That's a factor. But the bigger factor is it's harder to freemium an RTS without destroying the game.
The fun of RTSes is the learning curve, but throw in a bunch of "you can buy a special unit for $10" and all the sudden the game balancing is destroyed. That leaves you with inconsequential things like avatar skins to sell and very few people would buy those.
Couple that with the fact that new players aren't likely to spend hours online playing the game (because they get destroyed) and you've got a major problem.
For me, the fun of RTSes was in single player games and lan parties.
This was after they sold the game at a fair price for many many years. The "freemium" play was I imagine, in part taken because sales flatlined.
I remember the transition. I kinda hated it, to be honest. Not because of the drops (they were introducing hats and loot well before this) but because the influx of players were...low quality
The fun of RTSes is the learning curve, but throw in a bunch of "you can buy a special unit for $10" and all the sudden the game balancing is destroyed. That leaves you with inconsequential things like avatar skins to sell and very few people would buy those.
Couple that with the fact that new players aren't likely to spend hours online playing the game (because they get destroyed) and you've got a major problem.
For me, the fun of RTSes was in single player games and lan parties.