EPTThe future of RTS games - Page 22
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Keep "my game is better than yours"-slapfights out of this. If the discussion devolves into simple bashing, this thread will be closed. | ||
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GrapeApe
1053 Posts
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada16647 Posts
as we know North America has the largest population in the world so its always important to rule in NA... every company always makes sure their games please the giant NA fan-base that does nothing but play video games all day and all night. Especially the northern half of North America... with all the billions of people in the Yukon and Alaska you've got to make a game that is #1 in this important region. the flip side of this comment is this. it was not the #1 PC game world wide or europe or china or korea or...  Blizzard carefully concocts these statements for every single game they release in order to make it appear that making the game was a brilliant decision. In the most recent investor call Morhaime talked for 5 minutes about Diablo, WoW, Heroes of the Storm, Hearthstone. NOT ONE WORD about Starcraft. | ||
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Thieving Magpie
United States6752 Posts
On May 15 2014 20:52 Incognoto wrote: none of those.. what you need is proper game design. Didn't BW have proper game design and completely disappeared from the foreign scene? Total Annihilation was also well designed, but was even less successful. | ||
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The_Red_Viper
19533 Posts
On May 16 2014 02:16 Wombat_NI wrote: So much pessimism, if an alternate way to monetise RTS is required it's worth trying as well. Anyway, looking at other titles it really throws into focus how good Blizzard are at the art and design side of things, Starcraft and Warcraft units have so much more variety and character. Credit where credit is due Blizzard make cool shit That is one of the biggest part of success imo. Just look at lol, if they didn't have that comic design i am 100% sure they would NEVER been that successful. TBH i look at some of the rts games mentioned in this thread and wonder why anyone would like to play that stuff (it often has bad design, both in units AND in the interface imo) | ||
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frajen86
168 Posts
On May 16 2014 02:22 JimmyJRaynor wrote: WOW, all of NA? WOW! as we know North America has the largest population in the world so its always important to rule in NA... every company always makes sure their games please the giant NA fan-base that does nothing but play video games all day and all night. Especially the northern half of North America... with all the billions of people in the Yukon and Alaska you've got to make a game that is #1 in this important region. the flip side of this comment is this. it was not the #1 PC game world wide or europe or china or korea or... Blizzard carefully concocts these statements for every single game they release in order to make it appear that making the game was a brilliant decision. In the most recent investor call Morhaime talked for 5 minutes about Diablo, WoW, Heroes of the Storm, Hearthstone. NOT ONE WORD about Starcraft. kinda trolly but here goes USA in NA <- probably the richest player base in the world. So I would say it is relevant. But you can shit talk anything. HotS is a year-old game, with the next expansion not due for another year at least right? What's there to talk about in an investor call? When LotV comes out and sells like 50,000 copies, then you can say you were right as a naysayer but until then... I don't get it. Can you actually prove that HotS didn't make a profit? edit: earlier in the thread I did say that Blizzard might be the only company to release a AAA RTS game in the future so it's not like I'm touting RTS as a dominant genre, just saying SC2 itself seems to have done well in the past and with ~50% of the playerbase buying the game just for the campaign I don't know why it wouldn't do well in the future either. | ||
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Thieving Magpie
United States6752 Posts
On May 16 2014 02:25 The_Red_Viper wrote: That is one of the biggest part of success imo. Just look at lol, if they didn't have that comic design i am 100% sure they would NEVER been that successful. TBH i look at some of the rts games mentioned in this thread and wonder why anyone would like to play that stuff (it often has bad design, both in units AND in the interface imo) Because you're comparing them to your favorite RTS games and not to RTS as a genre. A have friends that hate Starcraft because its format is too different and weird since they're used to C&C and Red Alert and Dune 2000 They said they liked that everything would be clear and transparent, and units moved slow enough that you could micro them, but that instead of all units being useful throughout the game they liked the linear progression of power units where you can ignore low level units once you get to the lategame. To each their own. | ||
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Thieving Magpie
United States6752 Posts
On May 16 2014 02:29 frajen86 wrote: kinda trolly but here goes USA in NA <- probably the richest player base in the world. So I would say it is relevant. But you can shit talk anything. HotS is a year-old game, with the next expansion not due for another year at least right? What's there to talk about in an investor call? When LotV comes out and sells like 50,000 copies, then you can say you were right as a naysayer but until then... I don't get it. Can you actually prove that HotS didn't make a profit? Being the best selling product in anything within the US will make you turn a heavy profit--period. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada16647 Posts
On May 16 2014 02:29 frajen86 wrote: kinda trolly but here goes USA in NA <- probably the richest player base in the world. So I would say it is relevant. But you can shit talk anything. Starcraft is a year-old game, with the next expansion not due for another year at least right? What's there to talk about in an investor call? When LotV comes out and sells like 50,000 copies, then you can say you were right as a naysayer but until then... I don't get it. Can you actually prove that HotS didn't make a profit? USA is not very important for Blizzard and the kinds of sales they are looking for. The population of the USA is only about 350 million and its not filled with avid video game consumers relative to countries in the far east. China and Korea on the other hand.... re your uninformed comment about LotV i'll provide you with the latest info (again) again, Team1 is not working on LotV it is working on a MOBA. There is zero LotV content out there. 18 months before HotS came out there was a tonne of content and a long beta test. So do not expect LotV any time soon. Blizzard is not going to work on LotV until the MOBA is completed because a MOBA has a much bigger profit ceiling than any RTS game has ever made. Diablo and WoW make a lot more money than Starcraft and Hearthstone and Heroes have a higher profit ceiling than any RTS. Despite the fact that Blizzard is making no money off of me for more than 1 year, I'm having a great time playing SC2. Great for me, not so great for Blizz. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On May 16 2014 02:16 Wombat_NI wrote: So much pessimism, if an alternate way to monetise RTS is required it's worth trying as well. Anyway, looking at other titles it really throws into focus how good Blizzard are at the art and design side of things, Starcraft and Warcraft units have so much more variety and character. Credit where credit is due Blizzard make cool shit No need. SC2 did fine and was very successful. People can still realse RTS games that are fun and enjoyable. The only people who are really bent out of shape about Sc2 are BW hipsters, because they are BW hipsters. As long as your metric for success isn't "become more popular than LoL", a lost of RTS games can be successful. | ||
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wishr
Russian Federation262 Posts
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Eliezar
United States481 Posts
On May 16 2014 02:34 JimmyJRaynor wrote: USA is not very important for Blizzard and the kinds of sales they are looking for. The population of the USA is only about 350 million and its not filled with avid video game consumers relative to countries in the far east. China and Korea on the other hand.... re your uninformed comment about LotV i'll provide you with the latest info (again) again, Team1 is not working on LotV it is working on a MOBA. There is zero LotV content out there. 18 months before HotS came out there was a tonne of content and a long beta test. So do not expect LotV any time soon. Blizzard is not going to work on LotV until the MOBA is completed because a MOBA has a much bigger profit ceiling than any RTS game has ever made. Diablo and WoW make a lot more money than Starcraft and Hearthstone and Heroes have a higher profit ceiling than any RTS. Despite the fact that Blizzard is making no money off of me for more than 1 year, I'm having a great time playing SC2. Great for me, not so great for Blizz. This just isn't true. There was a big deal about StarCraft 2's release because it required each player to buy a copy of the game and that screwed it in Korea where most of the players never even bought their own Broodwar and instead played off a copy at a pc bang. The other point about other games just being bigger cash cows is definitely true. StarCraft 2 has a very low income ceiling compared to World of Warcraft. Also, the idea that Blizzard will not work on one thing until another is done is not going to be true. They have often and are currently working on multiple games at a time and tend to have different teams for different projects on the design roles. Its probably just a lot of the programmers that we will never know about that get shared. LotV should be pretty simple to make unless they are building a new engine or something crazy like that. | ||
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Eliezar
United States481 Posts
On May 16 2014 02:37 Plansix wrote: No need. SC2 did fine and was very successful. People can still realse RTS games that are fun and enjoyable. The only people who are really bent out of shape about Sc2 are BW hipsters, because they are BW hipsters. As long as your metric for success isn't "become more popular than LoL", a lost of RTS games can be successful. This is true. It also seems hard for so many people to accept that StarCraft 2 became more successful than Broodwar. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada16647 Posts
their 4 other franchises have a much higher profit potential. and Blizzard is not like EA they don't juggle 10 titles at once. we've seen 1 game and 1 expo is the last 15 years and i'd be surprised if Blizzard produces this much new content for the RTS genre in the next 15 years. On May 16 2014 02:37 Plansix wrote: As long as your metric for success isn't "become more popular than LoL", a lost of RTS games can be successful. "can be successful" is so open ended its meaningless. CoH2 was "successful"... how are they likin' that 2 second input delay? how much do think HuK actually plays it? i'm guessing never... the guy just cringes when he talks about it. now if you have 50 million bucks you're not doing anything with... instead of investing it in a sure thing like Bungie Studios.. i recommend you give it to Petroglyph.. they have a nice fireplace and they can burn through that $50 million in about 1 year. | ||
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frajen86
168 Posts
On May 16 2014 02:34 JimmyJRaynor wrote: USA is not very important for Blizzard and the kinds of sales they are looking for. The population of the USA is only about 350 million and its not filled with avid video game consumers relative to countries in the far east. China and Korea on the other hand.... OK Blizzard insider. Forget PC game sales (obviously declining from 2012-2013). Go to page 10 of the Q4/year-end 2013 report I linked earlier: Net revenues by Geographic region NA ($2.414 billion) Europe ($1.826 billion) Asia Pacific ($343 million) I get your point about RTS genres but I assume neither of us work at Blizzard so we are just making (educated but incomplete) speculations On May 16 2014 02:34 JimmyJRaynor wrote: re your uninformed comment about LotV i'll provide you with the latest info (again) again, Team1 is not working on LotV it is working on a MOBA. There is zero LotV content out there. 18 months before HotS came out there was a tonne of content and a long beta test. So do not expect LotV any time soon. I said "at least" a year, knowing Blizzard they take their time with things. My point is more like... if there's no content then why would they talk about it in an investor call? They have other games that are more relevant, right now. | ||
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Deleted User 97295
1137 Posts
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
Not every game needs to be the next great Esport. Games are fun first and competitive events after. I'm not looking at planetary annihilation and expecting a Esport. I do want to crash a moon into my buddies base. | ||
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Thieving Magpie
United States6752 Posts
On May 16 2014 02:48 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Blizzard has moved on... their 4 other franchises have a much higher profit potential. and Blizzard is not like EA they don't juggle 10 titles at once. we've seen 1 game and 1 expo is the last 15 years and i'd be surprised to Blizzard produces this much new content for the RTS genre in the next 15 years. "can be successful" is so open ended its meaningless. CoH2 was "successful"... how are they likin' that 2 second input delay? how much do think HuK actually plays it? i'm guessing never... the guy just cringes when he talks about it. now if you have 50 million bucks you're not doing anything with... instead of investing it in a sure thing like Bungie Studios.. i recommend you give it to Petroglyph.. they have a nice fireplace and they can burn through that $50 million in about 1 year. If it turns a profit, its successful, if it has a consistent scene, even if niche, then its successful. BW disappeared from the foreign scene with a whimper, only being played in Korea where the playerbase didn't even buy the game depending on PC bangs to buy them 10-30 copies at a time. But no one would call BW a failure. No one would call AoE a failure just because it doesn't have a massive pro scene. No one calls C&C a failure despite it getting behind in cultural popularity than SC. There are MANY MANY ways for games to be successful. Open your mind dude. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada16647 Posts
On May 16 2014 02:54 Plansix wrote: Company of heroes 2 is fine and fun. It's not ground breaking, but I had some fun playing it in beta with a buddy. It was nice to play something different and less focused on macro and base building. Not every game needs to be the next great Esport. Games are fun first and competitive events after. I'm not looking at planetary annihilation and expecting a Esport. I do want to crash a moon into my buddies base. the decline continues as more people play CoH1 than CoH2. CoH2 approaches the CoH1 player base when its having a free to play weekend though. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada16647 Posts
On May 16 2014 02:59 Thieving Magpie wrote: If it turns a profit, its successful, if it has a consistent scene, even if niche, then its successful. BW disappeared from the foreign scene with a whimper, only being played in Korea where the playerbase didn't even buy the game depending on PC bangs to buy them 10-30 copies at a time. But no one would call BW a failure. No one would call AoE a failure just because it doesn't have a massive pro scene. No one calls C&C a failure despite it getting behind in cultural popularity than SC. There are MANY MANY ways for games to be successful. Open your mind dude. thanks for your reply sir. C&C and AoE profitability began eroding 10 years ago. It got to the point where these series were no longer profitabile. Hence, MS shut down Ensemble and EA closed both EALA and Victory Games. These long standing huge franchises have not been replaced or superseded by other franchises because the RTS genre can't support it. Big time publishers are not increasing their investment in RTS. Its either staying the same or declining. Blizz themselves continues each year to make WCS smaller. | ||
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Thieving Magpie
United States6752 Posts
On May 16 2014 03:09 JimmyJRaynor wrote: thanks for your reply sir. C&C and AoE profitability began eroding 10 years ago. It got to the point where these series were no longer profitabile. Hence, MS shut down Ensemble and EA closed both EALA and Victory Games. These long standing huge franchises have not been replaced or superseded by other franchises because the RTS genre can't support it. they closed them down because the new products they released were not successful. Red Alert 3 being a failure doesn't mean Red Alert was not successful. | ||
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