Let’s take everything the fans love about Starcraft and throw it away. Once we have a soulless aesthetic husk remaining we can slap it in to any piece of shit and count on nostalgia to bring in the buyers!
Not at all! I think StarCraft: Ghost is a reinforcement of what I said in my response to Makhno.
I thought Ghost was a great idea, but the context surrounding it was fundamentally different. Ghost was a spin-off alongside an active RTS series. Starcraft was still a core Blizzard product, and StarCraft II was already an expected continuation. Nobody thought Ghost was replacing the genre identity of the franchise.
I was never expecting an SC2 after Brood War, honestly. I was hoping that if Ghost succeeded, either they’d expand their 40K ripoff into other genres and let the WHFB knockoff fizzle out, or they would see that people did want games other than RTS games that are obviously GW properties with the serial numbers filed off, and maybe look back at old games like Blackthorne or The Lost Vikings. Maybe they could even have created a Rock N’ Roll Racing 2.
Instead, we got a “not-WHFB” game in the EverQuest mold and more click-wait-click games with cow levels.
You’re arguing against a position nobody stated. My criticism isn’t that an IP ever appears in another genre. It is the pattern of publishers repurposing established strategy franchises into monetization-friendly live-service shooters because that market is larger and more predictable.
Warhammer is a poor comparison. Games like Vermintide didn’t replace or redefine Warhammer; they existed alongside a still-supported core genre identity. The RTS space around StarCraft has effectively been abandoned for years. So when the first meaningful revival rumor turns out to be a shooter, I read it less as expansion and more as substitution.
If Blizzard announced a new RTS and also a shooter spin-off, I would not be critical. The reaction is about genre displacement, not genre diversification.
So you would rather get no Starcraft games than get a Starcraft game that is not an RTS?
Because I don’t know if you’ve looked at the numbers but RTS is pretty much dead. One of the biggest RTS-s of the past 5 years was a remaster of Age of Mythology and that sold less than a million units. Starcraft 3 would have to sell something like 3 million units at launch and have an estimate of hitting at least 7 million in 2 years, because ActiBliz has certain expectation for sales and those expectations far exceed what Starcraft 2 sold in its entire lifetime. Starcraft would have to sell Diablo numbers.
I’d be very surprised if we ever saw another mainline Starcraft RTS. I don’t think we’ll be seeing another Warcraft RTS either.
So you would rather get no Starcraft games than get a Starcraft game that is not an RTS?
This is such a wild take. We are absolutely drowning in bland games built on IPs that the new devs had no care for and were simply cashing in on. In what world are you thinking we need more blatant cashgrabs with a coat of StarCraft-tinted paint? And that we’re hoping for good things from Microsoft at this point? Nah, I’m good, thanks.
I wasn’t saying that we need another blatant cash grab. I was actually implying that if you want the IP to stay even remotely relevant you need to start looking beyond the RTS genre because that genre doesn’t pay the bills.
But since you went there, yeah I’d absolutely take who knows how many cash grab attempts if it means even a chance of getting some great games. I’m going to point at Warhammer because the other person also brought it up. Warhammer 40k franchise is also full of “cash grabs”. But between those cash grabs are absolute gems like Space Marine 1 and 2, Dawn of War series, Darktide, Rogue trader. If we rejected all Warhammer games as “blatant cash grabs” we’d actually be worse off. I’m not saying whatever shooter they’re working on is going to be great or anything of the sorts, but I’m not going to instantly dismiss it because it might be a cash grab. I’ll form that opinion when I’ve actually seen something more than an industry source stating they’re working on a shooter.
Let’s take something arguably genre defining and turn it into a fad chaser! Great idea.
Let’s take everything the fans love about Starcraft and throw it away. Once we have a soulless aesthetic husk remaining we can slap it in to any piece of shit and count on nostalgia to bring in the buyers!
Something needs to fill the gaping hole left behind after Concord’s death.
Are you forgetting StarCraft:Ghost?
Not at all! I think StarCraft: Ghost is a reinforcement of what I said in my response to Makhno.
I thought Ghost was a great idea, but the context surrounding it was fundamentally different. Ghost was a spin-off alongside an active RTS series. Starcraft was still a core Blizzard product, and StarCraft II was already an expected continuation. Nobody thought Ghost was replacing the genre identity of the franchise.
I was never expecting an SC2 after Brood War, honestly. I was hoping that if Ghost succeeded, either they’d expand their 40K ripoff into other genres and let the WHFB knockoff fizzle out, or they would see that people did want games other than RTS games that are obviously GW properties with the serial numbers filed off, and maybe look back at old games like Blackthorne or The Lost Vikings. Maybe they could even have created a Rock N’ Roll Racing 2.
Instead, we got a “not-WHFB” game in the EverQuest mold and more click-wait-click games with cow levels.
Why would branching out with a successful IP be bad? Are you mad at all the Warhammer games? Does Vermintide’s existence cheapen the Total War games?
You’re arguing against a position nobody stated. My criticism isn’t that an IP ever appears in another genre. It is the pattern of publishers repurposing established strategy franchises into monetization-friendly live-service shooters because that market is larger and more predictable.
Warhammer is a poor comparison. Games like Vermintide didn’t replace or redefine Warhammer; they existed alongside a still-supported core genre identity. The RTS space around StarCraft has effectively been abandoned for years. So when the first meaningful revival rumor turns out to be a shooter, I read it less as expansion and more as substitution.
If Blizzard announced a new RTS and also a shooter spin-off, I would not be critical. The reaction is about genre displacement, not genre diversification.
So you would rather get no Starcraft games than get a Starcraft game that is not an RTS?
Because I don’t know if you’ve looked at the numbers but RTS is pretty much dead. One of the biggest RTS-s of the past 5 years was a remaster of Age of Mythology and that sold less than a million units. Starcraft 3 would have to sell something like 3 million units at launch and have an estimate of hitting at least 7 million in 2 years, because ActiBliz has certain expectation for sales and those expectations far exceed what Starcraft 2 sold in its entire lifetime. Starcraft would have to sell Diablo numbers.
I’d be very surprised if we ever saw another mainline Starcraft RTS. I don’t think we’ll be seeing another Warcraft RTS either.
This is such a wild take. We are absolutely drowning in bland games built on IPs that the new devs had no care for and were simply cashing in on. In what world are you thinking we need more blatant cashgrabs with a coat of StarCraft-tinted paint? And that we’re hoping for good things from Microsoft at this point? Nah, I’m good, thanks.
I wasn’t saying that we need another blatant cash grab. I was actually implying that if you want the IP to stay even remotely relevant you need to start looking beyond the RTS genre because that genre doesn’t pay the bills.
But since you went there, yeah I’d absolutely take who knows how many cash grab attempts if it means even a chance of getting some great games. I’m going to point at Warhammer because the other person also brought it up. Warhammer 40k franchise is also full of “cash grabs”. But between those cash grabs are absolute gems like Space Marine 1 and 2, Dawn of War series, Darktide, Rogue trader. If we rejected all Warhammer games as “blatant cash grabs” we’d actually be worse off. I’m not saying whatever shooter they’re working on is going to be great or anything of the sorts, but I’m not going to instantly dismiss it because it might be a cash grab. I’ll form that opinion when I’ve actually seen something more than an industry source stating they’re working on a shooter.