As much as I'm a fan of RTS games, I never got into them competitively. I've always played them for the campaigns, skirmishes (solo or co-op vs AI) and the occasional online multiplayer match, but I mean VERY occasional lol. But over the last 5-6 years, I've always wondered why StarCraft is just dead to Blizzard. Just this past BlizzCon, the president of Blizzard, Mike Ybarra, refused to even say the name StarCraft and ignored a fan that yelled the name. Which I've thought is just beyond weird! How can a franchise with such immense importance and popularity, especially in the Esports scene, be so intentionally forgotten?
I found a video of someone that really explains the reasoning for this. The original StarCraft, mainly the Brood War expansion, is the version of the game everyone plays, is technically limited (you can highlight a max of 10 units at a time) VERY few hotkeys to switch between different units and buildings (which is why pros are clicking the same keys as if they're typing 100 words per minute) there's major issues with units bumping into each other, and nothing is balanced. All 3 factions play entirely different from each other and every unit is overpowered, and so strategies have continued evolving over the years so there's never one faction to rule them all.
With StarCraft 2, Blizzard sought to fix all of these "limitations" and "problems" the first game had. You can highlight and command as many units as you want, there's a ton of hotkeys, all the units go through each so there's no bumping into each other, and Blizzard spent years constantly adjusting and tweaking every single unit the game like it's the ultimate live-service. Unfortunately, it literally ruined everything that made the original StarCraft so competitive.
Because you had to do such an insane amount of micromanaging and checking on the battlefield to see if your units are doing what they're supposed to be doing instead of bugging out, Blizzard removed everything that made the original game so strategic and competitive.
So while as a hardcore fan of the cinematics, campaigns, and AI skirmishes, the Esports scene is what comes first and foremost when it comes to StarCraft. And it seems like there's literally nothing that Blizzard can do when it comes to making a new game. They would have to make a game fundamentally and functionally as if it was made in 1998, which is NEVER going to happen.
So as much as fans of StarCraft like myself would LOVE to see a new game in the series, the franchise as an RTS......is dead. And most likely forever will be.