Blizzard has lost almost 29% of its overall active playerbase in three years

Re:Blizzard has lost almost 29% of its overall active player... by SiempreViernes on Wednesday May 05, 2021 @04:38PM (#27055434)

I suppose they mean in the commercial sense, new RTS games certainly don't drive industry leading sales for instance.

Certainly in the context of talking about a publisher like Blizzard nothing but raw profit is of any concern. Arty ambitions is the something for the game studios that appear and die off, not for the publisher that seeks to endure.

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Re:Blizzard has lost almost 29% of its overall active player... by TulliusCicero on Wednesday May 05, 2021 @04:49PM (#27055616)

To me it just looks like they aren't trying very hard.

SC2 did something very smart with its last expansion with the coop mode, and it became very popular despite being only sort of fleshed out. I could easily see that kind of game mode making for a hit RTS if it was the central focus, and had the standard MMO-lite stuff like loot and missions and raids and story and customizable units/armies and support for other group sizes.

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Re:Blizzard has lost almost 29% of its overall active player... by naravara on Thursday May 06, 2021 @09:40AM (#27063038)

Immortal is being built with competitive 2v2 and 3v3 play specifically in mind in addition to 1v1 duels. It should be interesting to see how a pro-scene around that would play out. More combos, more team play, more personality clashes might all make for better eSports engagement. I'm sure PvE modes will be available too.

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Re:Blizzard has lost almost 29% of its overall active player... by TulliusCicero on Thursday May 06, 2021 @10:31AM (#27063833)

Yeah should be cool, I backed it for the alpha.

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Re:Blizzard has lost almost 29% of its overall active player... by BadInformatics on Wednesday May 05, 2021 @05:40PM (#27056161)

As GP mentioned, AOE4 will be a good litmus test of the "commercial sense". Microsoft arguably squandered one of their most iconic franchises for the better part of 2 decades, and yet here we are (in large part thanks to strong sustained grassroots support from the community).

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Re:Blizzard has lost almost 29% of its overall active player... by confidantlake on Wednesday May 05, 2021 @05:13PM (#27055914)

Nothing wrong with being a solid niche imo. Classical music will never sell as big as pop, but there will always be musicians and concerts keeping it alive on a smaller scale. No reason the same can't happen with RTS.

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Re:Blizzard has lost almost 29% of its overall active player... by me_me_me on Thursday May 06, 2021 @06:20AM (#27061190)

But the industry wants all the money, and right now.

They are focusing on games that can monetize user-base actively via micro-transactions and subscriptions RTS games are not really capable of this.

Last example i can think of is CoH 2, which was disappointing and the 'pay to win' commanders drove me away from it quickly. Plus i think original CoH is much superior game in terms of balance and fun.

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Re:Blizzard has lost almost 29% of its overall active player... by naravara on Thursday May 06, 2021 @09:41AM (#27063054)

Fighting Games have a smaller, but devoted niche that does well enough. The games are more expensive and they do seasonal or annual content pack releases that are also quite expensive, but the player base is devoted enough that they will pay. They make up for lack of volume with higher margins that their fans will support. I see no reason RTS can't go the same way.

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