I can't help but compare RTS to TBS more: Civ 2 came around the same time as SC, and the Civ series has kept growing in popularity. People are ok with the long

I can't help but compare RTS to TBS more: Civ 2 came around the same time as SC, and the Civ series has kept growing in popularity. People are ok with the long feedback loop IMO ie. chess. The gameplay just needs to be fun and challenging-enough, which SC/BW and AOE2 had in spades for both beginners and experts. Like the OP says though, subsequent games in the original RTS mold just weren't as good. Certainly F2P, and genre-mixing happened, but those players could still come back to playing RTSs. My main point is: what truly distinguishes Brood War from everything else is the level design and gameplay. Which is what games like They Are Billions is bringing back even if only in part. RTS level design peaked with BW it seems, and is only now making a come back. Over the past ~20 years, you can see the evolution in action/RPG/platform/sim/puzzle/TBS games as they have added to level design and gameplay where RTS games didn't and thus lost out. Focusing on what made BW good; make better level design and gameplay than BW, and you'll get people playing again. I played Warcraft 2, SMACX, AOE2, and SC pretty much when they came out, and I've only recently played Paradox games, Homeworld and Total Annihilation. People have their favorites, and I can see liking any of these games based on the type of gameplay and story you enjoy the most. I just hope AOE4 has enough new ideas in level design and gameplay compared to AOE2 like the difference between Civ 2 and Civ 4. You can also see what the major studios have been up to: Valve went into publishing tech, Blizzard is going more and more into F2P (Tencent is almost all F2P), but it's the studios/publishers like Square Enix, 2K, Sony, and Ubisoft and indies which keep making games that aren't lootbox filled.