Why is OpenRA not more popular?

[WilfordGleichner]

There are about 100 people online right now on OpenRA. 260 playing Red Alert CnCNet and 1,000 playing the C&C Remastered Collection.
Why?Geometry Vibes
Okay, not all the C&C Remastered players will be playing multiplayer right now. But I'm sure at least a few hundred are.
Again, why?
The original games are clunky, unbalanced and lacking modern conveniences. OpenRA has so much more to offer with regards to a multiplayer experience.
I understand the nostalgia aspect. I grew up with the classic C&C games. I'm sure most of us here did. But why would you not want to play a vastly improved version of the game you love?
Why is this game not more popular? Is it ignorance? Do people just not know it exists?
It saddens me to see such a polished gem be ignored by the majority of classic C&C fans. The developers have done an absolutely fantastic job.

[Punsho]

CnCNet has the original campaign. It's a major selling point and is contributes so much to how the game feels to play

[Matt]

The original games have a strange meta indeed, but it is exactly that what people seem to like about them. That you have to smash the mouse at the production palette at very high game speeds and manually move the tanks around so they move while firing. It is a different beast. Something we don't want to emulate. The CnCNet perspective is: OpenRA is not actually Red Alert how they are used to it. They are surprisingly hostile towards the project.

On the other hand, CnCNet has support from the original game communities where it merged their forums with. They also have a more aggressive social media campaign and official looking landing pages like https://cnc.community/ or https://web.archive.org/web/20150514100 ... lert1.com/ that all never mention OpenRA.

There were also attempts to do an Open Source engine reimplementation from the CnCNet fan patch community. https://github.com/TheAssemblyArmada/Chronoshift which changed names twice and then vanished.

[AegisOfPerdition]

This also pains me. OpenRA is everything I imagined Red Alert was when I was playing it as a kid.

I wish it had gained more popularity.

[bete]

Since it's open source, non-profit game, community need to do all marketing work.

Any fan of ORA can organize tourneys, look for sponsors, stream on Twitch and Youtube, talk about it via Discord, etc.

Also someone should take initiative and do marketing campaign(s), that would include planning like defininig target groups, choose channels , etc.

I think game(s) deserve more attention and that people would play it if they just try.

[Kesha]

Because most people won't toss their hats in and risk getting their butts kicked to the curb.