Some Things Never Change
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Comments
9 responses to “Some Things Never Change”
I guess technology “fixed” no.10. Who needs to finish a game these days when you can put out a Day 1 patch, followed by a year’s extra development in the form of DLC.
Who needs beta testers when paying customers will do it for you.
Wow, they absolutely nailed it, right down to the Russian invasion of the Ukraine.
50-75 mb Installs… BLASPHEMY!!! that’s why i game on a console… oh… nevermind.
I don’t think we get the same kind of market flooding for most genres that we used to see back in the late 90’s. Particularly comparing FPS games now to what RTS games were back in the day.
While the market is close to full, the budgets required to make a FPS means there aren’t 1000 COD/ Battlefield clones on the market every year, probably just 4 or 5.
Apart from the cost, I think the other big factor is the spread of developers across mobile platforms. Lots of the developers who would once have been releasing low budget RTS clones are now making mobile titles.
It’s funny how the RTS genre declined so rapidly from probably 2002 onwards. It was really right up with the FPS as the masthead genre of PC gaming for a while there. I think a lack of innovation, the melding of PC and console games as cross-platform titles and the giant turd that was Warcraft 3 really took the momentum out the genre.
giant turd that was Warcraft 3
…Pardon?
I do get sick of writing “my opinion” at the end of every sentence.
I really didn’t like Warcraft 3, as a fan of the first two and Starcraft I think it tried to blur the lines between RTS and action-RPG and just ended up being a game that wasn’t much fun.
I think a lot of people feel similarly, Warcraft was all about being an RTS, and when Warcraft 3 came out with its tiny unit count, streamlined base management and focus on hero units it was a clear sign that Blizzard thought the RTS market was full/ stagnant and wanted to do something new.
Plenty of people were disappointed in the end result and to me, it now symbolises the end of the RTS boom. I’m not saying it killed the genre or anything like that, more that it was a product of where the genre was at that time.
Well you can blame the focus of micromanagement on Starcraft and its influence over future RTS games.
I don’t think Blizzard saw it as stagnation but rather reacting to the meta game the community created in their previous title.
Are you sure it’s not a current issue? It is a print magazine after all, they’re always about 20 years behind the times.