What if EA...

[A-Rodge]

What if Renegade X becomes really popular? I mean, it is already getting coverage and attention from major gaming sites.

What if it makes such a splash, that it reignites EA's interest and they want to turn it into a profit?

Im thinking hypothetically, of course, but I wonder how the devs would respond if EA wanted to become involved with the future production of the game.

[cirex]

*First of all, EA would probably not have interest in an UDK project. Don't get me wrong, the UDK is free, but only as long as the game is free. EA would prefer to have developers investing time in their own engine, not a third party.

*The Renegade formula failed once. Management of EA does not like risking another failure. With the CNC4 and the Generals2 failure still fresh in our mind, they will not try anything stupid soon.

*Its free, that is why it attracts people, and off course the old diehards will join it, but these few 100-100.000 players are not the big money at all for them. They sell millions of copy-paste games like Battlefield.

However EA has a reputation to buy studios to destroy them. And I cannot disagree with the developers if they would be fine with making a million dollar deal. But hey, its EA, the last 10 year they had no interest in C&C, only money, so why should they be interested in it now?

[A-Rodge]

Those are good points. I think it was kinda cool of EA to let Totem have the non profit rights in the first place. But like you said, they totally butchered (save for a few titles) the C&C franchise, and I hope they dont try to exploit renegade x in any way.

[R315r4z0r]

Also, all likelihoods aside, if EA did want to use this game, then one of two things would have to happen:

1. EA would attempt to purchase the assets from Totem Arts.

2. EA would send a cease and desist letter to Totem Arts if they refused to sell the assets.

C&C is an EA property, so either they pay Totem Arts for their labor or they force Totem Arts to stop working on the project.

[Daedhart]

Im pretty sure Renegade X was given the go-ahead from EA on paper (which is why they arent allowed to take any money for the project, its part of a contract). If EA shut down Renegade X, they would be in breach of contract and Totem could legally sue.

Nope, at this point the power of this game is completely in the hands of Totem. But, keep in mind this is just a multiplayer recreation of a 12 year old game. Even if EA was interested, they wouldnt bother with this project; they would build a new game from scratch (that probably included at least some single player mode). And, since EA still owns the copyright on CnC, they would be well in their power. They wouldnt need to shutdown Renegade X, nor would they need to give Totem any money for it (unless they copied the code whole-sale, which they wouldnt do). If such a scenario occurred, Renegade X would remain completely untouched (aside from the marketing overshadowing of whatever product EA eventually created).

The only possibility Renegade X could be affected would be if EA lured some of the dev team to work for them. That wouldnt affect Renegade X, though, aside from maybe ending or slowing future updates.

[NodCommander]

C&C Renegade X is free advertisement for EAs games, so thats another reason they allow Totem Arts to make this project.

[DrummerX]

C&C Renegade X is free advertisement for EAs games, so thats another reason they allow Totem Arts to make this project.

Ok man, i think its time to get off the bong now.....

[RoundShades]

I would love if this game interested EA. I would love if EA had a larger team work on this game.

...but I was there when EA threw this game's sequel in the trash, quoting "it being too parallel with battlefield and not wanting competition". From then on, I hated EA, and that moment destroyed my very destiny.

...Now that I have that back, I would rather by some miracle this game make enough interest, for them to do a kickstarter, for them to buy the official rights for just this one game, for them to then make a large design team around it and give it support (also port it to a console after enough maps are in). That, I would back more than EA.

[ehh]

has ea ever been good with c&c games?

I'm sure you know the answer to that.

[RoundShades]

has ea ever been good with c&c games?

I'm sure you know the answer to that.

So far, unless anyone has any evidence otherwise...

I am inclined to believe that the development of RenegadeX, has actually done more good torwards C&C as a whole, than EA has ever done.

...even while factoring in the time it took to develop as well as the fact that players did a lot of work getting it here today compared to RenegadeX itself.

In my opinion, if C&C ever lives again, it will have more to do with RenegadeX development than EA, and it will have more to do with the C&C support community who dedicate time for these game's content which keeps it alive in play and in our hearts.

I am inclined to believe that a hill of beans in China, has done more good for C&C, than EA has. EA is like a kid who bought a 1970s Mustang, and then immediately let it run low on oil and burned the engine and always hit yellow parking lot poles and ruined the paint job and such. /Nerdrage

[Daedhart]

has ea ever been good with c&c games?

I'm sure you know the answer to that.

I am inclined to believe that a hill of beans in China, has done more good for C&C, than EA has. EA is like a kid who bought a 1970s Mustang, and then immediately let it run low on oil and burned the engine and always hit yellow parking lot poles and ruined the paint job and such. /Nerdrage

Brutal

I have no love of EA, but let me play devil's advocate for a minute.

Keep in mind that, while EA does develop (and help develop) a number of games, they are almost exclusively a publisher. And even before EA bought out Westwood, EA was one of the key publishers for Westwood. Marketing is usually left solely to the publisher, which means CnC probably would never have dominated the RTS genre when it did without EA.

This is a common thing in media creation; music, movies, even books. As distasteful as it is for me to say, developers probably wouldnt get anywhere without publishers. There are "good" publishers out there, like Valve, but they are a minority and even Valve can be a douche sometimes.

EDIT: Oh and BTW, just to be clear, I also hate EA. I played Earth and Beyond up until Sunset. Nuff said.

[A-Rodge]

As distasteful as it is for me to say, developers probably wouldnt get anywhere without publishers. There are "good" publishers out there, like Valve, but they are a minority and even Valve can be a douche sometimes.

This is true. The developer has to take a share of the blame too.

However, Valve makes an attempt to integrate the community in their works and occasionally shows us love. Whereas EA seems to prioritize their shareholders over the community.

[NodCommander]

I disagree. Developers can do just fine without publishers (Or they are the publishers themselves), and this trend is becoming stronger by each year. Just look at Minecraft, or the Arma series or for that matter, Blizzard-games.

I am inclined to believe that a hill of beans in China, has done more good for C&C, than EA has. EA is like a kid who bought a 1970s Mustang, and then immediately let it run low on oil and burned the engine and always hit yellow parking lot poles and ruined the paint job and such. /Nerdrage

I sure hate EA Games, but thats being unfair. EA might have done everything they can to ruin the storyline and lore of C&C, but they HAVE brought us more balanced RTSs than Westwood Studios ever did. If somebody seriously say that Red Alert, Tiberian Sun or Red Alert 2/Yuris Revenge were balanced games for online play, then you are extremely biased.

Where is the RTS spirit in spamming prism and mirage tanks being the only viable strategy for one side? Or scouting the entire map to basicly gain map-hacks due to the lack of fog of war?

Westwood titles were downright amazing story and campaign-wise. But when it comes to balance and online gameplay, here Generals, Tiberium Wars and Red Alert 3 were the by far superior games, despite the horrible design/asthetic-choices.

[RoundShades]

I agree that many independent developers do fine in this golden age of indie games. Squad, Mojang, Chucklefish, Uber Entertainment, Totem Arts if I may say so...

As far as EA, I am extremely biased against them. Their work to balance multiplayer RTS was better, they just went way too easy to not properly support their own freaking games. It really is like they obtain ownership of games, just to cancel them as a way to manually filter which legacies continue into the future despite playerbase backing. Some of us LIKED those games

Besides, I might be in the wrong company to say this, but I was always a bigger fan of C&C games, yet Total Annihilation's legacy was always more balanced in multiplayer (and Starcraft, but they borderline RTS in exchange for tactical RPG).

[Daedhart]

Ok, just to look at the examples given...

Mojang doesnt count because it was an enigma. Rare gems like that happen once in a while. After all, look at Half Life 2 and Steam. Steam was originally conceived mostly just as DRM, but things took an unexpected turn.

If we look directly at Steam, well...Valve has done a major shift and is more a publisher now than a game developer. Anything that used Steam cannot claim to not have had a publisher, since that is exactly the role Valve/Steam is in. This same argument can be reused with any indie distribution platform, such as XBLA or Play Store.

Kickstarter is a publisher, period. They may do things a little differently, and in most cases leave distribution to the developer, but the publisher role is still there.

And Totem Arts...well, yeah they are indie and dont have a publisher. But, can you honestly say you would care if you had never been a fan of the original Renegade? When I told my friends, who are not CnC fans, about Renegade X, they were all pretty "meh". Im sure once they play the game that they will love it, but the promotion of the game is being done almost exclusively by the fans. This is true of many other large scale mods.

Again, publishers are here to stay and are a necessary evil so long as money needs to be made for game development.

As for the balanced gameplay discussion, it is actually curious that EA bought Westwood all the way back in 1998. That means that both Tiberiun Sun and Red Alert 2 were made afterwards. These still felt like Westwood games because they were made by the same people. When new people were brought in to develop everything afterwards, they were making games that they had no mental connection to, so I dont blame them.

Just to make it clear again, I dont like EA. Im not defending them. Im merely point out that they played a large role in the CnC history. Keep in mind, though, that blame rests just as much in Westwood as EA. After all, Westwood did sell out to EA. Maybe the majority of the peeps working for Westwood didnt want to, but it happened anyway. In the end, its always about the money...

[NodCommander]

Ok, just to look at the examples given...

Mojang doesnt count because it was an enigma. Rare gems like that happen once in a while. After all, look at Half Life 2 and Steam. Steam was originally conceived mostly just as DRM, but things took an unexpected turn.

If we look directly at Steam, well...Valve has done a major shift and is more a publisher now than a game developer. Anything that used Steam cannot claim to not have had a publisher, since that is exactly the role Valve/Steam is in. This same argument can be reused with any indie distribution platform, such as XBLA or Play Store.

Kickstarter is a publisher, period. They may do things a little differently, and in most cases leave distribution to the developer, but the publisher role is still there.

And Totem Arts...well, yeah they are indie and dont have a publisher. But, can you honestly say you would care if you had never been a fan of the original Renegade? When I told my friends, who are not CnC fans, about Renegade X, they were all pretty "meh". Im sure once they play the game that they will love it, but the promotion of the game is being done almost exclusively by the fans. This is true of many other large scale mods.

Again, publishers are here to stay and are a necessary evil so long as money needs to be made for game development.

As for the balanced gameplay discussion, it is actually curious that EA bought Westwood all the way back in 1998. That means that both Tiberiun Sun and Red Alert 2 were made afterwards. These still felt like Westwood games because they were made by the same people. When new people were brought in to develop everything afterwards, they were making games that they had no mental connection to, so I dont blame them.

Just to make it clear again, I dont like EA. Im not defending them. Im merely point out that they played a large role in the CnC history. Keep in mind, though, that blame rests just as much in Westwood as EA. After all, Westwood did sell out to EA. Maybe the majority of the peeps working for Westwood didnt want to, but it happened anyway. In the end, its always about the money...

You cannot really compare having EA as a publisher to releasing your game on Steam or via a Kickstarter. EA has control over what DICE, Bioware, Maxis, etc does to very single detail. But if you want to release your game on Steam, there is no such overhead to control what you as a developer does. They wont tell you to make it free to play, or online-only. You just got to follow a basic set of rules that applies to every game released on that platform.

Every companys ways of doing thing changes every now and then. Notice that C&C only changed after Westwood Studios was closed down and what remained turned into EALA. Also take notice of the rather long silence between Renegade to C&C3. Inbetween we had Generals, yes. But that has as little as Company of Heroes to do with C&C.

Publishers as they were are becoming increasingly irrelevant. Consoles are on their possibly last generation, digital stores are doing all the marketing and sales themselves.

[RoundShades]

Publishers as they were are becoming increasingly irrelevant. Consoles are on their possibly last generation, digital stores are doing all the marketing and sales themselves.

God Bless It too. I feel the console wars will repeat history and send the game industry into a depression. Good thing this time, we have indie developers, and if that is all we have in the future, I think things will be better, not worse.

Because it is bad that games can sell just because of the name they sell it with. It really is hard to advertize this game, it being indie, having no commercials, and people not looking at it well enough. I am doing a personal campaign to get this game attention within my group, and it is luckily an easier selling point as they are all RTS familiar folk who happen to play battlefield (I hate having to compare this game to battlefield though).

People really do exactly as you mentioned. "This game is really great guys! Lets plan to play it!" "meh." That is the rough reality, even Mojang was fan pitched and advertized, but through hard work from the alpha build 1.4 players of Minecraft, it became popular. I am considering making a thread to convey the concept of player advertizement.

[Daedhart]

It really depends on your definition of a publisher. If it is to "publish", then all thats really required is advertisement (which you cant deny is the entire purpose of digital distribution platforms like Steam, or similar like Kickstarter). If it is to "distribute", then Kickstarter doesnt count. If it is to "control", you are mostly right.

In that sense, though, I wish I shared your optimism. But, with game publishing almost completely monopolized by Activision/Blizzard, EA, Ubisoft and Square Enix, Im not so optimistic. The existence of a strong indie market as being a direct and opposite reaction to mega-publisher market control is proof enough by itself, for the indie market wouldnt need exist otherwise. In other words, the indie market exists as a dipole to the mainstream market.

[fps]

What I get a little concerned about is this project moving towards micro-transactions. The concept is great and all, but I look at similar games, such as Planetside or Tribes, and you inevitably come across those big spenders who buy their way to the top. But it's a catch-22 because the team here needs to have funding to keep this project alive and even though I hope that were possible, it just rarely works. Perhaps perks to change appearance or something similar could be bought. Once you start enhancing weapons and armor via transactions, things start to get boring.

[Golde]

What if Renegade X becomes really popular? I mean, it is already getting coverage and attention from major gaming sites.

What if it makes such a splash, that it reignites EA's interest and they want to turn it into a profit?

Im thinking hypothetically, of course, but I wonder how the devs would respond if EA wanted to become involved with the future production of the game.

Speaking of this matter, I'm sure the development team would get a huge boon in both profit and budget... But the product will most definitely become biased based on how much money one's spent.

[Daedhart]

What I get a little concerned about is this project moving towards micro-transactions. The concept is great and all, but I look at similar games, such as Planetside or Tribes, and you inevitably come across those big spenders who buy their way to the top. But it's a catch-22 because the team here needs to have funding to keep this project alive and even though I hope that were possible, it just rarely works. Perhaps perks to change appearance or something similar could be bought. Once you start enhancing weapons and armor via transactions, things start to get boring.

Actually, this literally cannot happen.

Totem Arts has made an agreement with EA: as long as Totem Arts does not accept ANY money (charges, donations, et cetera), then EA will allow the project to continue. If you ask any of the developers how to donate money, they will say "nope".

[RoundShades]

What I get a little concerned about is this project moving towards micro-transactions. The concept is great and all, but I look at similar games, such as Planetside or Tribes, and you inevitably come across those big spenders who buy their way to the top. But it's a catch-22 because the team here needs to have funding to keep this project alive and even though I hope that were possible, it just rarely works. Perhaps perks to change appearance or something similar could be bought. Once you start enhancing weapons and armor via transactions, things start to get boring.

Actually, this literally cannot happen.

Totem Arts has made an agreement with EA: as long as Totem Arts does not accept ANY money (charges, donations, et cetera), then EA will allow the project to continue. If you ask any of the developers how to donate money, they will say "nope".

As a joke, they will tell you that you can feel free to donate credits in-match should you ever play on their team.

I feel it is only fair, to give them a mammoth tank, ramjet, and beacon any time they so desire. Lol. The least we can do since it was their hard work that put the mammoth tank, ramjet, and beacon into this game.

[fps]

What I get a little concerned about is this project moving towards micro-transactions. The concept is great and all, but I look at similar games, such as Planetside or Tribes, and you inevitably come across those big spenders who buy their way to the top. But it's a catch-22 because the team here needs to have funding to keep this project alive and even though I hope that were possible, it just rarely works. Perhaps perks to change appearance or something similar could be bought. Once you start enhancing weapons and armor via transactions, things start to get boring.

Actually, this literally cannot happen.

Totem Arts has made an agreement with EA: as long as Totem Arts does not accept ANY money (charges, donations, et cetera), then EA will allow the project to continue. If you ask any of the developers how to donate money, they will say "nope".

This is refreshing yet disappointing at the same time. Nice to see there won't be any "Freemeium" players out there but sad I cannot support the devs financially. Hopefully they will legally find a loophole around that cuz I'd gladly help em out.

[Daedhart]

True that, though lack of donations does not seem to discourage the devs in the slightest.

[Valor]

It sucks that we can't donate to the devs, but I'm told they all have decent jobs in the field.

Still, we can donate to the servers.

[BillieJoe67]

I'm still interested to know whether we can contribute towards the cost of hosting these forums and anything else not directly tied to the development of the game. Jam never gives a straight answer

[Daedhart]

I'm still interested to know whether we can contribute towards the cost of hosting these forums and anything else not directly tied to the development of the game. Jam never gives a straight answer

Probably doesnt want to give EA any ammunition.

[Quit77]

All i have to say is I hope EA does get involved in the making of renegade 2 (Iwantrenegade2) is my origin ID. But Im also very scared to see what they might do with it. But if they just stuck to the original formula of team a tries to blow up team b's base while team b tries to blow up team a's base they really couldn't fail......could they??

[Daedhart]

All i have to say is I hope EA does get involved in the making of renegade 2 (Iwantrenegade2) is my origin ID. But Im also very scared to see what they might do with it. But if they just stuck to the original formula of team a tries to blow up team b's base while team b tries to blow up team a's base they really couldn't fail......could they??

Red Alert: You build buildings and tanks and kill the enemy who is doing the same.

Red Alert 2: You build buildings and tanks and kill the enemy who is doing the same.

Red Alert 3: You sniff a bunch of people's butts.