RTS sales died because of hardcore 'audience'

Makers listening too hard to too few?

Speaking with UK blog VG247, Ubisoft Shanghai's Michael de Plater has revealed his belief that sales of real-time strategy games have dropped off because developers are listening to their hardcore players "too much".

The creative director is of course in charge of EndWar, the voice-controlled strategy title heading to consoles later this festive season.

"Strategy games have almost suffered by listening too much to their hardcore audience," the game maker revealed.

"Every iteration, from Command & Conquer onwards, added stuff and added stuff and added stuff, which has just upped the complexity. If you watch the sales, they just go down and down and down. They’re just selling to narrower audience."

Michael de Plater does believe that EndWar is taking the right route, positioning the game as a big, IP-driven Tom Clancy game, similar to Ghost Recon and Splinter Cell.

More on all this soon.

By Luke Guttridge