Why EA wants to release C&C Tiberium Twilight only for PC?

Because EA still supports PC gaming... *gasp* I know right!

Both this and Battlefield 3 are going to be PC exclusives. It's definitely not something I would expect from EA.

[QUOTE="Mograine"]It doesn't make sense to argue what ripped off what. As a somewhat wise man said, imitation is the greatest form of flattery.Saturos3091

And now to the same old ripoff complain :-

1. "It at least needs to be better than the source material" -- how can you compare them as they are different mediums.

2. How long did it took for Warhammer franchise to expand and really separate itself from other franchise ?

3. Finally , you easily take most games and show how it copied from sources as muc has Starcraft did with Warhammer.

I do agree their games are not deep but they are not that shallow either when compared to games like CnC 3 or RA 3 -- I would way it is much better. Same with story -- much more original than these game or most other RTS atleast

[QUOTE="chaplainDMK"]

As far as i know C&C4 will be online only. So i guess that will stop piracy.

Seems to be shaping up to a great... not C&C game =(. Why do they have to do another Generals game again...

Phoenix534

It'll have a campaign to end the Tiberium Saga. But it'll focus mostly on multiplayer. And TC obviously has no idea what he's talking about when his first sentence is "Aren't they afraid of piracy?" Command & Conquer started on PC, and PC games aren't pirated as much as the industry leads you to believe. EA is being smart on this. Consoles are hard to make good RTSs for, and they know that piracy won't be a problem.

[QUOTE="Phoenix534"]

[QUOTE="chaplainDMK"]

As far as i know C&C4 will be online only. So i guess that will stop piracy.

Seems to be shaping up to a great... not C&C game =(. Why do they have to do another Generals game again...

dc337

It'll have a campaign to end the Tiberium Saga. But it'll focus mostly on multiplayer. And TC obviously has no idea what he's talking about when his first sentence is "Aren't they afraid of piracy?" Command & Conquer started on PC, and PC games aren't pirated as much as the industry leads you to believe. EA is being smart on this. Consoles are hard to make good RTSs for, and they know that piracy won't be a problem.

Piracy is still highly overrated. It's not as bad as everyone makes it out to be.

Piracy is a problem on the pc, especially for single player games.

Just ask Blizzard: http://play.tm/news/23096/traditional-games-hurt-by-piracy-blizzard/

But yea an rts designed around online play might be better off as pc only. I usually buy multiplats on 360 but not rts. Turn-based strategy works just fine on consoles but rts can get annoying quick if you are managing a lot of units.

dc337

its only a 'problem' for bad games.

good games get pirated but they still sell well.

and that was an article for blizzard to talk up battle.net

And WH40k factions and characters were ripped from Alien and Starship Troopers.

Mograine

WH40K was around long before Starship Troopers came out and the only connection i see to Alien is the Tyranids.

Warhammer was a rip off of LOTR, and 40k was just the same but in space, ye thats right its LOTR in space! :D

because a horrible genre like RTS should only be on pc

sikanderahmed

we've established that you dont know how to control more than one unit

stick to your casualised shooters with autoaim

[QUOTE="dc337"]

[QUOTE="Phoenix534"]

It'll have a campaign to end the Tiberium Saga. But it'll focus mostly on multiplayer. And TC obviously has no idea what he's talking about when his first sentence is "Aren't they afraid of piracy?" Command & Conquer started on PC, and PC games aren't pirated as much as the industry leads you to believe. EA is being smart on this. Consoles are hard to make good RTSs for, and they know that piracy won't be a problem.

Phoenix534

Piracy is still highly overrated. It's not as bad as everyone makes it out to be.

You mean not as bad as all these established game developers make it out to be, according to anonymous internet posters.

dc337

its only bad depending on how you look at it.

if you look at every pirated copy as a lost sale then yeah its horrible

but if you actually look and say wow, we made a game poeple seem to enjoy look at how well it sold regardless of piracy then no its not bad

crytek lost all credibility talking about piracy when they said that a game like crysis would sell 4-5x more on a console without piracy.

epic lost all credibility when they blamed piracy for poor UT3 sales

IW lost credibility because COD4 sold buckets loads regardless.

theres very few compnies that talk about pc piracy rationally.

Two words, one number: Sim City 5. Where the hell is it EA? :evil:

[QUOTE="dc337"]

You mean not as bad as all these established game developers make it out to be, according to anonymous internet posters.

washd123

its only bad depending on how you look at it.

if you look at every pirated copy as a lost sale then yeah its horrible

but if you actually look and say wow, we made a game poeple seem to enjoy look at how well it sold regardless of piracy then no its not bad

crytek lost all credibility talking about piracy when they said that a game like crysis would sell 4-5x more on a console without piracy.

epic lost all credibility when they blamed piracy for poor UT3 sales

IW lost credibility because COD4 sold buckets loads regardless.

theres very few compnies that talk about pc piracy rationally.

huh ? generic plot -- I would be hard pressed to find a better sp campaign in a RTS except maybe homeworld. It has a great campaign, no doubt about that. However storyline and campaign are not interdependent.

And now to the same old ripoff complain :-

1. "It at least needs to be better than the source material" -- how can you compare them as they are different mediums. Most of the story contained in games like Starcraft and Warcraft comes from the written material rather than the game itself. It's comparable in that aspect.

2. How long did it took for Warhammer franchise to expand and really separate itself from other franchise ?
A few years. It was established long before Starcraft came out though (as it's an old series). Starcraft was originally supposed to be a Warhammer game but Games Workshop didn't want to license the rights to Blizzard.

3. Finally , you easily take most games and show how it copied from sources as muc has Starcraft did with Warhammer.
Of course you can. Maybe not to the same extent, but if the majority of games copy things like story and characters, what makes this one so special in that regard since it's just like the rest of them?The original quote was in regards to story, not gameplay. Keep that in mind.

I do agree their games are not deep but they are not that shallow either when compared to games like CnC 3 or RA 3 -- I would way it is much better. Same with story -- much more original than these game or most other RTS atleast
Depth-wise (at entry level) I would agree. Story-wise? I guess it's better than a lot of RTS. It doesn't make the story particularly impressive as a whole though. I would never define that as a selling point for the game, especially compared to RPGs where there's a thing called dynamic character development.

naval

Because RTS on consoles just isn't right.

[QUOTE="dc337"]

You mean not as bad as all these established game developers make it out to be, according to anonymous internet posters.

washd123

its only bad depending on how you look at it.

if you look at every pirated copy as a lost sale then yeah its horrible

I don't think it is a coincidence that the best selling pc games of the last 5 years have been:

1. Casual

2. Designed around online play

I agree with iD, Epic, Blizzard and Crytek that single player pc games are hurt by piracy. It's too easy to pirate them and as the guy from Epic pointed out the people who know how to build their own pc also know how to pirate the games.

Aren't they afraid of piracy?The other two C&C salled a lot of copies on the consoles.EA will definetly win a lot more money releasing it multiplatform.

Why do you think they want to keep it exclusive(at least for now)?

AnonymusEU

[QUOTE="Phoenix534"]

Truely, I think StarCraft is the most overrated RTS out there. Everyone is always talking about balancing and everything, but it's not like it was the first to have good balancing. And it felt very dull to me. What I really want, is Sins of a Solar Empire II. Now that was revolutionary.

Mograine

It doesn't have "good" balancing. It has Perfect balancing. Yep, Perfect with a capital P. And that's only talking about the multiplayer melee. It also has a easy to use yet very powerful editor (the list of maps and games made on Starcraft is countless), an extremely underestimated storyline with characters that easily crush whole clusters of modern RPGs.

If anything, it is among the most underrated games out there imo.

But the balance is all that makes starcraft so special. Theres not much depth to gameplay when compared to DoW or WC3, granted they came after starcraft.

Aren't they afraid of piracy?The other two C&C salled a lot of copies on the consoles.EA will definetly win a lot more money releasing it multiplatform.

Why do you think they want to keep it exclusive(at least for now)?

AnonymusEU

people still find C&C relevant? Hasn't been good since Yuri's Revenge IMO..DeadMagazines

Fixed. I've liked every C&C game so far, even Red Alert 3

I understand what you're saying, but there is no truly rational way to speak about piracy when money is being lost. Sure it might sound petty in the case of COD4, but IW didn't put in all the time and effort just to have thousands of people steal it. For the developers and publishers piracy is irrational. Think of it from their perspective, but try not to look too hard at your bank account, and try to see through their eyes these games being stolen that you just worked so hard to make.NightmareCV

there no money lost though is the thing. you cant lose potential money.

i understand its annoying but its become a fact of life. its not worth getting depressed over especially if you end up with one of the best selling games of all time.

which is my point.

wtf does it matter if your game wa spirated 15m times if you still sold 3m copies and made a $40m PROFIT.

sure if piracy didnt exist you would sell more no ones saying you wounldnt.

its a matter of how much more. i highly doubt its as drastic as developers **** about. for instance crysis would not have sold 12-15m copies if it was pirated as what crytek claimed.

but piracy doesnt stop good games from selling well is the bottom line.

No one has ever claimed that every pirated copy represents a lost sale. No one.

However it is hard to believe that piracy doesn't affect sales when a lot of people that pirate can obviously afford the games. Go to a LAN event if you would like to see this for yourself. The fact that games that require a gaming pc get pirated says enough.

People pirate because they don't want to pay for the games. Piracy is a problem and in some parts of Asia pc games can't be sold because piracy rates are too high. There isn't enough of a paying market to support them.

At the very least piracy makes the pc platform look bad because most of the people that will play your game won't be paying for it. Not everyone wants to work hard on something to have it stolen by a majority.

You can tell me that pc piracy it isn't bad all you want but your opinion as an anonymous internet poster means a lot less to me than someone who actually produces games.

I don't think it is a coincidence that the best selling pc games of the last 5 years have been:

1. Casual

2. Designed around online play

I agree with iD, Epic, Blizzard and Crytek that single player pc games are hurt by piracy. It's too easy to pirate them and as the guy from Epic pointed out the people who know how to build their own pc also know how to pirate the games.

dc337

lol they lose credibility when they make stupid claims as i said.

cryteks claim that if it were on the consoles it would sell 15m copies lost them credibility. theres no game on the consoles that has sold that well let alone a game like crysis,

Epic lost credibilty when they tried blaming piracy for poor UT3 sales when many other factors applied like the fact that it was a **** game.

bottom line is good games sell well regardless of piracy. its doesnt 'hurt' single player games.

in a perfect world no on would pirate developers would get their due.

those may be the best selling games but that doesnt mean other games dont sell very very well like crysis STALKER and sins none of which are multiplayer or casual.

[QUOTE="naval"]

huh ? generic plot -- I would be hard pressed to find a better sp campaign in a RTS except maybe homeworld. It has a great campaign, no doubt about that. However storyline and campaign are not interdependent.

I would never say the story is anything amazing., it excellently presented and this make makes story exciting.

And now to the same old ripoff complain :-

1. "It at least needs to be better than the source material" -- how can you compare them as they are different mediums. Most of the story contained in games like Starcraft and Warcraft comes from the written material rather than the game itself. It's comparable in that aspect.

I was taking how a comparison of quality can be done ? Games are judged on diffent criteria than other mediums and here story is not always the main factor in a game more so in a Strategy game. A game can be good game without a good story. Hence the question - how do you say in this case the source is of higher quality .

2. How long did it took for Warhammer franchise to expand and really separate itself from other franchise ?
A few years. It was established long before Starcraft came out though (as it's an old series). Starcraft was originally supposed to be a Warhammer game but Games Workshop didn't want to license the rights to Blizzard.

My point was it took warhammer few years to devolop and establish their own unique identity. We should give starcraft games atleast the same amount time gamewise

3. Finally , you easily take most games and show how it copied from sources as muc has Starcraft did with Warhammer.
Of course you can. Maybe not to the same extent, but if the majority of games copy things like story and characters, what makes this one so special in that regard since it's just like the rest of them?The original quote was in regards to story, not gameplay. Keep that in mind.

I do agree their games are not deep but they are not that shallow either when compared to games like CnC 3 or RA 3 -- I would way it is much better. Same with story -- much more original than these game or most other RTS atleast
Depth-wise (at entry level) I would agree. Story-wise? I guess it's better than a lot of RTS. It doesn't make the story particularly impressive as a whole though. I would never define that as a selling point for the game, especially compared to RPGs where there's a thing called dynamic character development.

Generally I would say strategy games are pretty difficult genre to tell a story for a variety of reasons. In Strategy for example you spend so much time doing basic stuff like getting resources , building stuff , gathering armies that story takes a backseat. you should not disturb the flow by having a cutscnene etc like in RPGs. while the story may not be the selling point , the sp campaign if it has a story that holds your interest, a well devoloped mission structure, a proper variety etc is a definite big plus for the game.As far as just the story goes in Starcraft ---- average but well presented, It would still put it at the same level as games like Hl 2, Mass Effetc etc (both of which had average , generic but well presented stories) and certainly better than rpgs like Fallout 3 or Mass effect

Saturos3091

[QUOTE="NightmareCV"] I understand what you're saying, but there is no truly rational way to speak about piracy when money is being lost. Sure it might sound petty in the case of COD4, but IW didn't put in all the time and effort just to have thousands of people steal it. For the developers and publishers piracy is irrational. Think of it from their perspective, but try not to look too hard at your bank account, and try to see through their eyes these games being stolen that you just worked so hard to make.jeffwulf

but piracy doesnt stop good games from selling well is the bottom line.

washd123

Piracy has killed off software markets in some parts of Asia. You suggestion of "just sell millions" doesn't work there. Too many people pirate, not enough people pay. At some point piracy rates get high enough to chase off developers.

The industry is currently reacting to pc piracy by investing more into casual titles, multiplats and games designed around online play. Hope you like mmorpgs and The Sims because that is where the profits are when it comes to pc exclusives.

Single player pc games are too vulnerable to piracy and "just sell millions" is an unrealistic strategy but more importantly far more risky than making a multiplat or Sims expansion pack.

dc337

anything is more risky than selling something from the sims or WoW thats a bit of a loaded statement. those games of course will sell millions no matter what. that doesnt make it any more risky to try anything else. thats like saying its risky to put out a game on the consoles that doesnt have the word halo on it.

and so what if it has killed off the asian market?

bottom line and i couldnt make this any clearer

good games sell regardless of how much theyre pirated

they will make a profit.

look at crysis with it making at the very least a profit of $40m its a single player game that was pirated to hell and back. youre going to tell me that was a risky investment?

look at STALKER and its 1m sales another single player game that sold

look at the witcher

look at sins of a solar empire

all pc exclusives

all sold very well for a single gaming platform

all were pirated

youre going to try and tell me those were risky investments?

sure they didnt sell as well as they could have without piracy. but whats the point of lamenting potential sales when the games are selling and making a significant profit?

and so what if it has killed off the asian market?

bottom line and i couldnt make this any clearer

good games sell regardless of how much theyre pirated

they will make a profit.

washd123

look at crysis with it making at the very least a profit of $40m its a single player game that was pirated to hell and back. youre going to tell me that was a risky investment?
washd123

Piracy affects the bottom line and if piracy rates gets high enough the market can collapse. You shouldn't be so dismissive of piracy and the effect it has on the industry.

We don't know how much they profited but of course it was a risky investment. Given that it didn't sell as well as they expected they probably wouldn't have taken the same risk. They probably would have built it for multiplats just like they are doing with Crysis 2.

High end, single player pc games don't sell as well as they used to which makes them a risky investment compared to online-only games, multiplats and exclusives that target a wider audience. To believe that piracy is not a major part of this trend is naive.

Your own solution of "just sell millions" is a much greater risk than targeting multiplats or making a low budget casual game. Again I think it is funny how you believe that Blizzard, the company with most profitable pc gaming franchise is wrong about piracy. They make huge profits with warcraft and have stated that they avoid the pc piracy problem by focusing on multiplayer. But according to you the problem doesn't actually exist right?dc337

first off when did i ever say the solution was to just sell millions? theres no real solution to piracy

second i didnt dimiss piracy. its simply not as bad as developers lead people to believe. im not basing this on anything other than facts such as sales data

this is where i arrived at the $40 profit

crysis was $20m to develop. it sold at least 2m. the numbers are between 2-3m copies. so ill put it at 2m. lets assume 1m bought it at $50 and 1m at $40. thats $90m sales. now even if only half that goes to crytek as raw profit. after development costs thats still at least $20m profit.

crytek expected it to sell about 15m copies which is unrealistic on any platform regardless of piracy. so theyre just being unrealistic.

and again how was it a risky investment? time and time again its proven good pc games sell regardless of piracy. crysis is the best example. crytek spent too much time worrying about potential sales instead of the sales they got. they obviously had enough money to make crysis 2 and open a new studio.

and again ANYTHING is a risky investment compared to multiplayer and multiplats and exclusives that target a wider audience. no duh. the bigger the market the less risk.

doesnt mean that single player games are risky. well i should say good SP games

i still dont see where i said selling millions was a solution in comparison.

and i never said it didnt exist. it doesnt exist as a crisis as people and some developers believe. the facts simply are not there

[QUOTE="dc337"]

Piracy affects the bottom line and if piracy rates gets high enough the market can collapse. You shouldn't be so dismissive of piracy and the effect it has on the industry.

We don't know how much they profited but of course it was a risky investment. Given that it didn't sell as well as they expected they probably wouldn't have taken the same risk. They probably would have built it for multiplats just like they are doing with Crysis 2.

High end, single player pc games don't sell as well as they used to which makes them a risky investment compared to online-only games, multiplats and exclusives that target a wider audience. To believe that piracy is not a major part of this trend is naive.

Your own solution of "just sell millions" is a much greater risk than targeting multiplats or making a low budget casual game. Again I think it is funny how you believe that Blizzard, the company with most profitable pc gaming franchise is wrong about piracy. They make huge profits with warcraft and have stated that they avoid the pc piracy problem by focusing on multiplayer. But according to you the problem doesn't actually exist right?washd123

first off when did i ever say the solution was to just sell millions? theres no real solution to piracy

second i didnt dimiss piracy. its simply not as bad as developers lead people to believe. im not basing this on anything other than facts such as sales data

this is where i arrived at the $40 profit

crysis was $20m to develop. it sold at least 2m. the numbers are between 2-3m copies. so ill put it at 2m. lets assume 1m bought it at $50 and 1m at $40. thats $90m sales. now even if only half that goes to crytek as raw profit. after development costs thats still at least $20m profit.

crytek expected it to sell about 15m copies which is unrealistic on any platform regardless of piracy. so theyre just being unrealistic.

I can't believe they truly believed it'd sell 15m copies. (probably wasn't the actual number)Thats just ignorance. The piracy excuse, most likely is just something they said as an explanation to move into the console space.

Although it wont sell well (no pc game does really) , RTS's are impossible to make on consoles.

[QUOTE="jeffwulf"][QUOTE="NightmareCV"] I understand what you're saying, but there is no truly rational way to speak about piracy when money is being lost. Sure it might sound petty in the case of COD4, but IW didn't put in all the time and effort just to have thousands of people steal it. For the developers and publishers piracy is irrational. Think of it from their perspective, but try not to look too hard at your bank account, and try to see through their eyes these games being stolen that you just worked so hard to make.dc337

You're not taking anything, you're copying... hence what the guy above you said.

[QUOTE="washd123"]

but piracy doesnt stop good games from selling well is the bottom line.

dc337

From what I've heard, piracy made the software world go round.

and again how was it a risky investment? time and time again its proven good pc games sell regardless of piracy. crysis is the best example. crytek spent too much time worrying about potential sales instead of the sales they got. they obviously had enough money to make crysis 2 and open a new studio.

and again ANYTHING is a risky investment compared to multiplayer and multiplats and exclusives that target a wider audience. no duh. the bigger the market the less risk.

doesnt mean that single player games are risky. well i should say good SP games

washd123

From what I've heard, piracy made the software world go round.

Bebi_vegeta

*reads thread title*

Why this suddenly went to a piracy discussion is beyond me.

The bottom line is even with high piracy rates PC exclusives still manage to stay alive even without first party support. Sure we lose devs but everyone is going multiplat these days unless they have an established ip.

investing more into casual titles, multiplats and games designed around online play.

dc337

Single player pc games are too vulnerable to piracy and "just sell millions" is an unrealistic strategy but more importantly far more risky than making a multiplat or Sims expansion pack.

dc337

However the PC has a huge advantage.

Far lower costs, wider demographics and market, as well as - of course distribution.

Popular too.

look at STALKER and its 1m sales another single player game that sold

l

washd123

TO be honest.....the current market for PCgames is very SP-centered. Aside from MMORPGs there aren't that many MP-centric PC only games being made anymore.

SP games simply sell more on avarage than MP ones. Only the few biggest MP franchises can get good sales

damn, i loved playing red alert3 on my ps3, i was expecting from now on the C&C titles will come to ps3, bummer :(

Well I'm glad you acknowledge at least that single player pc games are a greater risk than multiplayer because it hasn't always been this way. Piracy has changed the market by making single player games a riskier investment.

You say that good single player games aren't a risk but when investing into a game there is no way of knowing if it will be a top seller. Investors (Publishers) can't look into the future.

They can however look at the market and see how multiplayer and casual games are a much safer risk. If piracy wasn't eating into single player sales the risk difference between multi and single player pc games would insignificant. Piracy is causing enough damage to change the types of games that developers make so I don't see why you are so dismissive of developers that cite it as a problem.

dc337

good as in give players what they want and make something that you put your heart and soul into. make it for the pc first.

and making a multiplayer only game is just as risky i have no idea what youre talking about. how well do MMOs without the word Warcraft sell?

how well do multiplayer games that arent CS or battlefield sell?

they may not be pirated as much but they certainly dont sell as much either.

single player games as shown time and time and time again are still just as big as everything else if not bigger and hardly a 'risky' investment.

it doesnt have to be a top seller to make a profit.

causal games are a safer bet not multiplayer games. and again thats loaded. just because theyre safer doesnt make single player games risky.

and single player games outsell multiplayer games what are you talking about.

and i dont care about what developers say because the facts are on my side. most of them are simply complaining about potential sales. not weak sales due to piracy. theres a difference.

if piracy was a problem we wouldnt see games like crysis sell at all. STALKER and sins certainly wouldnt sell.

so its obviously not a problem as developers would have us believe. its more of a moral issue right now. its a **** move to pull to pirate a game for any reason. the developers work hard and derserve to be payed for their work.

but theres no evidence that piracy affects sales in any significant manner

[QUOTE="chaplainDMK"]

It'll have a campaign to end the Tiberium Saga. But it'll focus mostly on multiplayer. And TC obviously has no idea what he's talking about when his first sentence is "Aren't they afraid of piracy?" Command & Conquer started on PC, and PC games aren't pirated as much as the industry leads you to believe. EA is being smart on this. Consoles are hard to make good RTSs for, and they know that piracy won't be a problem.

Phoenix534

Actualy it sold two million :) More than Crysis or UT3. I don't see GSC complaining.

TO be honest.....the current market for PCgames is very SP-centered. Aside from MMORPGs there aren't that many MP-centric PC only games being made anymore.

SP games simply sell more on avarage than MP ones. Only the few biggest MP franchises can get good sales

AdrianWerner

That's likely less that Crysis! I don't know what happened to UT3's sales (especially after all of these $9.99 sales), but they were about 30% behind Crysis out the gate. People heard about the 60k-80k initial sales of Crysis, didn't realize that was about right on target, and then nobody listened when Crytek mentioned they had passed 1m sales about 3 months later, with the game still largely at full price. Crossing 1 million happened a year and a half ago at this point.

[QUOTE="Bebi_vegeta"]

From what I've heard, piracy made the software world go round.

dc337

And the word gets around how this product is good or not... makes perfect sense.

http://evernerve.com/2008/01/09/software-piracy-is-good-for-you-and-for-bill-gates/

http://www.methylblue.com/blog/software-piracy-not-always-bad/

[QUOTE="dc337"]

[QUOTE="Bebi_vegeta"]

From what I've heard, piracy made the software world go round.

Bebi_vegeta

And the word gets around how this product is good or not... makes perfect sense.

[QUOTE="Bebi_vegeta"]

[QUOTE="dc337"] That doesn't even make any sense. Software is a product that needs buyers to support future investments. It isn't made magically.

Makari

And the word gets around how this product is good or not... makes perfect sense.

Here read this...

http://evernerve.com/2008/01/09/software-piracy-is-good-for-you-and-for-bill-gates/

[QUOTE="Makari"][QUOTE="Bebi_vegeta"]

And the word gets around how this product is good or not... makes perfect sense.

Bebi_vegeta

Here read this...

http://evernerve.com/2008/01/09/software-piracy-is-good-for-you-and-for-bill-gates/