C&C Labs News Wire

— Wednesday, October 30, 2013 —

Posted By: Blbpaws at 2:06:13 PM ET

Command and Conquer Free to Play Canceled

Electronic Arts has announced that they are canceling the upcoming release of Command and Conquer and closing the Victory Games development studio. This marks another cancelation for the series that has seen a few already, as EA's efforts to reboot the series continue to expand. Coupled with EA's quarterly losses, the ousting of its CEO last spring, and other failures in launching products (such as SimCity), this calls into serious doubt the company's ability to deliver high-quality games.

EA issued a PR statement on the move: 

Part of being in a creative team is the understanding that not all of your choices are going to work out. In this case, we shifted the game away from campaign mode and built an economy-based, multiplayer experience. Your feedback from the alpha trial is clear: We are not making the game you want to play. That is why, after much difficult deliberation, we have decided to cease production of this version of the game. Although we deeply respect the great work done by our talented team, ultimately it’s about getting you the game you expect and deserve.

Over the next 10 days we will be refunding any and all money spent in the alpha. If you have a question about your refund, please contact help.ea.com.

We believe that Command & Conquer is a powerful franchise with huge potential and a great history, and we are determined to get the best game made as soon as possible. To that end, we have already begun looking at a number of alternatives to get the game back on track. We look forward to sharing more news about the franchise as it develops. Thank you again for your participation and support.

This statement, attributing the cancelation to fan feedback, was undercut by posts within the internal C&C forums by a development team member that have since leaked.


Hi everyone, I just wanted to say that it has been a pleasure working on this game and I hope you all have enjoyed the closed alpha!  

This isn't official or anything, but you probably saw that our whole team got the ax.  I hope you understand that we at VG all were dedicated to making a game for all of you to play, and that the press release line was total b.s.  It was NOT any feedback from the alpha that shut this project down but just petty corporate politics and shenanigans.
 
We were all shocked and confused to find out that our studio is closed (and that we are all out of jobs!), but I am happy to see that the game is still up and running RIGHT NOW and that a lot of people are still having fun with it. Please enjoy the live game until they figure out how to turn off the servers (it might be a while)!

Cheers,
B [EA_Baelor]
 

As someone who has played C&C games since 1998, this is disappointing but not surprising. The end has been a long time coming. While we at C&C Labs right now continue to support the games and series as we always have, it is hard to think the future of the series is anything but bleak. Certainly, it is hard to take Electronic Arts seriously as a game-making company going forward. What an sad end for a series that brought joy to so many for so long, defined a genre, and of which we all should have had only happy memories.

Last edited by MicScoTho on Sunday, November 10, 2013 at 9:35:49 PM.

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