Command and Conquer 4

Last week it was reported that Electronic Arts Los Angeles' Real-Time Strategy team was facing the axe, we analyse their contribution to the genre.

EALA had very special beginnings. Westwood had developed itself as the father of typical RTS principles. Dune 2 (1992), Red Alert (1996) and Red Alert 2 (2001) all played a critical role in the development of the genre, albeit for different reasons. When Electronic Arts acquired Westwood Studios and its intellectual property, it inherited the responsibility for the legacy and future development of the genre.

Perhaps this was the most tragic event of the entire saga, an independent developer with the credentials of Westwood was always going to be better positioned to carry RTS games forward (than a conglomerate at the mercy of shareholders). We cannot be ignorant of EALA's requirement to generate revenues year after year. Under Vivendi, Blizzard have been entitled the development phases necessary to complete an RTS game, Electronic Arts has never granted EALA the same freedoms. EALA only ever existed to make a "quick buck" each year, and in the end it was their major shortcoming.

Ownership of Command and Conquer, video game rights to Tolkien and a big budget, EALA was destined to produce blockbuster games, but which of their major titles managed to create a legacy for itself as making a progressive contribution to the RTS genre? One may argue that it was indeed the last game Westwood played a role in producing, Command & Conquer: Generals (2003) which is the most significant of EA's RTS titles. Generals was not a Dune 2 or a Starcraft (1998), it can never be held amongst the great influential titles of the genre, however it just may be the only whole example of non-regressive thinking amongst EALA's titles.

The release of Generals and the formation of EALA occurred amidst a shift in the genre – a move away from the principles established in the mid-90s. Starcraft and Red Alert 2 showed that RTS games can and will be played repetitively online, the former remains as the industry benchmark. A more subtle shift was also underway. Relic entered the mass market with Dawn of War (2004) and it became apparent that a game's success wasn't necessarily attributed to how well it adhered to the early concepts established by Westwood and Blizzard. EALA either misunderstood the significance of these changes or was ignorant to them.

EALA had risen to the top before it released full game, the rise occurred before its inception, in the genre, in Westwood. EALA inherited one of the most powerful brands in the industry, and a development team with a proven track record. In many aspects, it was virtually impossible for EALA to surpass the achievements of the previous decade. Many would believe however that EALA held a responsibility to the supporters of RTS to keep a high standard, and to keep the genre profitable.

Battle for Middle Earth (2004), Battle for Middle Earth II (2006) and its expansion, Rise of the Witch King (2006) were the products of EALA's foray into the works of Tolkien. This series of games performed well and were a success, even if it were only for their assessment of the Middle-Earth realm rather than exemplary gameplay.

One could easily ridicule this trilogy for its bewildering game mechanics and rough edges, but at least this shows that EALA was willing to experiment with change and create two games distinctly unique from the rest of the genre. The use of hero units was a response to their success in previous games (namely Warcraft III (2002) ); although their flexible integration was in homage to the characters, rather than ensuring a seamless relationship with the gameplay. Large squads featuring a variety of individual upgrades were a key feature of both games, and such implementation is now the norm in the genre. EALA's eagerness to deviate from a set framework – building limitations, "build your own" economy and a rock-hard counter system were unconventional, but refreshing.

These simple releases were undoubtedly great performers for EALA as they introduced a whole new group of gamers into the genre and provided the studio with a foundation to develop bigger, better games. The BfME series may not be remembered for a cutting edge competitive scene or substantial replayability, but these (major) flaws aside, the games delivered for EALA and many fans.

EALA’s next pursuit was indeed the title it was destined to produce. For fans of the unique setting, Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars (2007) was a long awaited sequel with many holding out hope that it would go back to the basics they worshipped. For fans of Real-Time Strategy, C&C3 would be a signal for where the future in the genre lies. C&C3 was always going to be a traditional RTS title, but the true test would be whether or not those fundamentals could be translated into highly competitive, selective and sustainable game.

Command and Conquer 3 became a victim of EA's "money will solve everything approach". With a lavish budget, EALA's marketing strategy betrayed the game itself. Under hard budget constraints, a developer knows it must produce a quality game in order to ship copies. EALA believed that it could sell any game, providing sufficient cash is diverted to making marketing coups. A wide spread of C-Grade actors were acquired for filming of live sequences – at a large cost. Terms such as "RTS as a Sport" were being thrown around without actually understanding them, and a cheque may have been sent to the administrators of World Cyber Games (WCG) to guarantee C&C3's acceptance, prior to C&C3 being released.

With all the hallmarks of a blockbuster game, C&C3 hit the shelves. Customers would range from those keen to see the continuation of the tiberium mythology to the competitive gamers who held hope that EALA had just produced a game worthy of their talents. C&C3 promised the world and achieved little. Fans of fiction will agree that the game was solid without being overwhelming; however the key failure would be in the market which truly mattered. C&C3 maintained a strong competitive community as players chased cash and glory in Seattle, but the lure of prizes slowly dissipated and the desire soon followed. EALA failed in what may have been its only opportunity to prove to the public that it can produce a durable product.

Command and Conquer 3: Kane's Wrath (2008) was a continuation of the dreams Tiberium Wars aspired to, or was it? In many senses Kane's Wrath was history repeating itself, an unsustainable game pushed beyond its equilibrium by marketing dollars. Red Alert 3 (2008) had already been announced prior to the release of Kane's Wrath. As an expansion of Tiberium Wars, Kane's Wrath was confined to the foundations established by its predecessor. Nothing about Kane's Wrath was ever going to be ground breaking, and as expected, nothing was.

By EALA's standards, Red Alert 3 achieved mediocre sales, unflattering to the size of its budget. Bad choices surrounding Red Alert 3 can be directly linked to the unraveling we have witnessed this week.

Red Alert 3 should never have been EALA's next title. Whilst the name Command and Conquer continues to hold significance in the industry, its selling power was overestimated. Red Alert 3 was the 3rd Command and Conquer title released in an 18 month period, and even fans of the series had a right to feel saturated. But it's the non-C&C followers where the additional release may have hurt. C&C has its detractors too; many gamers don't desire the science-fiction setting nor the antiquated gameplay. None of these people were ever going to purchase a Command and Conquer game so soon after the release of Tiberium Wars.

Command and Conquer was a trusted name so EALA stuck by it, but with the name it is also obliged to stick by its trusted formula. The formula which worked to an extent in Tiberium Wars was never going to succeed again just over a year later. Fans of the C&C narrative have been diminishing over time since Westwood's classics, yet EA continued to make budget choices which centered on the appeasement of this segment. Again bucks were thrown towards a film crew, again the gameplay centered on a stale formula, but this time the fans didn't oblige.

By no means was Red Alert 3 a sub-par game, but it wasn't extraordinary either, which was never going to be enough. In a time where people had grown away from the Dune 2 model, only a stunning game could match the success expected by RA3's budget.

Developing Real-Time games primarily for the PC is a cut-throat industry. In recent years we have seen Massive, Ensemble, BHG vanish and Petroglyph recede. Only a few developers of any significance remain – Blizzard, EALA, Relic and perhaps Gas Powered Games. With the success of Heroes of Newerth, S2 Games may join them.

Of all the real-time PC titles released by the above developers since 2003, EALA accounts for one quarter. There is no doubt that EALA has made a great contribution to the genre through the sheer amount of games it has released. In all its productions however, EALA has only ever attempted to achieve short term goals. In none of its work is there clear evidence that it was expanding the horizons of the genre or producing a game which would last the ages.

What occurred last week shows that big budgets, big demands and backward thinking are not a cocktail for success. If the employees and team at EALA were enabled the freedom to produce a strong RTS game, things may have ended up differently. Big marketing budgets and short development cycles have proven to be an unsustainable way of developing RTS games.

Electronic Arts Los Angeles RTS Development Team (2003 - )

• Command & Conquer: Generals (2003)*
  
• Command & Conquer: Generals – Zero Hour (2003)
  
• The Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth (2004)
  
• The Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth II (2006)
  
• The Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth II: The Rise of the Witch-king (2006)^
  
• Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars (2007)
  
• Command & Conquer 3: Kane's Wrath (2008)^
  
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 (2008)
  
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 – Uprising (2009)
  
• Command & Conquer 4: Tiberium Twilight (2010)

*Developed by EA Pacific
^Developed in collaboration with BreakAway Games


Command and Conquer 4 will be released in 2010. Whether or not the end product is affected by the job cuts we can never be sure. C&C4 may end up as the game EALA released three years too late. However, its selling capacity may be hindered by the uncertainty surrounding the studio's future, and again, by the Command & Conquer name. A fresh new franchise with fresh ideas was the product EALA needed to produce in 2007-2008.

The people in charge of EALA's direction were clearly ignorant to the changing market, or too naïve to think that their budget could overcome any hurdles they faced. There is no doubt EALA produced some satisfactory, and some excellent games. But the quality of the games in a diminishing market could not meet the revenue demands set as a result of frivolous, unnecessary spending.

Electronic Arts are responsible for the slide, because they imposed targets on an RTS Studio which were unsustainable if not unattainable. EALA management are responsible because of their poor decision making. The management should have seen the changing market and should have focused on developing outstanding games at a fraction of the cost, not on strategies which could make mediocre products more marketable. The EALA staff who worked on the game development and produced games to the best of their abilities cannot be held accountable for the actions of their superiors. Unfortunately, as often is the case, it is the employees who will suffer from decisions made beyond their control.

This is very sad EALA has very good talent there in their design teams, programming teams, development teams period, but always were overshadowed by the dolla dolla bill sign and releasing things fast fast fast.

Pretty hard to produce the quality you want when the big guy upstairs is telling you to finish it to sell sell sell, even if it is not done, among other things.

Some... ideas in this post... Basically you've used a heavy lexicon without proofing your sentences for tense so its heavy for the casual person to read and frequently undermines itself for those with a grasp on grammar. This article seems to be a cumulative, highly selective bashing of EA management, which is fine and highly deserved but not an overly critical piece. Seems you just took the headline 'EALA under review' and decided on a trip down memory lane.

EALA may well be under review but as of last week EA laid off over 1500 people, cutting Mythic, the teams behind NFS, The Sims and a horde of others who have performed moderately. So EALA isn't alone, nor are they getting the worst of it. Do you know where all that money went from all the axing? Facebook casual gaming - EA bought up Playfish for 300 million that same week. EA is basically buying IP, burning the studios and transfering their assets into digital distribution, Bioware, Battlefield and the casual market - now that is the real story, EA is no longer focusing on the retail gaming market.

EA has gone from a billion dollar juggernaut to a 700 million dollar revenue machine and racked up 300 million in losses this year up from the 30 million loss last year and you wonder why they are having a house fire.

EALA was not the continuation of the Westwood legacy, it was the transfer of IP, designed to milk an established brand until it was no longer profitable (hence the split that formed Petroglyph as a counter culture). The idea was compete through volume rather than quality to maximise profit and that time is now over, EA is moving on leaving the smoldering ruins. EALA's big contribution was Generals and Zero Hour to the RTS genre, the rest were rehashes of proven concepts with flashy budgets and a legacy of massive internal corruption ordeal. Hell CnC4 is taking a similar marketing approach, while the game is a clone of what DoW2 was trying to do - tap the casual market to expand the cancerous wasteland that is RTS - their big new idea is to copy the Relic model (which they will do in a half arsed manner). I do not mourn the loss of EALA.

Heroes of New Earth is not an RTS, its one of a handful of new Dota clones pushing the legacy of a new genre which hasn't even been quantified yet. It shares aspects of an RTS but it also draws heavily from MMO's/RPG's/competitive FPS.

BFME2 was a good game, but trapped in an aging engine that should have been updated or replaced.

RA3--in the end the gameplay was bland and uninspired. The movies were okay a first but quickly got old. I got halfway through the single-player missions before getting bored from the same-ness of missions, then watched some replays, was unimpressed with multiplayer and erased it. Again, the engine seemed rather old.

I don't know why I only played BFME1 for about a half hour. Maybe it wasn't working well on my machine, or maybe there was something disagreeable about the interface. Don't remember, but I couldn't wait to get that uninstalled.

So that's my exposure to EALA. I love RTSs and bought many of the releases since 2003, but just those three from EALA. My experience with them hasn't been the best. Maybe it is good they are moving on. I wish the best for those losing their jobs. Hopefully they will find better management so their talents can be better applied.

The RTS genre as we know it is dead... Most games these days are RTS/RTT hybrids and "RTS" games were already highly tactical rather than strategical and now Action/3PS making an influence. TA/SupCom are the only ever true RTS'es if you take it literally. Next year Starcraft 2 and SupCom 2 (if they are both released in 2010) will be the only RTS games released and may be the last major RTS games ever released.

That is sort of the purpose of the article, to make people aware that one of the only developers of RTS games we can relate to is about to disappear, which was in part because of their insistence on 10 year old formulas.

I can't agree on RTS being a dead genre. And I also can't agree on old formulas dying on them either, not when SC1, a game dated graphically, in term of UI and just about everything else is still being play as much as it is and is the biggest flippin' e-sport ever.

I think with some modifications, the C&C formula would have been successful, but it seems EA took a blow torch to the C&C franchise. It's a joke now. It's a laughing stock in RTS and in gaming in general. It's also a shame.

I really think Starcraft 2 is going to wipe the floor here. This is Blizzard's moment to shine. It's like the dominoes keep falling in their favor, game after game: Now that the RTS market is trash, support for the games are trash, too many sequels too fast (which is also trash), balance is trash, trash is trash, Blizzard is going to release Starcraft 2 with:

-No revolutionary features
-Not top of the line graphics
-A sci-fi motif where big guys have big guns against big aliens
-The same UI as 10 years ago (with improvements)

But they are also giving:
-A presentation more slick than a banana peel on ice
-More support than a training bra
-Gameplay as smooth as silk and flour

Let's face it, Starcraft 2 isn't bringing anything really new to the table except polish and new Starcraft toys. You have Terran, Protoss and Zerg. You have melee units, ranged, flying, casting, artillery, etc... it's all the same. What they are bringing is a reliable experience and that's something gamers are truly having a hard time finding these days. Blizzard isn't writing their own success anymore than their competition is failing in front of them making them look that much more golden. Blizzard simply takes a genuine look at the franchise, what made it good, the fans, what they like and then proceed to take their time making the game making sure it's right while ensuring the right amount of vacation time for each employee. Then they ensure post release support is everything it should be.

Bam. Check in 10 years later and see their fan base doubling and people drooling over SC3 screens. Amazing how far quality actually goes. Blizzard could probably make a Tic Tac Toe game and sell it, create a fan base and then actually get fan art for it.

This post has been edited by Flopjack: Nov 16 2009, 08:48 AM

What I am wondering though, is weather (sp?) the continuous delay of the SC2 release isn't going to kill off a lot of casual players in the long run.

But what other developers are out there spending 5 years on one title? Unless you're making a Starcraft 2 then you're not making a game good enough for your big budget. Old RTS games are fine, but make them impeccable, which EALA game was flawless? What independent developers are able to go to their financiers and say "ok we are going to make a game and there's a 90% chance of it being legendary, but it will take 5 years and a lot of cash". The big fish are the only ones capable, and EA management denied EALA that opportunity. Maybe Relic will try making an RTS game over a long cycle, but they have found a winning formula for now.

The brutal, honest....

truth.

If only EA used more Tiberium focused economic mechanics, maybe I would bought another EA title.
c'est la vie.

In my opinion this article was very well written. 10 / 10 for concepts.

Great article. And I agree with Avilo-EALA had promise, but the guys in the suits threw the good ol' monkey wrench in too many times.

Basicly sums it all up.

Agreed, on a BF3 forum we were bashing activision for bringing out another CoD every month and appearantly EA did the same.

Blizzard is the biggest RTS producer right now, and the only two high profile RTS games coming out are SupCom and SC2.
However I don't think RTS genre is dead for several reasons. For one, if EALA actually does a good job on C&C4 we would have a cool game to compete with the above 2.
Also, if we're lucky, the remnants of Ensemble, Robot Entertainment and Bonefire Studios, may release some good RTS's in the next years.

Also, If Relic would get of their arses and start working on a Homeworld 3 or CoH 2 and then actually made them balanced, we could have some very kickass games.

So right now it doesn't look good, but It may improve in the future.

to look ahead....

when sc2 releases and does massively well I could see a massive surge of sub-par RTS's come out in the couple years after. Kind of like how WoW had 917318267318723 clones made that failed hard.
If sc2 sucks, then sure, rts is going to die.... but i can't see that happening.

I've observed that SC2 sparks a lot of people's interest-people, who have never touched RTS or have a very limited experience with it. My cousin, for example, is a hardcore CS player and he loves the Battle Reports. The casual leagues and multiplayer training scenarios featured in SC2 will make a game, that is otherwise geared towards the more hardcore players, far more appealing than titles targeting the exact above-said groups.

RTS is far from dead, folks. This is just a period of depression.

Very good article Trojan. I think that the RTS genre still has some life in it, but it has hit a plateau in recent years. Blizzard has a chance with SC2 to breath new life into it, but, from what I've seen, they have very little innovations with the actual game. Battle.net looks like the major innovation instead.

lmao@ ridiculous amount of bias in this article

Nothing but the unadorned truth. For those having played the recent C&C titles, this progress was to be predicted. Well written.