By: Mark H. Walker
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Let's dispense with the usual snappy beginnings and get right to the point. After all, this is a serious issue. What we are discussing is no less than the demise of a genre. A genre whose early years helped to define computer gaming, but one that has lately fallen --with a couple of notable exceptions-- into financial doldrums. The genre in question is turn-based strategy, and to believe some pundits you would think that these games are on their last leg.

I don't buy it.

As with every genre we've discussed, there is room for improvement, switches to be thrown, concepts to be matured, and corners to be turned in order to clear a place for turn-based strategy in our gaming future, but that's nothing new. Four years ago RPGs were on the road to an early grave. Now Baldur's Gate II tops PC Data's charts.  But what will it take to throw turn-based strategy's switches? Two words: innovation and immersion.

In a sense, innovation is a no-brainer. You've read about it in my future of RPG and racing game articles. But with turn-based strategy, innovation takes on a multitude of faces. Face one is a new sell-through model.

Turn-based strategy, and its cousin, turn-based war-gaming, do not (Civilization- and Heroes of Might and Magic type games excluded) appeal to a wide segment of the gaming population. Talonsoft's critically acclaimed Rising Sun will struggle to sell 100,000 units while Baldur's Gate II seems destined to sell well over one million copies. Accordingly, it's hard for turn-based strategy developers/publishers to buy shelf space in your mall's Babbages.  I say that they should quit trying.

Turn-Based On the Internet?
The Internet is a store tailor-made for niche publishing. A wargame need not compete with No One Lives Forever for a hot end cap position on the Internet; there is plenty of room for everyone. Yes, the sales will be lower, but so are the expenses. The 'net cuts out the middleman, reduces overhead and eliminates buybacks. In short, a developer makes much more per unit, so they can live with selling fewer units -- a scenario tailor made to this genre's lower volume sales.

The second face of innovation deals with theme. Turn-based strategy has long been the enclave of world domination games such as Civilization, Alpha Centauri, and Imperialism, galactic conquest games such as Reach for the Stars, and wargames such as Panzer General or The Operational Art of War. Yes, there are exceptions: Armies of Armageddon, Age of Wonders, Odium, X-Com: UFO Defense, Incubation, and Missionforce: Cyberstorm come immediately to mind -- although nearly all of those have a wargame heart beating under their science fiction or fantasy skin. Although each enclave has been enjoyable in its own time, to grow the genre, turn-based strategy needs to branch out.

Next, How Should the Genre Branch Out?