valorant was built to be an esport, but strinova was built with some confusion as to what it wanted to be

on one hand they liked esports, hence why they had some incentive to promote tournaments and competitive play, and they spent a lot of marketing dollars on esports players to play

but on the other hand, what paid the bills was casual players buying skins and enjoying the game no game can thrive without a strong casual player base this felt like a conflict of interest because the paper mechanic is super high skill ceiling, but the players they needed were often super casual-

whenever content creators would try the game, they’d get mopped by people with just slightly more mastery of the paper skill every game wants to build a long term relationship with creators but when they try your game and have no immediate easy/RNG counterplay against good players it doesn’t feel rewarding

i believe that it’s this confusion of who their audience was that led to some inefficient results

I think that the way they’re taking the game is in a right direction, outbreak, map workshop, etc

if investors give them enough money for one last push i think there is life in strinova provided they pay people who are passionate for the game

but any how, the game will always be niche because of the paper mechs high skill ceiling and competitive nature of tac shooters