GamesCom 12
From 14 to 19 August, Cologne hosted gamescom, the world’s second-largest video game trade fair after E3 in Los Angeles.
We’d known for a few weeks before the event that Command & Conquer wouldn’t be directly represented at the show, but it was an opportunity for us to get together (seven staff members out of about twenty), to meet our international partners at CnCSaga, members of the Command & Conquer fan community and representatives from EA.
Above all, it was a wonderful chance to socialise with our friends from the various sites on Community-Network.fr; and whilst we sometimes forget this, being too focused on our own franchises, these moments of exchange with staff from fan sites dedicated to other franchises are always beneficial.
The Community Network team, led by Zéphyr, had done a brilliant job handling all the logistics: press passes, accommodation, the programme, and so on.
I’m not going to go into all the lovely ladies, parties and good times we had (we couldn’t possibly list them all), but rather the events relating to Command & Conquer:
The announcement of CnC Free2Play and the meeting with Sean Decker:
We’d known since Tuesday afternoon that an announcement was due for Command & Conquer. We’d positioned ourselves all over the EA stands to make sure we didn’t miss a thing, and in the end… the announcement came via the internet… So we rushed over to the press area to get hold of some computers and try to coordinate the information with the rest of the staff. Gregory Queste and Alexandre Moreau (from EA France) gave us some additional information they’d received at the start of the summer when the announcement was made internally at EA.
They then arranged our meeting with Sean Decker, EA’s vice-president for the Play4free label. Sean Decker reminded us that EA’s ambition was to open up the franchise to a wider audience and that the decision to go free-to-play stemmed from this. He emphasised that the free-to-play model was the most effective way for a development team to incorporate what players want, even after the game’s release. He explained that Command & Conquer will begin with the Generals universe, utilising all the resources planned for Generals 2 (triple-A production and the Frostbite 2 engine), but that it will subsequently be expanded to include Tiberium and Red Alert, depending on fan demand.
The Tiberium Alliances evening with David Florimond Erhard:
David, the Community Manager for Command & Conquer Tiberium Alliances at EA Phenomic, had invited us to an evening at the Mexican restaurant Especial. The Saga staff made up almost half the group, and we’d come armed with your many suggestions for improvements. David was absolutely delighted by this, especially as we were the only ones who’d actually played the game. During the evening, he went through the document with us, giving his opinion and asking questions. He is due to give us more detailed feedback this week on these discussions with the game’s team; he has a weekly meeting with the team to pass on all the community’s feedback and suggestions.
He is personally very pleased with the choice made for Bioware’s Command & Conquer and is certain that the result will be of interest to the community.
During the evening, we were treated to a presentation of the Command & Conquer 3 board game created by a fan. We’ll tell you more about it soon, but you can already add this Facebook page to your favourites: http://www.facebook.com/TableTopWars
Our discussions with other fan sites:
Gamescom was also an opportunity to catch up with our partners at Saga Germany and our colleagues at CnC-Inside/United-Forum. I also played a few rounds of Red Alert 2.5 with them on iPhone and iPad (and I won :P)
