Can Blizzard do it again?

I'm writing this article in response to this one, “Is Blizzard Creating An Already Outdated Game In A Evolving Genre?"

The RTS genre or, more loosely, the Strategy genre is indeed evolving and spawning new variations and sub-genres, with games as far removed from each other as Dawn Of War 2, Empire: Total War and Supreme Commander.  Does this mean, then, that there is no place for SC2 in this 'new era' of Strategy gaming?  Well, Karl thinks not.   I beg to differ.

Karl stated, in his article, that the RTS genre is "horribly stagnant" because it has the "same rock-paper-scissors units, base-building and resource management that it had in the early nineties." Would you view the FPS genre as horribly stagnant and outdated because it has the same point-and-shoot, pick up ammo and health dynamics that it did back when Doom was new? Well, you might do, but then you would be missing the point. Those dynamics are what makes those genres what they are. OK, I admit that there are always exceptions and variations, like FPS games that don't have health bars (ie. CoD series), RTS games that have no base-building (ie. DoW 2), but they are exactly that - exceptions. You could even go so far as to say that they are the exceptions that prove the rule.

Starcraft was, and remains, a perfectly balanced RTS game; with almost equal emphasis on base-building, economy and micro-management. It is so well balanced, in fact, that it is the only game of it's age still being played competitively world wide. And not just competitively, but almost as a national sport in South Korea, with professional tournaments being broadcast 24/7 on national TV and players competing for prizes totaling in the tens of thousands (£). Would this be the case if the game wasn't relevant to the needs of today's RTS gamers? I think not.

But what has this all got to do with the sequel to this much celebrated game - Starcraft 2? Well, according to Karl, the genre has moved on to a point where SC2 is no longer relevant and, therefore, Blizzard will be releasing an "outdated" and "archaic" game.

I'm not one to use the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" line as an excuse for a lack of innovation and I certainly don't think that Blizzard are doing this either.  From all the information that we've seen so far about SC2, it seems that, to a certain extent, Blizzard are actually conforming very slightly to the shift in trends, by focusing the player's attention more on micro-management than macro-management, which seemed to be Karl's main issue. However, it also seems as if they are aiming to still keep base-building and economy as a major part of the game and this is certainly a good move.

Saying that DoW2 "redefined the genre" and hailing it as a benchmark, strikes me as odd.  For one thing, it certainly didn't redefine the genre, it merely capitalized on gameplay innovations that were already popular in games such as DoTa, SupCom and even to a certain extent the Total War series. Second, you may feel that it serves as a benchmark for the RTS sub-genre, RTT, but certainly not for RTS as a whole. Because of this, SC2 isn't competing with DoW2 or CnC as the king of RTS. No, it is, amazingly enough, competing with it's predecessor instead.

There is always a fine line to walk for developers, when creating sequels to games, between creating a completely new and fresh experience for the player and just releasing the same game again with better graphics. Karl hints at his suspicions that Blizzard will be doing the latter with their release of SC2 and mentioned that the game is in danger of just being an expansion pack of the original SC, with improvements merely in graphics and new units (as an aside, the Brood War expansion was actually largely instrumental in the success of SC in the competitive scene, providing a handful of new units that balanced the game and provided more variation for the players. If SC2 is to be an 'expansion pack' of this caliber, then I wont be complaining).

I realize that the following seems like a very non-committal comment, but the more different games I play, the harder it becomes to find a benchmark game for any genre.  How do you, for example, decide on what represents the FPS genre best, when you've got such varied games as Half Life, Quake, Call Of Duty and Counter-Strike on the table? The same applies to RTS, in my opinion.

However, the reason, I think, that so many people hold up Starcraft as a benchmark is because it contains all of the core dynamics found in all RTS games and balances them all equally; holding none of them as more important than the other. SC2 looks like it's heading the same way, in this regard, so I can't subscribe to the theory that it is already not relevant to today's RTS gamers.

Blizzard has 3 major games being played in the competitive circuit right now, Starcraft, WC3 and WoW.  All three are also extremely popular for casual play.  I can't think of another developer that has achieved this level of saturation in both the competitive and casual scenes simultaneously. This in no way guarantees the success in SC2 in either area (what could?), but it certainly offers a good track-record on which to base a projection.

So, Is Blizzard creating an already outdated game in an evolving genre? No, I don't think so.  Are they returning the wandering attention of gamers back to the core fundamentals of RTS?  Yes, lets hope so.


Thanks for reading!

Tags:

blizzard, Starcraft

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