What C&C F2P needs to succeed

[Alex06 39]

Fellow C&C community members and visitors,

Since the jump to the Free-to-Play business model has taken place for Generals 2, many of us have voiced our opinions, concerns and suggestions. However, I've seen many openly dispute the move to F2P for the fear of the following:

1. Not having a Single Player storyline mode/Campaign mode
2. The possible lack of an offline mode
3. The possibility of premium, hardly-affordable for the average and casual player, Pay-to-Win content
4. The possible lack of success of this game we've all been waiting for so long to play, followed by an abandoning of new content creation and perhaps the closing down of the game's servers.

While these concerns have all been heard by EA Victory and EA Games, many of you may wonder, with the information we've received, what guarantee there is of the 4th concern not eventually coming to fruition despite EA Victory's best efforts to sustain this game and prevent it from going the way of Age of Empires Online.

Thus, I come forth with this suggestion. What if there was a way to stack the odds in C&C - Free to Play's favor? Well, it seems this may be the C&C series' saving grave: A marketplace for player-created content. While I am aware of many's concerns with such an idea when it comes to a C&C game (such as the fact mod-making tools have permitted, in the past, the creation of content that was entirely free and available to all), I find it fairly rational to go this route. Blizzard's StarCraft II and Valve's Team Fortress 2 have gone the way of pushing player-created content to attract and keep a large share of players, be it casual or hardcore (competitive players & long-time fans). Allowing players to create content and sell it would not only push more creativity on the side of players, it would also allow many players to see the advantage in creating new content; rather than have it cut into their time, it would allow these content creators to make a quick buck out of something they enjoy (and likely remain motivated to create more and of better quality) while also allowing EA Victory to take a small cut out of every sold content piece to every player, allowing EA Victory to fund their game and create more content for it (DLCs could be released alongside player-made content in the marketplace, like with TF2 and SCII, some which could be free, some which could cost, those costing money having to be approved by EA). This player-made content would then give EA and DICE a fairly good reason to create and release mapping & modding tools for Frostbite 2, not to mention integrate them with Origin (and thus compete on a higher level with Valve's Steam service).

I fully believe this type of feature will allow the C&C franchise to evolve in flourish in the coming decade and compete with games like StarCraft II and Free-to-Play games, seeing as how fully-fledged RTS games like C&C have trouble attracting and keeping a large crowd of players, while other F2P games are easier to get into for many casual players.

For those who do not know much or who wish for a second opinion, viewpoint, or a more detailed account from someone who is far more knowledgeable when it comes to the gaming industry, I'm including a video by TotalHalibut/TotalBiscuit, AKA the Cynical Brit, down below. The first 7.5 minutes discuss this subject in a very detailed manner.

Additionally, here is a video of how creative and innovative developers (in this case, Gas Powered Games and Chris Taylor) can get with mod tools, and how this could revolutionize modding and mapping for games (I highly recommend watching this video, it's amazing). Scroll down to watch this video.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuGdQqUhKD4

 

So, my fellow community, what are your thoughts, comments and suggestions on this matter?

[Plok 327]

Your suggestion is creative and even seems good, but I see two issues:

This player-made content would then give EA and DICE a fairly good reason to create and release mapping & modding tools for Frostbite 2, not to mention integrate them with Origin (and thus compete on a higher level with Valve's Steam service).

1) Giving them reasons to create an SDK for a two year-old engine does not automatically make them create one. For instance, Kane's Wrath, as an expansion for C&C 3 and a game that has more content than its predecessor, does not have an official SDK (disregard WrathEd), even though they had all the more reasons to do so.

 

2) Although monetizing mods would be in the modders' favour, how do you expect anyone buy content that was (and, fortunately, still is) available for free for all other games and something that they'll probably lose after a simple system reformat unless they employ a Steam-like system (don't know how it works with Origin, please correct me if I'm wrong. Please.)

[Guest Stevie_K]

As much as I love the idea, I have a hard time imagining a solution as comprehensive as this being implemented halfway in a project. I think EA will go with a safe and "proven to work" model rather than this, even though there might be a huge opportunity to catch attention and create a solid foundation for the community to grow.

[Nmenth 291]

I do not wish to say this is a bad idea, but the idea of monetizing modding just seems very vile to me. There are enough terrible modders as it is, enticing everyone to try their hand at it with the promise of money will ruin any dignity there is in modding.

 

I really hate microtransactions, but what I hate even more is companies buying off the gamers themselves. This seems to be the new(-ish) concept, making the customers forget how greedy the company is by reminding the gamers how greedy they are.

 

I, for one, would rather play a game that is built properly, with entertainment and replay value in mind, then play a game where money is the main goal.

 

I think of the Diablo III auction house when I write this. It seems all D3 players talk about is how they are buying and selling virtual items. How revolting.

[Nyerguds 102]

Personally, I've always played games for their storyline. I just don't see much point in playing it without that. The only real exceptions to this are games where you set your own goals to accomplish, like I do in Minecraft.

[Guest Stevie_K]

The idea of being able to contribute with content being rated by other players is great. But no, I don't think it should be a direct way for the publisher to gain profit, after all they should see it as a way to gain more reputation, more content and improved content. It's basically a favor for both sides, which at least extends the game's lifetime.
If the concept is monetized, it creates a bucketload of speculation and bad reputation among it's users and those who contributes. Why, because it is a greedy move, and there are other more player friendly ways of getting the profit.