Cool to see 2008's Red Alert 3 still going. And, it is great to see DasDuelon still kicking ass in this game 17 years later. Over $2000 Prize Pool for this event.
who needs new games? it would appear only the megacorporations do. I think the RTS genre is doing great. Sybert is awesome and every bit as good as the old EA Corpo produced: "Battlecast: Prime Time" from 2009.
Good video explaining gaming industry stuff and relates to why SC2/StarCraft doesn't get much support w/ some Blizzard-specific anecdotes.
It's obvious stuff to people who follow the games industry in general, but I feel like it's something the SC2 community (and other people who are just interested in playing games, and not in following the giant industry machine behind it) has missed.
I love Jason Schreier's videos, but to be honest, this one just made me feel like working for a AAA game company would be like getting sent to hell. And I say this after having worked for Activision for ten years (albeit as a lowly technical writer).
Here's what I mean. Say you're an aspiring game designer, and you get your dream job at Blizzard. Awesome! Of course, you'll immediately be assigned to the Department of Figuring Out How To Make World Of Warcraft Generate More Money.
But suppose, just suppose, you escape this hell. Against all odds, and against the wishes of management, you create something new and amazing, like Hearthstone! Cool! You've created a new franchise that makes money in a AAA studio! You won the lottery!
Only now, you're in a different kind of hell, one entirely of your own making. Now you have to work on Hearthstone forever, and your only job now is to Figure Out Ways That Hearthstone Can Make More Money. You get to sit there and watch as all your efforts lead to Hearthstone becoming crappier and crappier, with more kinds of in-game currencies, more tedious Daily Tasks, more stupid tie-ins to other franchises, more popups, just more and more nonsense until the game becomes a parody of itself, and makes someone like Day[9] shake his head and wonder what the hell he ever saw in it originally.
Rinse and repeat!
How is working for a giant megcorp on a massive team at 1/2 your fair market value a dream job? If you are going to work for a massive megacorp at all it has to be on a team of 5 or less creating something totally new for at least 2X your fair market value. Otherwise, get a friend or two together and build something...anything.. yourself and sell it yourself. That's what Mike Morhaime and Allan Adham did.
At my "dream job" I worked on a team of 6 and we took down Microsoft Sharepoint. What a blast. I've also worked for teams of 200 that got crushed by teams of 5. So I've seen both sides. The team of 5 is way more fun man.
Your dream experience is in the creating of something totally new; It is not working for some giant labelled megacorp. As Samwise Didier said "ABC" = "Always Be Creating"
This was the mindset of most of my software engineering classmates. The ones who wanted a safe forever job at a megacorp became Chartered Accountants.
Its weird to me that we now have "computer science rebels" as risk averse as Chartered Accountants.
Mike Morhaime, Allan Adham, and Rob Pardo were the rebels... now they're The Empire LOLOL. This Scheier guy talks like someone who has never coded a FOR loop.
Hey different people value things differently, but i totally get your point. To some of us I think that whole blizzard dream was a childhood pipe dream perhaps
I just think old Blizzard represents when games were about the exploration of the unknown for the fun of it. It's more a symbol than anything else. It's the most well known story of nerds getting together to make stuff, and the cherry on top is that it actually worked out. To me the attractive part is renting an office for the first time and sleeping on the floor, putting in 17 hour days, not sure if anything is going to come together but fuck it whatever. Like the games themselves, it's an adventure.
That's the dream! I'd argue its more fun building a replacement for Crystal Reports in an accounting software package on a team of 2 or 3 in a small company than it is working on a "video game" that has a team of 300.
working on Accounting and Actuarial software can be way more fun than working on a video game. Again, i dont think this Jason Shire "investigative reporter" has ever coded a FOR loop. He is out of touch with what computer scientists and software engineers love doing.
On July 12 2026 13:16 iPlaY.NettleS wrote: Heard nothing so I googled the discord, which is unofficial.Meta pulled 4 million in revenue from the studio so the consensus there is the game is cancelled, or at the least development pared back.
very interesting article, thank you so much for sharing!! I see they pulled the revenue but i would be shocked if it is actually cancelled considering in that article playside confirmed themselves it's not cancelled.
"PlaySide confirmed that development on Game of Thrones: War for Westeros, MOUSE: P.I For Hire, and its Dew publishing agreement remains unaffected"
Yeah I figure they were just down after hearing no news for over a year about the game, new article today just says it's delayed into 2027 now.
Game of Thrones: War for Westeros apparently comes out this year, 2026, according to steam and their announcement? Is that really happening? Is anyone following this game closely because I feel like i've heard NOTHING about it since announcement, at which point i thought it looked quite cool.
Game of Thrones: War for Westeros apparently comes out this year, 2026, according to steam and their announcement? Is that really happening? Is anyone following this game closely because I feel like i've heard NOTHING about it since announcement, at which point i thought it looked quite cool.
Seems like another large scale RTS (BAR, Supreme Commander, Total Annihilation etc style). Not sure about the studio and don't really do kickstarter myself but perhaps others are interested. They already hit their target so some people are interested at least.
Game of Thrones: War for Westeros apparently comes out this year, 2026, according to steam and their announcement? Is that really happening? Is anyone following this game closely because I feel like i've heard NOTHING about it since announcement, at which point i thought it looked quite cool.
Game of Thrones: War for Westeros apparently comes out this year, 2026, according to steam and their announcement? Is that really happening? Is anyone following this game closely because I feel like i've heard NOTHING about it since announcement, at which point i thought it looked quite cool.
Game of Thrones: War for Westeros apparently comes out this year, 2026, according to steam and their announcement? Is that really happening? Is anyone following this game closely because I feel like i've heard NOTHING about it since announcement, at which point i thought it looked quite cool.
After the success of Tempest Rising last year, I wonder what appetite is for more C&C-likes in the scene. I gotta think there's a bunch of casual RTS gamers who just want to play 20-30 more missions of C&C single player a couple of times a year.
Also, it's amusing to me that the Steam page for Crimson Freedom explicitly states "SINGLE PLAYER FIRST" and "LESS MICRO, MORE MACRO... ...Focus on commanding epic battles and crushing your opponents without the stress of resource micromanagement or high APM demands, allowing for a laid-back and enjoyable gaming experience." as part of its selling points. I've seen that sort of verbiage in a handful of other RTS games, and it makes me wonder how niche hardcore PvP RTS like SC2 has become.
After the success of Tempest Rising last year, I wonder what appetite is for more C&C-likes in the scene. I gotta think there's a bunch of casual RTS gamers who just want to play 20-30 more missions of C&C single player a couple of times a year.
Also, it's amusing to me that the Steam page for Crimson Freedom explicitly states "SINGLE PLAYER FIRST" and "LESS MICRO, MORE MACRO... ...Focus on commanding epic battles and crushing your opponents without the stress of resource micromanagement or high APM demands, allowing for a laid-back and enjoyable gaming experience." as part of its selling points. I've seen that sort of verbiage in a handful of other RTS games, and it makes me wonder how niche hardcore PvP RTS like SC2 has become.
After the success of Tempest Rising last year, I wonder what appetite is for more C&C-likes in the scene. I gotta think there's a bunch of casual RTS gamers who just want to play 20-30 more missions of C&C single player a couple of times a year.
Also, it's amusing to me that the Steam page for Crimson Freedom explicitly states "SINGLE PLAYER FIRST" and "LESS MICRO, MORE MACRO... ...Focus on commanding epic battles and crushing your opponents without the stress of resource micromanagement or high APM demands, allowing for a laid-back and enjoyable gaming experience." as part of its selling points. I've seen that sort of verbiage in a handful of other RTS games, and it makes me wonder how niche hardcore PvP RTS like SC2 has become.
I think I belong to the 20-30 more missions of C&C single player once or twice a year category. Tempest Rising could release a Tempest Rising 2 or another title using same engine etc and I would buy it. To keep that model going long term they need to get a title out each year and slowly iterate on things as they go along. They are still patching Tempest Rising hoping for somebody to play multiplayer, a bit of waste of their money if they aren't doing another RTS that can use those patches.
People said they should finish the game up, add third faction as playable etc. That expectation I think is showing the wrong direction for studios. What you release is what people will review, make that good enough and do a few updates for bugs. Then move on. DLC I guess is the compromise solution https://store.steampowered.com/app/4114220/Tempest_Rising_The_Vetis_Wrath/
A fun little RTS, definitely give the dev some support!
There are really 2 reasons why someone would try to peddle a Blizzard clone that is clearly worse than the original:
1. Make a fast dollar and move on. Like a horror movie with a small budget, it's just about clearing a low bar.
2. The devs actually think this is the way. The production is larger and it's like a passion project to recycle blue crystals and vespene geysers and glowy item chests because they have no other ideas.
In either case, why support it. It's like the last thing to support in this space: someone with 0 new ideas that is virtually preying on your weakness of being super nostalgic and having neurons fire at the sight of something familiar.
A fun little RTS, definitely give the dev some support!
There are really 2 reasons why someone would try to peddle a Blizzard clone that is clearly worse than the original:
1. Make a fast dollar and move on. Like a horror movie with a small budget, it's just about clearing a low bar.
2. The devs actually think this is the way. The production is larger and it's like a passion project to recycle blue crystals and vespene geysers and glowy item chests because they have no other ideas.
In either case, why support it. It's like the last thing to support in this space: someone with 0 new ideas that is virtually preying on your weakness of being super nostalgic and having neurons fire at the sight of something familiar.
It's good for the RTS genre in general, and it is better than Stormgate already by default. Better than most RTS released, I am about to try it out some more.