The decline (and revival?) of RTS games (+survey!)

[Barry Lyndon]

Hello fellow strategists!

 

 

In this thread I’d like to present you a little project of mine, and of course, I want you to participate! :-)

 

It all began with an extensive discussion with a friend about the reasons for the death of Real-Time Strategy (RTS) games. And while you could easily name the most obvious ones (RTS games not being suitable for consoles, micro-management and macro-management of RTS games splitting up into the more defined genres of MOBAs and Tower Defense respectively, …), we also talked a lot about the things that we don’t like about them. For example, if the setting is not implemented appropriately (e.g. if you use houses in Age of Empires as make-shift wall), or in general: The need to abuse every aspect of the game’s mechanics in order to win (especially online), and thus sacrificing the appropriate implementation of the game’s “metaphor”.

 

And while I had to agree to many of his points, I’m still convinced that the genre does not necessarily have to be dead yet. Maybe it just lacks some innovation, especially if you take into account that the „golden era” of real-time strategy was almost 20 years ago?

 

Eventually, all these discussions and thoughts made me want to examine this topic from a more statistical perspective. This lead to a survey that I have created :-) With it, I’m aiming at the following three aspects:

 

· What is the reason for the decline of real-time-strategy games?

 

· Which game elements and mechanics did player like, which not?

 

· What would a new RTS game need (e.g. which old concepts, which new innovations, …), in order to revive the genre of RTS?

 

 

 

Here is the link:

 

https://goo.gl/forms/IZfYIrBts4

 

 

 

Naturally, such a survey can only deliver valuable results, if it’s had enough participants. Even though I have just started to spread the survey online, I have received quite a remarkable amount of answers. So it has the potential of really interesting results! :-)

 

 

One last thing: I will provide every participant with a refined version of the results. That way it could be even more interesting to take a couple of minutes and participate! J And in my opinion, the topic itself is already interesting enough… don’t we all wish for a new and great RTS game with great production values!?

 

 

 

So, in advance: Thank you for every single participation, I really, really appreciate it! :-)

 

Of course, this thread can be used to discuss either the topic itself (the decline of RTS games) or the survey in particular

 

 

 

Have fun with the survey!

 

 

 

P.S.: Maybe I should stress again that I’m doing this solely for my love in RTS games, and no university or marketing thing or such whatsoever.