Blizzard being a generally terrible developer aside, I don’t think you’re right about this.

RTS is not a very popular genre all things considered, and the ARTS/MOBA variants are dominated by DOTA and League of Legends.

You also can’t play RTS games on consoles.

A lot of fans of StarCraft still wish they saw StarCraft: Ghost see the light of day. Arguably the franchise is very much underdeveloped. The IP and story would work well for many game genres that haven’t been explored.

If StarCraft 3 comes out it would only be popular in South Korea and possibly not all that popular at all even there.

There is also a disconnect between "customers" and "players". I am under the impression that RTS games have proven harder to monetize in an ongoing manner, or at least harder relative to the effort required to build and maintain them. That doesn't mean there isn't a solution, and this is just one person's limited perspective... but it seems to be the case thus far.

> You think you do, but you don't.

Nailed it. People want patched versions of the same RTS. AoE4 came out a few years ago as an IMO fantastic RTS which smoothed over many of the idiosyncrasies of AoE2. From a multiplayer perspective, it was doomed from the start, for not being AoE2. I couldn't even convince my friends to play it with me. (Everyone is still playing AoE2, and expansions + patches are still regular)

In the very same conference they announced WoW Forever. So whatever it is, it's not necessarily systemic, because they seemed to have nailed that audience.

What’s wrong with doing different things with an IP?

Halo was originally conceived as an RTS, then turned out to be a successful FPS. Then they made a fairly successful RTS too.

Everything Blizzard does is met with such absurd hostility. Gamers pay $60 for 100+ hours of entertainment and still feel like they’re getting screwed at every turn.

While I can feel the pain, the truth is somewhat less outrageous and more somber: Customers for a Blizzard scale RTS simply do not exist.

Are they disconnected from its customers in current year?

They may be alienating the core audience that made them who they are, but I don't think they're disconnected from their customer base, which has changed. RTSes are not popular and they are not platform-agnostic like an FPS is.

From Blizzard's perspective, this "we" isn't worth the trouble in terms of sales figures. The audience for RTS has fragmented quite a bit into other niches and Blizzard wants to do huge releases with great ROI for their IP, not pay fan service to us.

What evidence do you have that this is the general sentiment among 'customers' rather than your own? Genuinely asking, I too would have preferred an RTS but my sense is the player base for RTS is much smaller than a shooter.

You are wrong. People that remember the cancelled StarCraft Ghost are excited for this.

I’ve been waiting for a rehash of StarCraft Nova or whatever it was called forever - speak for yourself.

A full WarCraft III expansion is more than I expected in what has become such a niche genre

Let's not kid ourselves that it would be a good RTS. Starcraft 2 + expansions is a very poor game compared to brood war. If you haven't watch the ASL it's definitely worth a gander:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIpLl2W2chg

I'm still amazed that Blizzard dropped the ball on recreating the same environment that enables dynamic play, instead it's always a formation of rock paper scissors with very little nuance in between.

I guess they’re wanting to go after the void Bungie left with Destiny?

I can’t tell if this is too late a move though or if there will be a void and a desire still by the time this releases.

Is there any other studio working on releasing a similar game already since it was obvious Destinys life was short lived for a while with Bungies focus on Marathon?

Honestly as someone who grew up playing SC, WC3 etc... it gets kinda old. If you have played one, you have played them all. I totally welcome an FPS in the Starcraft world and something fresh from Blizzard.

>"when we wanted the next RTS."

You think you do, but you don't.