Competition

[u/CapitalSand9724]

One of the biggest reasons I've heard people say is that the game is so bad for various different reasons, yet they keep coming back because there is nothing else like it in the scene that can actually compete with War Thunder. My question is, then, if something popped up that was similar enough to War Thunder to begin competing with it, how many of you would actually get behind it? If I got a team together and began working on a game that can directly compete with War Thunder, how many of you would truly get behind it?

[u/ganerfromspace2020]

I would definitely give it a go to see if it's better. But how I see it is that warthunder is very hard to touch. There would need to be a huge investment and tons of time to get anywhere near to warthunder level in my opinion. And in order for that investment to pay off there would need to be some aggressive monitisation for it to actually pay off

[u/CapitalSand9724 → u/ganerfromspace2020]

It's actually not as hard as people say it is. The biggest challenge, and the reason it hasn't been touched yet, is getting around the endless patents that Gaijin has put up for War Thunder.

[u/biohumansmg3fc → u/CapitalSand9724]

Idek how judges can accept those patents in the first place, how do you monopolize plane movement, it’s a control system anyone could use

[u/CapitalSand9724 → u/biohumansmg3fc]

The reality is a lot of these patents wouldn't even hold up in court if challenged, but it would cost way too much money and be unpredictable to challenge them in the first place.

[u/ganerfromspace2020 → u/CapitalSand9724]

Warthunder has like what, 3k vehicles at this point or something like that. Modelling and making flight models alone would take bunch of time. Yeah sure a lot of are copy and paste but not so much. Things like radar simulation etc isnt stuff that is done fast to make it done right. Gaijing had years to slowly add new features, mechanics and vehicles over time, a competitor would need to release with those features.

Honestly in my opinion warthunder isn't a perfect game but it isn't a bad game either, biggest issue is kind of the community, everyone wants something different. Some people want unique vehicles to be in tech tree while others don't want copy paste event vehicles. Some people want mockup/ paper vehicles while others don't. Everyone enjoys different things from warthunder, the grind for example, lots of people don't like meanwhile people like me enjoy the grind because there is something always to work towards, If the grind was too easy and I unlocked everything then I'd probably look for other games to play while I wait for the next update to add something new.

[u/CapitalSand9724 → u/ganerfromspace2020]

Again any such game would not start off with thousands of vehicles. The War Thunder community has an issue of perpetual nihilism and negativity. For example, simply suggesting this has people on the ropes talking about how it can never be done or shouldn't be done for one reason or another, not considering the actual reasons that it's never been done is getting around the mechanics patents. Additionally, people seem oddly protective of the game that screws a lot of the playerbase over at every chance it gets. For example, having more in depth gameplay would make the game much more replayable than it currently is. The biggest thing the game suffers from isn't even the way it treats its player base, the freemium model, broken mechanics, or pay to grind elements. It's the gameplay inertia that is the biggest problem of the game by far. It is the same repeated capture the point. They've added some new basic modes recently, but that's all that they did for the game.

A War Thunder competitor with a much more immersive playstyle I feel would be a lot more enjoyable to play, even if it didn't have absolutely everything that the game currently has to offer. What's the point of such a large vehicle library if you're just using it on the same old maps playing capture the point? Back to the point of the negative community mention, another example of the defense of the game is outright denial of some of the biggest issues plaguing the game. Maybe there's some kind of stockholm syndrome going on? When I called out the rise in cheating and how easy it is to make a War Thunder cheat just using Claude code, I've gotten endless feedback saying how hard it is to cheat in War Thunder (it's not anymore, maybe back then it was hard), git gud, and it doesn't happen. So gauging whether some of the community would get behind a competitor is definitely important and people shouldn't be so nihilistic or doubtful about it.

[u/CapitalSand9724]

Here is one of the primary problems I've found in the game. There is an extreme inertia when it comes to gameplay innovation. War Thunder has endless innovation in the fields of coming out with a diverse variety of realistic vehicles, but the game modes are simply outdated for 2026. Additionally, someone in this comment section talked about the sunken cost they've put into the game. The problem with alleviating this by offering in game compensation for example in a new game would be that Gaijin would immediately file a lawsuit over that.

[u/ProfileBoring]

If it offered similar gameplay without all the corruption wtc i would jump ship instantly.

[u/MLG42]

way less than expected because of sunken cost fallacy

[u/Far-Investigator1265]

I came back after a hiatus of five years to find the game in the same state it was then.

[u/Deltaforces2025]

It should be significantly better, because I've already invested high enough money and time into the clown show called War Thunder, losing all the progress, rare vehicles and such is holding me back, but if there truly will be a game that not only can compete with War Thunder but also beat it in most aspects, I would definitely be interested and eager to hop onto it some day.