Re: Live Your Fantasy! Fantasy General II free Free FREE!

On Tue, 15 Jul 2025 08:35:42 +0100, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:

On 14/07/2025 16:40, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

The question is: is this the sort of game for which there is a market?
I'd argue no; gamers these days want more hands-on control, and more
action. Even in 1994, wargaming was on a decline because of this. But
if you_like_ wargames? Those old games still work their magic.

>
The definitely still a market for these type of games, even though it's
not mass market (was it ever really), from the more casual right up to
behemoths. One of the good things about them is you can get a lot of
value out of a single game and they tend to be periodically updated with
new DLC so you got something new to try.

Oh, I agree. I _meant_ to write "is there a LARGE market for this sort
of game?" I don't think there is, but there are always some grognards
who'll eat this sort of thing up.

(Although true grognards would probably turn their nose up at "Panzer
General's" lack of a hex-map, animated battle sequences and failure to
use standardized military iconography. ;-)

<ramble mode engaged>

I don't think wargames were ever REALLY popular, but for much of the
early 80s they dominated the PC market. PCs had several advantages
that made them a good fit for wargames (or, at least, a better fit
than other platforms):

     - PCs had powerful CPUs that could handle the
       mathematical complexities of the simulation
     - PCs had more memory needed to store the large
       databases of units and manipulate them in simulation,
     - They had a very crisp text mode, which fit well with
       early tile-based map-sets.

Their lack of hardware support for sprites and fast-moving action
wasn't a concern when the games were so slow paced too. It's no wonder
wargames migrated to PCs so readily and seemed to dominate that
market; there was nowhere better for them to go and other forms of
video-games didn't work so well on the platform.

But as PCs became more capable and powerful, other genres were able to
make inroads and wargaming's dominance started to falter; once it
seemed every third game released on PC was a wargame of some sort, but
by the 90s it was an almost forgotten genre. Not because the genre had
fallen out of favor, but because there more capable modern PC was
drawing a larger overall audience and most of those people just didn't
care for wargames.

The TL;DR is that for a while wargames seemed really popular on PC,
but that was more because the majority who liked other types of games
tended to flock to other platforms. As the PC became more powerful,
the market became more balanced and wargames resumed their natural
'niche' state. Occassional outlier like SSI's "* General" games gave
the genre a brief resurgence by catering to more casual players, but
it was never going to last.

But there will always be some fans of the genre and small publishing
houses (like Matrix Games) will be able to survive on that limited
audience.

<ramble mode disengaged>