Command & Conquer: Generals 2 Part of Free to Play Series

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By Catherine Cai
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Command & Conquer is going free-to-play.

EA's seen the s

uccesses of the AAA free-to-play market and has slowly waded into the microtransactions pool to take a slice of the profit.

Just a few weeks ago, BioWare and EA announced that The Old Republic massively multiplayer online game, originally running on the monthly subscription model, would be going free-to-play up to level 50.

Now, EA is taking the beloved alternate universe, real-time strategy series Command & Conquer into the free-to-play realm as well. This isn't the first Command & Conquer to go free-to-play—Command & Conquer: Tiberium Alliances gets that credit. However, Tiberium Alliances is a browser-based game. Command & Conquer: Generals 2, the first in the series to be developed by BioWare, will be an AAA title with all the bells and whistles: Frostbite 2 engine, destructive terrain, etc.

Generals 2 won't be the only free-to-play AAA Command & Conquer to come. EA's actually got a whole series of them planned for the future.

There's no release date for Generals 2, just yet. The good news is that EA's opened up signups for the beta on the new Command & Conquer free-to-play site.

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Catherine Cai
27 Comments Comment from the forums
  • bunkgoats
    I was excited for this game, but I won't pay to win. Unfortunatly, I will pass on this title that I was antcipating.
    Reply
  • Kami3k
    :( I was so looking forward to Generals 2, along with all of my friends I played the first one with.

    All of them, like me, are no longer going to play this game. EA doesn't do F2P, they do pay 2 win and call it F2P.
    Reply
  • back_by_demand
    EA can't win, if they make a full price pay-for game and it's content sucks ass you will feel rightly P'd off
    ...
    At least with F2P if the gameplay sucks ass you know for a fact you won't pay to carry on, you will just drop it and go to the next game
    ...
    Here's an idea, how about the first couple of levels are free and if you like it you like it you can then decide to buy the full game, you know, like the shareware concept that has been floating around for over 20 FRICKEN YEARS
    Reply
  • mousseng
    I was so excited for the possibility of another GOOD CnC game (something that's yet to happen since Westwood's liquidation). And now that's basically been shattered, too: one of the things I loved the most about CnC was the single-player, which is a feature I've yet to see in a F2P game. Thanks, EA, for taking a dump on one of the best RTS franchises out there (or what's left of it, at least).
    Reply
  • xaed
    back_by_demandEA can't win, if they make a full price pay-for game and it's content sucks ass you will feel rightly P'd off...At least with F2P if the gameplay sucks ass you know for a fact you won't pay to carry on, you will just drop it and go to the next game...Here's an idea, how about the first couple of levels are free and if you like it you like it you can then decide to buy the full game, you know, like the shareware concept that has been floating around for over 20 FRICKEN YEARS
    Dude.. you just pretty much described the f2p model, contradicting yourself much?

    On that note, the mentality that f2p means a game is crappy is also "20 fricken years old," and it would do a lot of people good to consider that we're probably just entering the next step in the evolution of gaming as a whole.

    On that note, there's a crapton of free stuff that is of the highest quality, and their not limited to games; Filezilla, 7-zip, VLC player, to name a few. And with GW2 releasing next week, subscription based games might start losing some of their playerbase to a more attractive and affordable one.
    Reply
  • Kami3k
    xaedDude.. you just pretty much described the f2p model, contradicting yourself much?
    His concept is completely different F2P.

    His concept was pretty much you demo a good portion of the game, and if you find it good you buy the complete game.

    It's no wonder the rest of your comment is clueless. Especially the last sentence.
    Reply
  • boju
    Things like this make me want to give up gaming.

    Keeping older games and gone black and blue in the face getting most of them working for lan parties has kept my sanity.
    Reply
  • spartanmk2
    Making it f2p will let me and others decide if its going to be a worthwhile game to purchase all the civs/perks that would eventually equal $60 bucks EA would have undoubtedly slapped onto it because of how good the first CnC Generals was.

    Learned my lesson after buying into the hype of Diablo 3, /facepalm. Never buying another game until ive atleast tried a demo or "starter edition".
    Reply
  • back_by_demand
    Kami3kHis concept is completely different F2P. His concept was pretty much you demo a good portion of the game, and if you find it good you buy the complete game.It's no wonder the rest of your comment is clueless. Especially the last sentence.Well spotted, glad someone is paying attention, in F2P a lot of items/weapons/etc are premium and unless you buy them cannot complete a level or progress in any way, that's how they stiff you on microtransactions
    ...
    They let you hit the level, get annoyed you can't complete it and keep retrying getting more annoyed and frustrated until your ADHD kicks in and you reach for the credit card, that's when they have you and the game never ends as each new mission/level/etc has a different unique item/weapon/etc that again has you reaching for the credit card
    ...
    It would be nice if they made 2 versions of the game, a F2P and premium pay-for, the F2P has all the low-calorie, fat-free, pay-as-you-go stuff and the premium pay-for has all the content up front at install
    ...
    Not saying any one version is better as each has it's own fans, just I would like the choice and also sales on like-for-like would show what the actual consumer prefers - although it is never likely to happen as the F2P model has the potential to hose much more money than a fixed fee over time
    Reply
  • giovanni86
    What happened to demo's?!? That was once the way to test a game and justify if it was worth the full purchase or not. F2P in my book is a no go, i just feel as if i play the only incentive is to charge a ridiculous amount to play and then charge more for boosts which in reality defeats the purpose of playing the game. All F2P games i've played wasn't interested to spend more money after the initial game seemed lack luster of content. If CnC is among the fallen games which lets just toss out the whole AAA thing and just say stupid and stupid made it to try and make a grade A game and turned into a D-/F+.
    Reply