The Next Major RTS Will Fail. This Is Why.

GiantGrantGames
2 HN recommenders · recommended in 2 months, 2023–2024
YouTube
986K views · 4 years ago · explainer · dated

GiantGrantGames argues that the next big real-time strategy game will fail because the genre's makers keep serving a hardcore audience. The video makes the case for single-player campaigns, story and mod support as what could give RTS games crossover appeal.

HN people recommend it as a compelling case that single-player and modding are overlooked keys to RTS success.

“makes a compelling case for why single-player campaign and mod-development experiences are often overlooked but are key for RTS crossover success”
Game design
#rts#gamedesign#single-playercampaigns#modding#gameindustry

3 comments from Hacker News

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@ixwt2024 · in “Microsoft lays off 1,900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox employees”
GiantGrantGames on Youtube made an interesting video about "The Next Major RTS Will Fail. This is Why"[0]. Turns out he got a lot of this information because he was one of the players that had a huge influence in the development, and this is what ZeroSpace focused their development efforts on. One of which, is targeting the casual audience, and their love for a good story. [0]: ▶ this video
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b
@btown2023 · in “Microsoft completes $69B deal to buy Activision Blizzard”
Giant Grant Games makes a compelling case for why single-player campaign and mod-development experiences are often overlooked but are key for RTS crossover success. And this came out long before the success of BG3. I hold out hope that someone will crack the formula! ▶ this video
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s
@shagie2024 · in “Cactus – A Modern Diablo II Version Switcher, Character Isolator, & Mod Manager”
In my stumbling around YouTube in the past week, I found "The Next Major RTS Will Fail. This Is Why" - ▶ this video The publishers have listened to their hard core players - and created games for them. Is Diablo III for the people doing seasons? or the people who play through the campaign in solo mode? With modern games, this in turn means that the casual to competitive conversion rate is low (because of the lack of solo content to hook the casual players) and publishers look to milk more from the competitive players by making the game even less accessible. The games are being developed as multiplayer first today... and that in turn means that the solo modes that the casual games aren't there. Honestly, if MMO is one of the first things listed on a game, and solo content is lacking - that gets a "nope" or "meh" from me on Steam. Meanwhile, some fun old games I still pull up from time to time to play.
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