In all the recent years that have passed, we witnessed the launch of the newest additions to the Command & Conquer franchise. Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, it's expansion Kane's Wrath, Red Alert 3, it's expansion Uprising, and a new FPS-game called Tiberium, which promised to deliver a far more dynamic sight into the dark, green crystal-based universe than the first FPS, Renegade, did. But all of these weren't done by Westwood, but by it's 'sponsor', Electronic Arts, that practically merged Westwood into the fold.
In spite of the hatred of most people for EA's famous reputation for taking good hit only in sports games, they have managed to make C&C 3 a great success as Red Alert 3 nearly did as well.
Recently, however, there were also several mistakes done by this large multi-national game-development corporation concerning the Command and Conquer franchise. Two of these mistakes I would like to specifically appoint are the recent fiasco of Red Alert 3's expansion, Uprising and the cancelling of the promised FPS, Tiberium. Uprising did nothing more but just add and add more to other factions and the game itself, while Tiberium "had just too much bugs for them to handle", a context that it'd take too long for them to release. Most claim EA is incompetent and that's why these games failed to give the fun players so much wanted when they bought it. I think otherwise.
The real problem is they make about every game, not just C&C-based, under pressure and hastily, trying to overcome the old saying "Haste makes waste". It's then when the gamer has every right to complain about it. The Dutch-based Guerilla development studio has taken three years (Ever since the launch of Killzone: Liberation) just to develop Killzone 2, and thus, despite it's failure in bringing a stronger, solid story, it became a huge success for FPS addicts. In EA, for a long time, there's been the costume of announcing and developing new games in four to six months per year (That is, excluding all and every sports games they make.). But this also isn't a problem for fresh developers who want nothing but mark their fame in games, like the case of Greg Kasavin and Michael Pedriana, responsible developers for Uprising, who just didn't get the time to really understand the way of making games. Acting under pressure and hastily makes developers imitate things from other games and then forget it all, until the next critic wave, which comes stronger. Until one day, a critic Tsunami rises and wipes it all away.
Developers from EA constantly complain that schedules are "too tight", and they must wreck brains heavily for creativity under this timeline. People who formerly worked in Westwood, now stationed in the Petroglyph Studios, recognize that many of these timeline issues were made under the principles of the "longer timeline, higher cost" theory that executives from EA take to the letter. And the worst of it is that it all is EXECUTIVE decision, it can't be questioned by lower ranks, unless by unprecedented decision of all developers, which, constantly, EA executive boards refuse to listen.
Therefore, it's suggested several changes in development strategy, global conquest modes, in order to provide players both linear single-player story and dynamism started by Dawn of War: Dark Crusade. Imitating several mechanics and unit designs from Starcraft II, to prove EA is better than Blizzard? "Make up something inventive!", ask the executive board, development makes satires, mechanics, units. But of course they don't want to be checked out periodically on development, but who takes things relatively obvious from other known games isn't a developer, it's an IMITATOR.
Another thing that must end urgently is this famous mentioned discussion between development and executive boards, in which executives blame developers for 'inefficiency in development' as much as developers blame executives for 'forcing hands on more and more time records.' But it doesn't matter, for in both cases, it all comes down on the head of the independent, contributing gamer that preventively doesn't buy the game under the constant fear of EA's poor quality, thus not generating the funds EA needs for better development. Now, it's all up for EA to make either another expansion or make a Red Alert 4 too early in order to overcome the fiasco Uprising was.
But out of all things that contributed to the colossal failure of the Red Alert 3 expansion, none was more clear than the limited availability imposed by EA when they stated that it could only be arranged by buying and downloading via internet, in an attempt to fight piracy. It must be noted that this protectionist move was all for nothing, as, a few days after the launch of the game, Uprising was already available in P2P sites and Torrent downloaders and free for all gamers. Therefore, it was a worst move than releasing retail, DVD versions as not only players will never be able to enjoy the competitive multi-player action promised by EA, but also it didn't generated enough funding for EA to support it, as internet payment can only be done via credit-card. In other words, EA let down it's main source, live money made by selling original DVD, in the name of protection from piracy. A subtle, but failed move.
