If you want to make an RTS with mass wide appeal (rather than RTS gamer only appeal), look at Age of Empires and C&C

(In context of the new studio Frost Giant, a studio composed of former Blizzard developers looking to make the next great RTS)

While it is true Starcraft has far more current players today, it is arguable that Age of Empires and C&C have a wider mass appeal among non-gamers and non-RTS gamers. Current numbers would only be useful since there are no true new releases of both series that are not remakes or remasters (or the most recent titles from them do not capture the early spirit).

These are just anecdotal experiences, so you can take them with a grain of salt.

I run a fairly okay and generic RTS page, and AoE, C&C, and SC is the order of ranking in popularity in regards to posts made on there. So that's one indication.

I am not a gamer (as in someone who spends half his day gaming, cause I have work and live a fairly normal life), so I meet a lot of non-gamers and non-RTS gamers (ie someone who would play, say, Call of Duty rather than a strategy game) in my circles.

A lot of older non-gamers I've met have played and enjoyed Age of Empires with fond memory, even though they don't play any games anymore (quite a few of them were politicians, might give you an idea what line of work I used to do) but would not touch other strategy games. A lot of the reasons they would give me is that they learned history from it. Quite a few also have played Civilization alongside it, which makes sense. But they would never touch Starcraft.

Now, another trend I've seen were those who were older gamers, but not RTS gamers, again, those who would usually play something mainstream like Call of Duty rather than a strategy game. They usually gravitated to the Command and Conquer series back in the day when it was popular, particularly Red Alert 2. But not Starcraft. Some of the reasons they gave me were it was patriotic (the America versus Soviet timeline). The ones who were not into Red Alert were into Tiberian C&C's story of Kane. But they would never touch Starcraft.

So most normal people really like history. There's a reason why World War 2 games come out every year. Should Frost Giant's game be based on realism and history? Not necessarily, but it is to be considered that Starcraft's science fiction does go over the head of a lot of people. You can talk Marauders and Reapers and what have you and most people will look at you strange, while the AoE archers, musketeers, and knights people would immediately recognize what they would do. Red Alert 2 was a bit whacky, but soldiers with guns and tanks are fairly easy to understand. You have to learn basically a three new cultures for each race in Starcraft, Terrans are recognizable cause humans, and they have soldiers with guns and tanks. But Protoss and Zerg are basically homework if you want to learn how to play them. Of course, making it historical and realistic will limit gameplay, as well (unless you are creative). But the post is about accessibility to mass wide appeal. If a balance can be struck, then do so.

Those are my anecdotal experiences. It is clear to me that most Starcraft players in contrast, are RTS gamers. That's not a bad thing, don't get me wrong. I love all RTS games, as I said, I run a generic RTS game page myself. I've played almost all of them at least once, even the very obscure ones, though I keep finding even more obscure ones to this very day.

But one non-anecdote is how Microsoft made Age of Empires mass appeal. There was a very old article that I can't find anymore where Microsoft had every demographic do quality testing for Age of Empires. In that article, an old grandma was interviewed who tested the game, and it apparently went really well that she was able to play the campaign missions and hold off her own in a multiplayer match for at least 15 minutes before she succumbed. That's how strong the tutorials and pacing were in Age of Empires. Now, a grandma is probably not Frost Giant's target audience (and neither was her Age of Empires' audience), but can it really be said that a very old person can access Starcraft enough to be able to hold their own for a few minutes?

So if Frost Giant just wants to target RTS gamers, which is not a bad thing at all, and create a spiritual successor to Starcraft, with esports scene and all that, then that's totally fine. That's what they are experts on. I'll definitely still play it.

But if they want to reach non-gamers and non-RTS gamers, they need to look at how AoE and C&C do things, maybe not necessarily in terms of gameplay, but in terms of tutorials and accessibility (for AoE) and theming (for C&C).