I was excited to read the first part - an analysis of why RTS games have become less popular - and a bit discouraged when the author didn’t follow up on that theme more, and instead reviewed a bunch of past RTS’s.

I do completely agree with the analysis, though. RTS games are hard for a “casual” player to get into. It’s hard to even follow a game on Twitch, because the camera is frequently jumping around while a player handles logistics, and when someone is doing multiple actions per second it’s hard to observe them. The difficulty of casual play also makes it difficult for streamers to chat with the audience while playing.

It’s interesting to compare to MOBA games like League of Legends. They are very similar mechanically in terms of unit control, but you have much less context switching because you are only controlling a single character. So it’s easier to follow a stream or to play.

I think there’s room for a middle ground, a game that has more complex strategies like RTS’s do, but with casual play like a moba. We’ll see...