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.
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!
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.
Let’s take something arguably genre defining and turn it into a fad chaser! Great idea.
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.
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!
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.