Dear devs & players, lets make Command & Conquer Rivals the best game it can be

Rivals is the best Mobile RTS. Whilst it got bad feedback for being a mobile F2P game in the first place, it's loved by people who play it a longer time. Whether players come from other C&C games, StarCraft, WarCraft 3 or totally different games: Competitive-minded players love Rivals once they get the hang of it. And it's a great game for spectators as well.

The Rivals tournament scene is healtier than ever. Basically every weekend, we have interesting tournaments with prize pools of up to $1,000. There's great streamers, an active Reddit, and tons of discord activity. The game and it's community feel alive.

Still, there's some doom & gloom. Communication from the devs hasn't been good since months. Yes, we got a new unit and some liaison recently, but it's not much. The experience for new players isn't great. And the tournament organizes don't get the support they deserve.

How can we make this better? How can Rivals be salvaged and made as successful as it deserves to be? Here's some thoughts on what two of the key stakeholder groups could do.


To dos for the Rivals developers

• Fix the iOS "Tiberium Glitch" visual bug. It's known since months. And you recently asked the community for feedback on it. Time to deliver! iOS users might not be the majority, but they also deserve a great experience.
• Put the vanity items back into the shop. Should be close to zero effort for making some players happy and generating some revenue. And the feature is already done, it just needs reactivation.
• Fix the races. Easiest fix is to stop them and redistribute the rewards to other events / additional events. Here's why & what.
• Promote the tournament streams in the App & On Twitter. On streaming day, put up in-app messages and Tweets to promote the Twitch streams. This should be reasonably low effort for you, and would mean the world to the tournament organizers. Plus, it's good for you: Following tournaments increases player stickiness.
• To do that, you need a reliable point of contact for the community. It's great that we have a new one, but she or he must be responsive and pro-active in working with tournament organizers and our Reddit moderators. You already did that occasionally, but the contact to you isn't clear and reliable enough so far!
• Tell stories. Make Tweets and in-app messages and web news on Rivals seasons. Give credit to players and alliances. Costs nothing but a little time.
• Improve the new player experience with simple tweaks. Bring back the 500 Diamonds for $1 offer for new players. Consider to increase rewards for players below Player Level 20, as they were balanced for a time when other Bronze, Silver, Gold league players had lower levels.
• Dial up efficient efforts to bring in new players. Once you fixed these issues for new players, consider re-running your promotion where you paid YouTubers like Grubby to play the game. Now, this could be done with a better game and utilizing established top Rivals players to interact with other YouTubers and streamers. Leverage good YouTube videos of good tournaments for PR. Bring Rivals eSports to gaming news sites. The game is mature and established now. Clever acquisition marketing for the right audiences and with the right strategies should have a positive return on investment. If you make Rivals work, you will be the company that has figured out competitive RTS on Mobile.
• Listen to the community. On Reddit. not every suggestion is great. But some really are. And it's doable to read it all, and consider it. Maybe even reply to it! Trust your community point of contact to respond to us. We won't hold it against you!

To dos for the players

• Play the game if you have fun with it.
• Follow good Rivals Twitch and YouTube channels to support our community creators. Here's a list.
• Watch tournament streams to get some viewer numbers higher for the guys who work hard to make these events happen. You can find out about these tournaments on the official Reddit and on various discord. Twitch channels streaming tournaments include:
• BikeRush Twitch channel
• 13lade Twitch channel
• Rivals Iron Fist League (RIFLE) Twitch channel
• BanditoCollective Twitch channel
• Nukin Twitch channel
• Jeffrey Twitch channel
• Promote Twitch streams, Discords and Reddit to your alliance. Help your alliance members enjoy the part of the Rivals community that happens outside of the app.

Here's a Reddit discussion on this topic. Please bring up your ideas there.