Taking the industry trend of including old stuff to sell new titles, EA is giving away Command and Conquer, Red Alert Tiberian Sun and Tiberian Sun: Firestorm.
While many game developers and distributors have discounted, packaged and bundled their freebie way to increased sales, EA is just giving away the games on it's Command and Conquer 4 dedicated website.
No gimmicks, no subscriptions, just download the zipped file (rar in this case) and play the classic, again or for the first time.
The advertising guru's at EA are surely banking on a few things. Firstly, by visiting the Command and Conquer 4 dedicated website they are guaranteed exposure to every frugal gamer looking for a free title. Secondly, by bringing Command and Conquer fans looking to relive past glories, they can ensure everyone knows this is reportedly the last in the long series of the title that made RTS what is has become today.
Nostalgia is a strong selling tool and being there for a finale even more so.
While many can point to 'Dune 2' as the game that brought about the way the general public would play Real Time Strategy games, Westwood's Command and Conquer's first appearance on the shelves back in 1995 is widely accepted as the grandfather to the genre.
Between the free games and the recent appeals and efforts towards PC gamers with Battlefield; Bad Company 2, many who had condemned EA as the big bad corporation killing all they knew and loved about gaming must be wondering about now.
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3 comments:
EA was everything that was wrong with PC gaming.
was.
in the last ~2 years they have become one of my favorite publishers and developers. 3 years ago, you couldnt find someone who purely hated EA games more than myself, but i think they heard the public and have been making significant efforts to right their reputation. between the 2 free C&C giveaways, the last few EA/Dice games (mirror's edge, dead space) taking a reportedly more hands-off approach to 3rd party studios (like crytek and numorous others), and now the BC2 open beta and not making this game a simple console port, im actually looking forward to games backed by EA.
I don't understand what you're saying about Dune 2. It was released in 1992-3 and was created by many of the same people as C&C (1995). I remember reading an interview a while back with one of the designers, who mentioned how what he learned making Dune 2 shaped C&C.
Dune 2 is also the obvious model for Warcraft 1 (1994, still pre-C&C) if you compare them side-by-side.
Hunter Z, absolutely Dune 2 was the blueprint and some would even say learning curve for Command and Conquer. This is why I said 'many would say Dune 2 is...'. But its Command and Conquer was more widely distributed and certainly sold more copies than Dune 2. IMHO it was that mass of gamers playing C&C that brought a whole breed of gaming to the PC.
Just my opinion however.
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