or bad matchups for your loss, and queue up again with your "ego untouched". RTS has none of that lol, some people still cope with the race whine, but it doesn't go far, mostly you KNOW you got outplayed and it's a sobering feeling that not everyone enjoys.
@@Maho2109 I only got into halo wars on Xbox 360. I can’t keep up with mouse and keyboard. I remember actually coming up with my own build order so that I could get Spartans with veterancy into grizzly tanks asap. Really excited for storm gate to be supporting co-op for longer than SC2. Supposedly metrics showed people LOVED SC2 co-op (I sure did) but nearly all the good developers have left blizzard, so no more co-op, which is a shame. Activision ruined a legendary company, and Microsoft overpaid for their desiccated husk
Pretty much mobas and team games took over. RTS is mostly 1v1 games which are less apealing for averange gamer, you have nobody to blame but yourself for being bad, its harder to make friends, or play with friends, games are harder
map editor was a true gift.
It's funny to look back at the evolution of PC gaming in the 90s. Original Doom technically didn't have any elevation, so you just aimed horizontally, and once your gun aligned with an enemy you'd always hit
I bought StarCraft 1 at my local Fry's - they definitely sold games
I think we are not that far away from RTS having a resurgence. "Just" needs some innovation. It's clear that the current RTS format is not gonna appeal to the mainstream but all it takes is for someone to have a good idea. A good idea is how MOBAs and Battle Royales came into existence after all.
RTS aint really dead. they just dont have as much as passion and soul in them like they used to. on top of that, they have learning curves that new comers might struggle with and the huge problem with greedy and disgusting monetary practices from companies.
RTS used to be one of the best genres for mouse and keyboard. But FPS took over with game consoles and controllers becoming more popular for gaming, and Mobas took up whatever space was left for RTS.
FPS is also best for mouse and keyboard. LOL at anyone playing fps on a fucking controller.
I've got a suspicion that one of the reasons RTS declined is the way people use their computers nowadays. Naturally, people prefer team oriented games now because they're always on call to a group of friends over discord or skype or whatever-but also, I think it's because people do stuff like spreadsheets/tables less nowadays than in the 90s/00s, and the web design has changed also, in a way that makes the RTS interface alien where it once seemed more intuitive to an earlier gen of PC users. Gaming / culture in general now is very personality / personal profile driven as well, so that a lot of the most popular games allow you to play a single character who you can change the skins/appearances of to reflect who you are; RTS games, by comparison, seem way too impersonal & abstract.
I think the next big game genre is one where you have the next 3 elements. 1. a good game to play 2. social element, and 3. toxicity (of the social element) is somehow managed and funneled. To talk more about reducing toxicity: I think there should be like behaviour score rankings, similar to there being MMR rankings and MMR based match making in Dota 2. Toxic people only interact with toxic people. Good people interact only with good people, or if they choose to do so, they can interact with lower behaviour score ranked people. Something like this.
Quite a few people playing classic RTS games on game ranger. Even Warcraft 2 and AOE1.
Seems that people never stop playing the great games but space is crowded for new games.
its dead because some people keep pushing generic trash as hard as they can just because its all thats out there. not sure if those certain people are being paid to shill this generic trash or not, but they sure are.
Sanctuary is the first title since Sc2 that has me excited.
If it was branded Halo... it would sell millions of copies on its own.
We need the voices of the RTS genre to get behind the small studios and push them. Not Blizzard or MicroShits copy paste crap. They're never going to take a risk and do what we need for RTS to survive... we need the passionate few to do that.
4:20 i feel it so much. we, as a species, traded value for comfortability. i think this is a factor across a lot of different things. main things come to mind, obviously the going to the store, looking games up, buying 1 or 2 and have fun with it. and books. u can't even buy a lot of the older books as a real bound book. as an example. warhammer book "Khârn: Eater of Worlds". bound book is not produced anymore. thats why a bound book today costs 475$. on kindle its 10$. i really wish i had a bound book of it. i've read like 100 pages and got bored out of reading it. its not easy to pin point whats missing. i think it just feels more real. feeling the pages while reading. smell the light scent of wood from the pages. idk. i never read a lot, but the only books i finished, were "real".
as long as you can play anytime u want its not dead
stop it people want tournaments if its a game you practice
@@svsv1191 starcraft 2 had a 500 k$ pricemoney tournament with 1 million top viewership less then 1 week ago
I think if a really interesting and good RTS comes around, that incorporates team games in interesting ways while maintaining balance could hit big, but it isn't Stormgate.
lol, blizzard wasn't hiring the dota guy for that blizz not only believed they could do it themselves but could do it better too.
To me the problem with RTS was always that getting better at the basic macro stuff was always a punishing experience, not a rewarding one. Maintaining production, supply, defences, upgrades and so on is so hard to keep up, and if you don't do it you can't do the cool strategic things you were planning.
Like, if you were juggling a bunch of knives, when you get good at it, the juggling itself doesn't inherently feel good - you're just not getting stabbed all the time, which is cool, I guess. Yes, the euphoria of executing your build perfectly does feel good, but until you are good enough to experience this, its just painful and frustrating. This is a useful concept in many cases, as in pain being the greatest teacher and so on, but I believe gaming should be more fun and less frustrating.
The next RTS's would have to find a cool way of rewarding good macro, like if you queue an SCV as soon as you hit 50 minerals and the previous one finishes, the new one builds faster, mines more per turn, has better stats, or something along those lines. Or if you are not supply-blocked, the next depot gives +1 supply and this bonus persists until you hit a block. Just something that gives a direct reward or advantage to someone with great mechanics. Balance-wise it wouldn't be a problem since your opponent can gain these advantages aswell.
I love this idea, automate macro so new players can enjoying battles, but reward players that take the time to learn and develop the skills manually to master the game. If you can't keep new/causal players interested, the game dies.
The moment the developer figure out they should prioritize custom map and campaign over 1v1 and think about how to appeal to casual gamers, the genre will comeback
RTS games have a hard curve to learn.
But they have their niche for sure.
this is what drives most people out. i have 10 different friends I've played starcraft2 with, and they all basically confess they like the game, but it was too hard to play competitively and they just didn't want to put in the time and work to get good. the genre feels like work to most people, more than it does gaming. especially when you get competitive.
That's not really true tho, the same can be said of Mobas, you have to know what your opponents spells are, there's hundreds of heroes / champions in LoL or Dota, if you dont know what they do you generally die and have a terrible lane. Yet people push thru. I think Mobas prove that complexity / amount of knowledge required isn't really a barrier for player retention, imho
what did me in was the constant patches in starcraft 2. I hate how they change the entire game every 3 months. Well, the real reason I stopped sc2 back in the day was b ecause my comp couldn't handle it. There would be a big protoss death ball battle - my computer would freeze for 2 minutes, and I would lose because of that freezing. So I didn't see the point of playing further until I got a better comp - but I never returned. I think the reason I didn't return was because I didn't like the constant patching.
@@pupper5580 I agree, the huge decline in playerbase came with HotS for SC2, and these changes were too massive and unecessary, I think they really misjudged what makes an RTS good, and constant change really isn't good. Mobas require that, else the meta gets stale, but RTS no, and for me I quit at HotS, few months into it, like most people I believe. So for sure, SC2 was mishandled, but I doubt even with perfect management it would have had a comparable success to major titles in gaming. Maybe if they had focused on a "casual friendly" side of the game, with team-modes being looked at, maps and balancing for it has always been awful, that could have helped. Like one guy said somewhere in these comments, there's almost no "1v1" game in very successful esports and games. And the ones that do rely on 1v1, like Rocket League, still put an emphasis on teamplay, and tournaments are mostly played in 3v3.
@@Maho2109 yes I quit couple months after HotS. Didn't like the massive changes at all, and found these changes completely unnecessary.
If Warcraft 4 came out tomorrow it would have close to 8 -9 million copies sold immediately
If it looked done right*
you are heavily delusional if you think that lmao.. yes it could be very successfull, but its 1) not a guarantee and 2) starcraft 3 would be a much smarter option, because the fanbase was always bigger and the universe much more fleshed out for the RTS purpose
Good joke. With the state of Activistion-Blizzard, it's obvious it will be a pile of garbage.
nop
Blizzard cashed out on their reputation with Diablo3, Diablo 4 and WC3 Reforged. Even a good clone of WC3 with a good story and campaign, but literally the same style of gameplay, will bomb. Devs need to make RTS games that are fun. Either through innovation or through making mass clicking fun.
Before WoW, Warcraft was a far more developed RTS... but WoW made them billions... so they basically made Sc2 as a pet project. Sc2 made them what a cosmetic skin makes... If they made Wc4... all the WoW people would have been all over it.
Take into account too... that from WC3 came the entire MOBA genre. It was literally created in the level editor...
I hate that WoW ruined Blizzard and Wc... completely robbed us of a LOTR scale story line so a bunch of mouth breathers could run around in a game between their shifts at Walmart.
We use to play on LAN starcraft, W3 or DOTA whole night and when we had zero energy left we would just play some tower defence or some scenarios like that. DOTA was also scenario in W3 at that time but it was so popular and competitive that it was like regular game to us.. 🙂
I love hearing everyone opinion on this topic. whether is positive or negative.
My favourite part of RTS game is watching it.
My worst part of the genre is playing it as the skill , or learning curve, is crazy.
It's not that it's dead. The biggest problem it has is overcoming a lot of its own design problems. Developers need to create rts games that are more fun/casual (rts game have a lot of design features that aren't fun) and something with enough depth/skill to keep competitive players interested.
RTS is alive but it will never compare to MOBA's unless they focus on team game modes
Tasteless are you aware of the Dawn of war WH40k series (specifically 1 not 2 and 3) and if so what are your thoughts ?
That game is point and click... No real strategy... Like company of heroes... in space.
@@ChristianNeff 👍
The first RTS I remember playing was a demo game called Dominion. This was before I even played Command and Conquer.
Nothing killed the genre, it just fell out of popularity. This is completely normal, it's abnormal and impossible for something to stay peak forever.
RTS still has plenty of games coming out constantly, no it will never be like sc/sc2 again for the forseeable future. Entering pop culture is random and can't be designed or planned for, it's a silly goal and a silly measure of success.
If it's in the RUclips algorithm, obviously not. Glad we could clear that up.
the genre is dead. mostly because it suffers from exactly what the rest of the industry suffers from, "the life of all art". all art forms have a life cycle which goes 1. people create the artform 2. people compete in the artform creating new pieces and techniques to try to improve on previous creations. 3. someone discovers that people will pay for garbage because x reason(latest of the series, they were told to by a source paid to tell them to etc) 4. all artists turn to competing to make the cheapest pos people will pay for. 5. it stays like that till the medium disappears or the world ends. the video game industry is in part 5 already, a quality rts has not been made in over a decade not because they are hard to balance or any other excuse people make to avoid admitting their favorite game is bad...nope, its because no quality game has been made in over a decade. people proved again and again that they will pay for absolute dog shit no matter how often they cry about how bad it is(dont believe me??? go look at the last 10+ years of forum posts for fifa 10-24...or madden, or virtually any other game made since about 2010) all anyone does is buy bad products, complain about how bad they are...then buy the next bad product made by that company.
I think comparing playerbase sizes is important. But a lot of popular games such as fps ones and mobas are multiplayer which can heavily inflate the numbers. RTS is also a multiplayer game when competitive. I do think that while we have people casting games in RTS and still playing them professionally can make us think the games are more alive than they are, I don't think the genre is doing well. I would call it more dead than not. Its also important to define terms because just saying people playing a game is keeping it alive is a bit silly. Scenes can last for awhile with a small passionate amount of fans. It doesn't mean it is a big drop in the ocean when you zoom out to including other genres of games across the overall gamer playerbase.
Saying RTS is niche is fair even if I largely view it as dead and I think thats why it is where it is. Competitive RTS is nerve wracking and puts a lot of pressure on the individual to perform and improve. I think it makes it a lot harder to want to enjoy the game casually. They can have single player modes and campaigns but thats not going to last very long and while someone might go back and replay them, its not exactly the sort of genre that is intended for a player to play the story over and over again. It would then just be a game you beat once and move on and possibly revisit. So how well the competitive feels to an average gamer is important. I think a big part of what makes fps and moba games so popular is the team aspect. You can get carried, you can do the carrying, and you can just feel more relaxed and chill with your friends when doing it more casually. There is a lot less pressure for perfect play when a game is setup with a team.
RTS is right in the middle between being a single player experience since you play alone and a pvp one since you play vs others. You don't get that single player experience in competitive since you aren't laddering vs bots. And you don't get that comfort of playing with friends in a team when you queue up to pvp. I think this is the core of why the genre has struggled. I think new games can make the experiences more interesting and maybe a game like Stormgate can bring in new potential RTS fans. But I think RTS at its core will always be a more niche minority compared to its bigger competitive siblings.
Its very entertaining though because it is so focused on the 1v1. The games demand so much perfection and humans have limited actions they can perform every second. Thats why I can keep falling in and out of watching Starcraft all the time over the last 15 years or so. A game where it can kinda be boiled down to who makes the least mistakes rather than who makes just 1-2 mistakes, is a really interesting format for a competitive game. The sheer amount of management that only a single person is in charge of means you are likely to fuck up a lot. You just need to fuck up less than they do. Its a chase for human perfection when we can't be as perfect and as everywhere as a machine could be. Thats the double edged sword of RTS.
Edit: Yea it seems like Tasteless feels the same sort of way about the teams.
Just try Cosmonarchy Broodwar, its the first of many to revive true RTSes
This guy gets it
I know people who literally don't own a computer, or if they have one, they don't own a mouse, times have changed.
Wouldn't put Factiorio in the RTS category, but you could if you decided to do factory VS factory 😂.
Even the PVE aspect is more of a design challenge than "strategy" - that said the game is amazing and the engine is just crazy well done.
Competitive RTS games are just targeted at a very niche audience. Playing a 1v1 game is a lonely experience. Most gamers nowadays prefer online games with more players, e.g. survival games, team shooters and MOBAs. But there'll always be a small part of the gaming community that's drawn towards hardcore 1v1 games. As developing games is expensive, we shouldn't expect a triple A RTS coming out soon - Stormgate is AA and decent, but very shallow in comparison to SC2 and other big RTS games like WC3 and BW. And honestly, that's fine. I don't want to play dozens of different RTS games. Learning such a game takes time and effort. I still play SC2 and BW and I'm still enjoying them.
If they had a semi auto mod for scrubs like myself I play it way more. Like comp would handle some peon/building etc and yes I know it would affect build orders or have it that you put it a build order etc.
Do any of y'all like that Supreme Commander game? Though it has been out for years, I never even knew about it until the other day and have watched some games. They seem. full of massive battles and tons of strategy. It's definitely going to be the next RTS I pay for. Not Storm Gate or Tempest rising.
Part of the decline that a lotta the old guard don't like acknowledging is how RTS has become unappealing for people because its fans keep jerking themselves off about how difficult the genre is. Every aspect of it is "too much for these entitled young zoomers who'd rather play those simple MOBAs" when it really isn't. It's especially bad for StarCraft 1 and 2. I've seen so many people who might have otherwise enjoyed the campaigns for these games be turned off because they get the impression from ladder sweatlords that even singleplayer is a stressful experience that you couldn't get into unless you had 600 APM and a Korean citizenship. The elitism from mfs who do nothing but whine about balance on every available online forum or backseat actual pro players like they know wtf they're talking about have given onlookers who wanted to check out the genre a bad first impression, even when those voices are the minority when you actually get into these games and these communities. But there's been little in the way of changing that. Hell, you'd see a few even just in this very video's comments.
There was a lot more places to buy physical pc games back in the 90s and there was also mail-order which shouldn't be forgotten about as a actual player at the time. Best Buy, Babages, EB games, CircutCity, CompUSA, Wal-Mart heck even Toys R Us carried PC games at the time. PCs in general boomed in the 90s. Most had massive retail PC game sections at the time as well, not just a dozen or so titles only at one time. Also, companies like Columbia House even did mailorder for PC Games not just albums, as did most game publishers as seen in almost any pc game magazines ads from that time. Not sure availability has anything to do with anything here. PC games were very available in multiple ways duringthe PC boom and the rise of the early home internet. Didnt need or even want digital releases at that time. IMO, RTS games just like every genre that isn't FPS of some sort, driving sim or MOBA isn't made now because game publishers are afraid to make anything that isn't "in" right now or would require anything that wasn't built on a premade stock game engine like unreal. This has happened to the music and the movie industries in many ways as well. No one takes any chances and it all looks, sounds and feels exactly the same now. No variety. They just stay in the predefined lane and for cheapest way possible to please the investors looking for the quick buck. The actual game or gamer doesn't matter much to them nor do actual game designers as they are mostly hired on contract only now. It is starting to really show across these industries as well. If things don't change, these industries will crash again. Seems pretty inevitable now to me really at this point. To make matters worse RTS specifically has been taken over now by crappy mobile freemium pay to win games. So sadly most new gamers will not even know how good this genre once was and associate them with that garbage.
We have StarCraft - Brood War, we don't need new rts games.
yeeaaahh ... i disagree with you there
@@MrTBSC just kidding, but scbw is a master piece, since the 90s and we still see the game vigorous, while others like the starcraft 2 is going down, its like tibia for the mmorpgs
I grew up playing a bit of lords of everquest... I didn't play it much because I also had wc2, bw, aoe2, and red alert/tiberian sun.
i think, rts are hard to monetize, like how you could make money with a rts? its not easy to add skins and other things to rts,maybe maps with ads ?
Every point in that guy's video was... well, random, and with no backing to support it. A single quote from an Age of Empires 4 director doesn't necessarily reflect what actual consumers thought. There were so many quality, well-known RTSes out there that you'd have to get unlucky or so comically uninformed to get a bad one. Tasteless even admits he's never heard of those first 3 examples that were brought up by the dude, but in terms of quality RTSes, there were plenty. WC2+3, SC1, AoE2 (and to a lesser extent 3), Empire Earth, C&C, LotR, Age of Mythology, Warlords Battlecry 1-3, Rome: Total War, etc.
MOBAs and casual TD games didn't "steal" players either because "steal" implies exclusively drawing people in to playing them and only them. Also, MOBAs like League got more popular than SC ever did very quickly, showing that it reached a far bigger audience than RTS ever had access to. RTS has nothing to do with that besides its distant roots. I played moba custom games within SC2 plenty, and then eventually did league, but I kept playing both (SC2 less so, but I still played it) back when I was addicted to league, but that has more to do with game stagnation and that I felt I did most things i wanted to do with it by then anyways.
I've never heard of novelty of an *entire genre* wearing out, that's ridiculous. Maybe if the only notable developers in the genre fail, but that's the developer's fault, not the genre's.
Here's the obvious answers:
1. High barrier to entry genre combined with the increased general popularization of gaming as a whole made RTS a smaller part of the larger gaming market than it used to.
Tastosis *constantly* says RTS (and Starcraft specifically) is the hardest game ever made basically... and you don't think that had an impact? Gaming is more casualized and accessible than ever before, no duh that a complex genre wouldn't be as big relative to the overall gaming space that it used to be. Its comparatively speaking, a niche genre now relative to the *huge* gaming juggernaut that it is.
2. Expensive, complex and lengthy to develop games for
Combined with the above problem, its an issue. Indie RTSes are practically unheard of (and usually haven't been great) and so its basically up to AA and AAA studios, and they haven't been doing great. RTSes are extremely difficult to develop for for obvious reasons, the scope is far greater than most games and combined with the real-time aspect, its just a headache. It creates a reverse snowball effect where nobody can get the ball rolling.
3. Overall shrinking due to a lack of quality games over time
The above factors led to some level of decline in the genre, which led to a shrinking of the overall playerbase and demographic.
In the last decade, the only RTSes I played were SC2 (which I only enjoyed WoL, and custom games in the expansion years) and maybe tried replaying some older games. I played most of my RTSes before 2014 or so and I had a great time with them, but I've basically dropped off to just watching SC1 and 2 (and 2 less so because of all the changes and problems with the game now, plus the stagnation of the competitive circuit).
Less players creates a multitude of problems unfortunately. Weak/dead community (many custom games that used to be alive can no longer be played in the current day even in the highest selling RTS like SC2) leads to less content, less competition, less enthusiasm, and just less fun.
There's also some tertiary things one can mention like the generally mediocre console experiences with RTS (as consoles exploded in popularity in the 2000s) and the nonexistent handheld experience for it, being unable to access a huge gaming market segment. LOTR's RTS on the XBox 360 was great and I wish more RTSes were intuitive to play on consoles like that so more people could have enjoyed them.
Anyone ever Heard of 'Dark Reign'? it was well beyond its time and I played the heck out of it.
That's what I kept mentioning when I was playing sc2: "My best matchup is PvZ, where P stands for plants...."
dude im sorry but the difficulty of RTS games is absolutely the #1 reason they are not played. I have so many friends that have just been like yeah - "I'm not good at them and I'm not willing to put that much effort into getting good at a video game. I want something more approachable to relax in my downtime"
Tell them to try the campaign, it slowly ramps up the difficulty and once they are through they have the basics down
I love RTS, I love watching it.
I can't play it that much, because playing it well means a crapton of apm is necessary.
And a crapton of apm makes the experience feel closer to a working job than a relaxing and fun experience.
So I only watch.
If Tempest Rising gets cancelled then it's dead for me for a few years.
It’s dead because kids can’t blame anyone else or bad luck for their losses.
The generes not dead, the great devs all died. Total War, Starcraft, CoC.... Id buy them all TODAY if they made a good one. AOE4 is great right now!!
RTS > FPS
Warcraft 3 will never die, best RTS ever made and people will keep playing it.
1 year ago it looked bad but for this year there are like 15 new RTS coming out xD its revival
Command & Conquer 3 Kanes Wrath a 2008 game is better than most the most the new rts games i've seen.
Supreme Commander is my favourite RTS after broodwar, followed by AOE2
RTS ain't dead but the competition is dead (a very small group hidden in the corners of the internet doesn't count)
lol imagine calling tournaments with 1 million viewers (and that is peak viewership, not overall viewers) and a 500k pricepool "a very small group hidden in the corners of the internet" cause that was kattowice 2024 a couple days ago.
I'm surprised no one gets upset when artosis or tasteless uses ai generated thumbnails
mobas have taken the spotlight because they managed to keep the most exciting and remove the most tedious parts of RTS
it is easier to get into, understand and view
they were also free to play from the start
MoBa i disagree is a spin off of RTS, yes it was built in a RTS engine, but its more akin to ARTS (diablo, torchlight etc.) imo
It’s cause rts games generally take more time and practice than every other genre. And the feelings of spending 30 minutes to build your army only to get destroy by someone else’s. It’s not for most people.
yea playing half an hour to hour long matches to lose in an onesided manner is not exactly fun in the long run .. thus matches need to be more digestible in 15 to 25 minutes
also play games like total annihilation or supreme commander and things can quickly overwhelming and stressful
Oh i remember when i got the broodwar expansion set in christmas, that was something special!
Warhammer 40k but at Starcraft level with individual unit control, none of the group control BS. It will do well.
Warcraft 3 is still going strong
I don't need a 15 minute video to tell me why RTS fell out of fashion. It's because people are lazy.
What is the most successful RTS, I'd say AoE2. Small Incremental updates and DLCs.
RTS is not a genre that needs to absolutely decimate the predecessor and atomizer the wheel to replace it with a half ski half propeller that might due the job as a wheel sometime after release.
If a game is just waiting for "___ killer" to come around , there is something fundamentally wrong with the game and everyone knows it.
You make me a broodwar with better AI and pathing and you have a good chance of getting player interest. Add in tutorials and co ops and campaign fun stuff.
P2W, just cosmetics, big overhauls are going to make a mess. You need people to throw thousands of hours into a mess of a game to find a stable statement while retaining interest. Only ever worked once, pretty much pre internet times in Broodwar. Although one could argue starcraft launched half made. And the game hadn't even fully released in some regions.
Mobas hardly ever change key mechanics, they just play around with the minor stuff that isn't readily obvious. I think it's easier for players and viewers to accept and adapt to.
You should try Star Trek Armada if you're a Star Trek fan! I cannot say it's a Starcraft-level game, but it's fun.
Fps and rpgs games are doing just fine with oversaturation. RTS games are just boring and havent evolved in 20 years.
That's funny you say you'd think you would know every RTS and you only named 2 RTS's coming out this year when there are many more. Sure they may be the only RTS's aimed at competitive online play at their heart but that doesn't make the other games not RTS's. I honestly wish you and Artosis would check out BAR (Beyond All Reason) as they actually have a growing 1v1 scene and is a fun game to play, even for those who aren't 1v1 diehards.
Not sure about artosis but tasteless made a video about it, so did winter and quite a few others
Short answer:
RTS takes a lot of mental stamina, making gaming more stressful than fun, so people moved to simpler versions like MOBA's or tower defenses.
I've seen young people who do insane, needlessly difficult, and exceptionally skill-based challenge runs in FromSoftware games who don't wanna touch RTS because so many its fans talk this type of BS. RTS doesn't take a lot of mental stamina when you're playing campaigns, co-op PVE, or screwing around in a LAN party. This comment screams "OUR GAMES ARE TOO HARD FOR THESE NOOBS", and it's the same shit that has turned people off for years because of this false impression that every RTS needs to be played like you're going against the pros.
@@ThePeteriarchy I laddered in masters league for a few years till I couldn't keep playing without shaking. I'm not gatekeeping, I'm observing.
@@andrewplatt7076 You laddered for years. Great. 1v1 is not, and even for the original StarCraft, was NEVER the ONLY draw for RTS. It's singleplayer content. It's tools that allowed for user-generated content. It's stupid custom maps like that vulture race. It's the large scale battles of Total War games. It's RA2's campaign with all its prime cut ham. But these aspects have been sidelined in favor of new RTS games trying to be the next big e-sport, instead of refining their mechanics and making their campaigns engaging. How did that go for Iron Harvest and AOE4, I wonder? Hell, same thing happens even outside this genre. Think Overwatch League. Ladder sweatlords aren't the center of the universe.
@@andrewplatt7076 You are observing what happens at the very top, which is not the experience for over 95% of the playerbase
RTS is dead, you know, they said RPG's were dead in the early 90's.
Then Diablo came out.
Then diablo came out, and then Baldur's Gate came out.
yea im sure a new RTS game will revive the genre..lol...
cRPGs were in slumber for over a decade until a resurgence in the last few years. It's definitely possible RTS makes a huge comeback, but honestly the games releasing in the next year or so are not going to do it.
i came
Think it's investment time. You can get a lot of life out of a game but it takes a lot to get decent at them. There's a reason Starcraft 2 is still the top game. People stick with these games when they get good in them.
holy fucking shit your take at 6:35 is so amazing. love you nick
The level of complexity to balance the games means they don't really introduce new things into the game to get people to come back or keep them excited. So while the meta at a finite level changes and maybe a new strategy pops up it often looks like your just watching the same game when you do see it. Something like a mobo with the characters changing/new ones being added gives people who arn't purely in it to compete coming back.
Probably dying. Kids don't want to work hard enough to get good at something that complex
It wonte big mainstream but for smaller compaines it can work. It will never make the big bucks tho
I think if RTS games focused on team modes instead of sweaty try-hard 1v1 mode then they'd draw more attention. Playing games on a team is just more fun.
Yeah true. It took way too long for SC2 to get that one mode BW had where two people can control the same race when that was a requested game mode since the beginning.
"Left Behind" was a long series of Christian fear monger novels that became a movie. They were based on the Rapture and follow characters "left behind" by God. The games allow you to either play as the pacifist christian resistance OR the murdering UN New World Order forces.
Absolutely nuts stuff
Loving the discussion content!
i so so so wich they would do a new star craft Is it possible ? lets hope it is !
RTS isn't dead, every RTS made in the last 10 years has sucked ass. I don't trust Frost Giant, they clearly left before the axe was swung on them. Stormgate is creatively bankrupt and looks like a chinese mobile game with spyware installed. Game plays like trash, got into the top 200 in 2 days. Units are uncontrollable garbage and unreal is not made for RTS.
Zerospace might be good, haven't played it yet. The games just NEED to be good. A good RTS game will sell, just like a good CRPG game just sold like hotcakes. Nothing else matters, not pandering to audiences, or trying to make an e-sport game. Just make a good game. Total Warhammer 3 is the best RTS to come out in decades, why? The game is good, the pricing model is predatory, but the game is good.
facts
Total War Warhammer? BBAHAHAHAHAHA
you clearly have no idea what RTS means if you think total warhammer is RTS lol
AoE4 is a good game
@@hottakegiver Is it real time ? Is it strategy ? WE both know the answer to both is yes, so I think YOU are the one who needs to learn what rts means
I always enjoy your thoughts but I do not like this SSSniperWolf format.
Play Zero-k!
Aoe and civ killed RTS who want to play paper scissors rock with just scissors scissors scissors scissors scissors.
Starcraft walks on streets paved with terrible, horrible & hollow games (because of the 'i wanna be a game designer' generation)
All gaming is gonna be dead.. everything gets boring so fast now. Lol.
Demi-God mentioned but not HoN?!??!?!?! How does HoN not make it into the history of MOBAs?? 😔😔
HoN best moba by far. All other MOBA's had the build in latency that WC3, Dota, SC2 LoL, and Dota2 all had.
Yes
wih the quality of the new ones coming out, yeah kinda
AOE4 is in a really good spot RN
Keep your eyes on Sanctuary.
It seems to be dead. Even the new games seem bad like stormgate and tempest rising.
no
Wow
Take a look at Godsworn (made by two guys) the RTS killer of StormBait or TrashGate child friendly mobile game where millions of dollars have no soul or character
I just love that the dude has Starflight playing on his TV in the background. He has the Genesis version on the TV, but I grew up w/ the PC version. Sitting with my dad when I was 6, watching him play on our Tandy 1000 computer. No mouse, no hard drive. It's where I fell in love w/ games. I still have his original copy of that game. It's my most prized gaming possession.
Yea, pretty much. Between maphacks and games requiring high mechanical skills instead of focusing on strategy, yea it's dead.
been watching the storm gate replays, i have really enjoyed watching them.