I swear this isn't engagement hacking but a serious question. A game dev friend recently casually dropped the thought that "League of Legends killed the RTS genre" and I can't stop thinking about it. MOBAs do feel different, but do they scratch the same itch? - ThreadSky

danielzklein.bsky.social • 192 days ago

I swear this isn't engagement hacking but a serious question. A game dev friend recently casually dropped the thought that "League of Legends killed the RTS genre" and I can't stop thinking about it. MOBAs do feel different, but do they scratch the same itch?

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adalore.bsky.social•192 days ago

like I had oodles of skill cross over from the RTS games I had played, but unfortunately the RTS genre was dying for unrelated reasons. I think it's sorta like the FG scene, it isn't as hard as people think to engage it but it's totally daunting and a new skill set from everything else.

danielzklein.bsky.social•192 days ago

That's a fair point! I think FGs exist in a similar space in that it would be crazy in 2024 for someone to build a studio, seek 10s of millions in investment money, and hope to recoup that with a fighting game. Still feels like the genre is still more alive tho, right?

danielzklein.bsky.social•192 days ago

The usual suspects can keep making their Mortals of Kombat and their Streets of Fighter and make a pretty penny, but the rest of the field looks pretty fallow

adalore.bsky.social•192 days ago

At least I see FG games come and go and they get engaged. They are certainly in a better place than RTS games. There really isn't a genre staple for RTS games right now. There's niche games and a generation of spiritual successors but things like starcraft and Command and conquer are dead atm.

adalore.bsky.social•192 days ago

There's a small sub genre of RTS games sort of manifesting for horde defense city builder between They are billions and other derivatives. So that's cool. There is certainly gas left in the system it's just niche and AAA market haaaaates niche.

dachibi.bsky.social•192 days ago

You know... There is probably a whole academic course on the evolution of RTSes.

danielzklein.bsky.social•192 days ago

I would love for someone to show me

dachibi.bsky.social•192 days ago

I bet @hazelmonforton.com could see this as a challenge.

Which I would PROUDLY donate to a GoFundMe tofund.

dachibi.bsky.social•192 days ago

To be clear... I want a slow burn romance via the environment and evol

dachibi.bsky.social•192 days ago

I imagine it's a combination of ARPGs like POE, factory sims like Factorio, and MOBAs each carving out their own focused game loops.

bardicknowledge.bsky.social•192 days ago

They don't for me, fwiw -- I just dug into the Command and Conquer Remastered Collection and I am going to enjoy that Red Alert single player campaign (which I have started dozens of times as a kid but never finished) a bunch.

danielzklein.bsky.social•192 days ago

Yeah, I meant that as a generalization. There will always be players for every genre! I'm sure if you released a really good point and click adventure today you'd still get thousands of players. What I meant is "there is no longer a sufficiently large audience to make RTSes for"

danielzklein.bsky.social•192 days ago

What with modern game dev being measured in 10s of millions at the lower end, you have to have a certain number of players for certain genres to be viable, and I don't think RTS has those numbers anymore

gwbycer.bsky.social•192 days ago

I wrote about this for an article and my upcoming book. The problem, IMO, is that the genre hasn't had anything done to appeal to new consumers and the market today. So the successes now are from established brands, but trying to make a new,old, RTS, is not going to find a lot of people.

danielzklein.bsky.social•192 days ago

I feel this is very much true for the fighting game market (Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, the Smash games still somehow), but not even true anymore for RTSes. Like Starcraft II in Blizzard's estimation failed. No one is trying to make a new AAA C&C.

gwbycer.bsky.social•192 days ago

it's depressing as a fan, as I went through the entire C&C collection earlier this year. I still want to play Sins of the Solar Empire 2 eventually, but I do miss C&C

bardicknowledge.bsky.social•192 days ago

I missed this en route home from work but agree with it all; from a business standpoint I don't think it's viable today even with strong brand connections (except for _maybe_ a theoretical Starcraft 3, though Blizzard just isn't that company any longer to most folks)

jimprov.sendusyourmoney.com•192 days ago

nothing has scratched the itch of Command and Conquer quite like the originals (or the very incredible remaster they recently did)

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