Medici

Never, in the whole gaming history, has the strategy games area suffered a major blow in 2009 than ever before. This claim is due to the launch of the now called "Double-Disaster", the two games considered the worst in strategy history: StormRise and Stalin x Martians.

First of all, it should be asked: Why are they considered the worst? First, take on with the similarity of both: Broken animations, terrible camera management, horrible sound effects, poor-quality textures and very faulty controls which ruin the gameplay. Not to mention the lack of planning for scenarios and single-player missions and episodes. The difference, only one: StormRise had the promise of an original and pleasant storyline. Stalin x Martians didn't. It all shows that, whether they like it or not, all strategy-game developers must admit that standards in this game genre aren't being met.

But this isn't the matter of which I came to discuss with, simply reviewing two awful games, but to wake up all areas of gaming and modding community to the crysis ahead. To this, I'd like to refer to the high-quality work shown in StormRise months before it's release, very well made compared to the mess of the released game. This simple fact shows that these "intentions of causing good impression" last for three or four weeks and then they're replaced by the interests of the corporate executive areas. Now, the very meaning of strategy game development is at risk of being called a "money-gaining preservation method" for the giants of corporate game development. StormRise is a symbolic example, but far symbolic yet is the people's reaction after the critics: A minute of silence was made, and then the work kept going on. Nothing changed.

For years there was talking in changing the methods of strategy game development, when the brazilian developer Continuum released the game Outlive with the mechanics Starcraft used, four months right after the game was released, in which people reacted calling it an "immitational suicidal move". Now, with the release of StormRise and Stalin x Martians, most believe that the strategy genre has definitely reached the far bottom of the humiliation pit. Wrong. The far bottom was far ABOVE us. We already have banalized the meaning of strategy when Earth 2160 was released by Zuxxez, which ruined a very promising saga due to horrible sound effects and story, and than it was heard again the same story for a need of change in development methods. On the release of Ancient War: Sparta in 2007, it was all heard again. The release of Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, did managed some relieve, but it wasn't enough for the hardcored fans, meaning it only lacked a bit to reach perfection and restore the strategy game meaning. When Red Alert 3: Uprising was launched, it was revealed that EA focused more on time schedules and reaching the young and un-familiar public than keeping what they already had. A message to Sega: It may take several years to make a good game, but incompetence is daily. And everyone's reaction, be they game developers, critics, simple gamers or people who never heard on it, is the same. It's made one minute of silence, and the work goes on. Nothing changes.

People no longer judge concrete things, they judge abstractions. They consider gameplay, and not fun. They consider graphic arts, and not original concept. It seems talking about original concept doesn't catch anymore. It's said that simple fun of playing is obsolete because, in the mouth of some gamers, gameplay IS fun. I remember once in an EA Battlecast Primetime episode that the anchors referred the importance of people's constructive criticism for the development and betterment of games. It sounds the gamers pretended not to listen, because they kept on un-constructive complaining, using illegal references, cracking, cheating into multi-player games, i.e. weaking the support of the developers who want to provide the fun the gamer wants. In the modding world, there's no education that every gamer opinion, this very basic right of expression, is responsible for helping the developers make something better. And thus, this only serves to rise even further the statistics of incompetence.

In the end, it's all the same chaos and it'll be the same chaos time and again, until a radical move is made. I've done mine. I've issued this wake-up call. Thank you.