C&C boss discusses digital future

By Tom Bramwell Published 30 November, 2009

RTS series heading to Facebook?

New Command & Conquer brand boss Jon Van Canegham has hinted at a "direct-to-consumer" future for the venerable real-time strategy series.

"It allows you to do everything you would have expected from a boxed game, but it adds a lot more to it... being connected and connected with players, and persistence, the social elements of playing against each other with other friends," Van Canegham, who works at EA Los Angeles, told Gamasutra.

His comments appear to echo those of EA Games vice president Nick Earl, who reportedly told staff in an internal email that a team at EALA was working on "Command & Conquer with a new digital model".

"What you're seeing with all the social gamers on Facebook... they are actually already playing strategy games whether they know it or not," Van Canegham said.

"Taking a franchise like Command & Conquer and expanding it to a wider audience is part of the strategy."

Before any of that happens, however, there's the prospect of Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight for PC, due out on 19th March 2010. Check out our C&C4 preview for more details.

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About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (7) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • jellyhead #1 2 years ago

    Facebook? ugh, no thanks.

  • altitude2k #2 2 years ago

    If it's good and inexpensive I'm not too bothered how I get it. Might annoy those who try ferociously to steer clear of Facebook, but most of us have accounts anyway so it wouldn't bother me too much.

  • MavSkipper #3 2 years ago

    If it's going to be free like Sid Meier's Civ Network then why not.

  • Optimaximal #4 2 years ago

    Isn't pushing C&C4 a waste of time these days, especially as their online-only game is not going to have any post-release support following the sacking of the team behind it?

  • actionfitz #5 2 years ago

    please no. i just recently weened myself off the nastiness that is mafia wars.

  • jambo74 #6 2 years ago

    Well it sounds better that all 100% of 'Games' on facebook at present.

  • Edwardo #7 2 years ago

    Not quite sure I like the idea of being forced onto facebook for anything but it looks like everyone is (or is planning on) doing it already (wasn't blizz's battle.net also mentioned somewhere with planned support for facebook)?

    Anyway...gone are the days of just being a random person you played against out there - that got to play on his/her own without others knowing about it when they felt like it (it's kinda what made me stop playing wow - the constant raiding and having to sit through a few hours of just waiting around and painfully trying again and again when you knew it just was too late but you couldn't just switch off).