EA has open sourced a bunch of old Command & Conquer games (github.com)

submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by ampersandrew@lemmy.world to c/games@lemmy.world

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I'm not well versed in C&C, but it's always good to see more games open sourced.

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[-] simple@lemm.ee 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Extremely rare EA win

[-] Klear@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 month ago

Are they trying to become the not most hated studio? The bar is pretty low these days...

[-] TheImpressiveX@lemm.ee 2 points 1 month ago

No matter what you think of EA, this is fantastic news.

[-] ObsidianZed@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Perhaps why this feels like them trying to save face.

[-] kautau@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

This feels more like some o.g. Command and conquer devs who have worked at EA for a long time that are passionate about the franchise. There was no big PR release, no product tie in or announcement, no media campaign.

Recovering and restoring the source code for these titles was made possible through the combined efforts of EA technical director Brian Barnes, Respawn producer Jim Vessella, and Luke Feenan, a long-standing member of the C&C community who was involved in the development of the Command & Conquer Remastered Collection.

https://www.polygon.com/news/531365/command-and-conquer-open-source-code-ea

[-] VindictiveJudge@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

IIRC, a few years ago EA hired some of the original devs, put them in charge of the franchise, and then went very hands-off, but with very little budget. So far they've done this, and a very reasonably priced 4K remaster of TD and RA1.

[-] kautau@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Totally makes sense, considering the remaster was perfect. It was just “multiplayer works, we redid the sprites and audio and tweaked the engine to get rid of some of the bugs. Also hit space for original graphics” or whatever the button was. It was everything an OG C&C remaster needed IMO. I would love to see the same with some of these titles, but now that they’re open source it gives the opportunity for better fan made forks, so I’m all for it.

Edit: and forgot to mention the best part, EA didn’t force their launcher with the remaster or steam editions. They are purely steam games, which is a huge win

[-] turkalino@lemmy.yachts 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

To use the compiled binaries, you must own the game

Was expecting a catch. Still good for modding I guess

Anyone know if this is a technologically-enforced “must” or just a “pretty please”?

[-] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Open source does not mean that the intellectual property is free. There's a lot of good that comes from this, and it's not like those games are expensive.

[-] farcaster@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Open sourcing old games is awesome for video game preservation.

[-] GoOnASteamTrain@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 month ago

This is brilliant! :) aw, I hope it benefits the OpenRA developers and means more fun things to play eventually :)

Wait... this is EA... are they okay? This is very unlike them

[-] wabafee@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago

Almost like a mistake?

[-] VindictiveJudge@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

I think the old Westwood dev they put in charge of the franchise just doesn't have any oversight.

[-] turtle@lemm.ee 1 points 1 month ago

That would be a completely legendary move if the dev hired by EA just said "fuck it, I'm open-sourcing this shit!"

[-] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 month ago

It sounds like that's what happened, but through the proper channels. They hired a known CnC community/modding site admin as the dev.

I'd imagine he pitched that this was an easy way to reduce maintenance costs while fostering massive good will and making the amount of long tail sales over time higher.