Why are there so few new games in the tower defense genre today and is it worth singing a memorial service for him?
The question “Does anyone remember the Tower defense genre today?” asked on the pages of Pocket Gamer.
In the late noughties, early tenths, this genre dominated online portals. Today, he is a rarity on mobile. Even those brands and companies that have become popular thanks to this genre are looking for new directions for themselves.
The last game in the Plants vs. Zombies series is a collectible battler, the last title in the Fieldrunners series is a clone of Clash of Clans. The authors of Kingdom Rush make RTS, and the authors of Toy Story experiment with genres far from tower defense.
Our British colleagues associate this reversal with the desire of developers to transfer their games to a free-play type of monetization. At the same time, the classic tower defense of the mobile era were paid products.
Plants vs. Zombies
Most of these games are based on the traditional progress from level to level.
At the same time, each stage is endowed with a unique obstacle, a task. The replayability of most of these titles is limited because of this.
And although, as Tommy Palm notes in a conversation about Kingdom Rush, “each level in the game can be completed several times in different modes, thereby creating hours and hours of entertainment,” frituplay does not work that way.
In addition, they usually do not have a deep and large meta-game, which is necessary today for success in the market of free products. Plus, in a sense, their niche was captured by projects in the spirit of Clash of Clans and Boom Beach from Supercell, strategic hybrids that allow you to defend your own fortifications and attack enemy strongholds within the same game.
But the players are not happy about this state of affairs. For example, Fieldrunners Attack players! we were disappointed to receive a clone of the game in another genre instead of continuing. As a result, the project, judging by its position in the charts, not only failed to satisfy the brand’s audience, but also failed to interest new players.
Fieldrunners Attack!
But do not say that everything is over with the genre.
There are examples of relatively successful deep-fried projects in this genre. For example, Castle Creeps TD from Outplay Entertainment. Last week, the released game collected more than 1.5 million downloads and was in the Top 100 downloads in more than a hundred regions in the world (iOS).
“There is a demand for Tower defense,” says Stefan Wittelsburger, the game’s producer, based on these figures. He also clarifies that raising the level of towers and heroes adds role-playing elements to games of this kind, and this fits perfectly into the framework of freeplay if the developer is able to provide the project with elements that work to accelerate and improve the progress of players.
Another example is Magic Rush. The game from the Chinese Elex Technology has two game mechanics. One went to her from Heroes Charge, the second – Tower Defense. The game, whose total downloads only on Google Play have crossed the 10 million mark, has been in the box office Top 10 in more than 60 regions.
The conclusion in Pocket Gamer is the following: despite the fact that some developers are leaving the genre, perhaps believing that they will earn more in other niches, Tower defense is not dead. There is a demand for the genre. Especially now, in the absence of a large number of such titles.
Castle Creeps TDSource: Pocket Gamer