EA has open sourced a bunch of old Command & Conquer games

Extremely rare EA win
- Are they trying to become the not most hated studio? The bar is pretty low these days...
  
  I feel like at some point, EA became the least hated major studio by staying exactly where they were. The rest of the industry zoomed past them.

No matter what you think of EA, this is fantastic news.
- Perhaps why this feels like them trying to save face.
  
  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
  
  On what?

Open sourcing old games is awesome for video game preservation.
- Yeah, this should be standard practice

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
- Almost like a mistake?
  
  I think the old Westwood dev they put in charge of the franchise just doesn't have any oversight.

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”?
- 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.
  
  Though do also note that of these four, TD and RA1 were already made freeware years ago.
  
  I realize. Intellectual property is an icky concept IMO but I know not everyone agrees
- I'm assuming this is more about art assets. Art is not code and you shouldn't expect them for free. It's not a catch.
  
  Correct. The license (at least, the one I read for Red Alert) is GPLv3 with some additional stuff. The additional stuff is mostly about not using EA trademarks in your version or showing any connection to EA itself. So it appears that a clean room asset swap would be allowed as long as it includes the title screen.
  
  Which, in the immediate future, makes me wonder less about the things that are going to be done in code, and more about the creation of new, free, visual and audio resources that make this work. That seems like quite a noble pursuit.
- The entire series is on sale on Steam right now for $6 if that helps.
  https://store.steampowered.com/app/1213210/Command__Conquer_Remastered_Collection/
  
  That's only the HD remaster of TD and RA1.
- This is a pretty standard affair for open sourced games.

Holy shit, EA did something.... Good? I did not have that on my 2025 bingo card. So, what's the catch? There has to be a catch, right?
- This doesn't release any copyright work in the game. So you will need to go through and remove any sprites, images, audio, etc that is copyright. Which means you will need to own a copy of the game (to have a right to the copyright usage) to use any binary produced from THIS source.
  Additionally, it indicates that you must include in any derivative that the source of your code is from the EA drop here.
  Outside of that, it is GPLv3. Of course it has hard dependency on DirectX 5.0. So a fully free version will need to redo those parts. Also the code is very MS VC++ heavy. Don't expect gcc to build you a binary.
  
  That's still pretty cool though right?
  
  Heh, the red alert readme says it currently requires borland for the asm and watcom compiler for the c/c++.
- Short version: You can make free stuff for them but they still own all of it and still require people to purchase a copy to use the derivatives.
  
  You can make complete conversions with your own assets. That's basically how old id engines work.

I'm ready for a zero hour remake!
- Im now just happy that it’s far more likely for a clean 60fps mod that’s not locked behind someone’s patreon
- It’s a kick ass game but some of the tropes didn’t age well.
  
  Ak47s for everyone!
  
  The whole premise is "America: Fuck Yeah, The RTS".

Old games being open sourced is a trend I can get behind.

Mmmmm pre-standard C++

EA ? Did I read right ?

This is a momentous event. I only wish it had Red Alert 2 in it.
- If it doesn't then I'm not interested.

RENEGADE!!!!!!!
- Loved Renegade so much. Played the shit out of the MP back in the day.
  
  That game seemed so underappreciated. I would be thrilled if I could have another LAN party with it.

Well I'm very excited to see the injection of life this hopefully gives c&c modding
I wonder how many of the old guard are still around, I'm glad the cncnet project is still going strong

Broken clock

Fuck EA but cool move - if they keep being not shit for long enough I might consider their products again.
Doubt they can keep it up.

Is Tiberian Sun included!!!??
- No. The repo has Tiberian Dawn, Red Alert 1, Generals with Zero Hour, Renegade, and components for the HD ports of TD and RA1 they put out a few years ago.
  
  AY YO RENEGADE!?
- From what I've read/know, the source for Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 2 were lost a while ago. Doesn't mean it can't be reverse engineered at some point, but it's challenging. I'd LOVE for those to be next though!
- Yes, if you click the link, it takes you to the EA github amd you can see folders for all included games
- I heard so, yes.

I hope everyone's SSDs have enough SPACE
- SPAAAACE
- SPGHGHAAIGHGHSSSE!!!! is literally the only thing I know about Command & Conquer.
- When I first played Red Alert, it was on a computer with a 6.4GB hard drive, and I had no idea how to fill up that much space at the time. I think we'll be fine.

Now if only they open-sourced the SAGE engine, then we'd be all happy
The engine is highly optimized & produces great visuals, Of course there IS OpenSAGE

dont people already make seperate MODS for each anyways, for them anyways,. they figured they wernt making money off having the old games in thier wierd little launcher.

If I had to guess, I'd say it's some write-off move. A bit like Epic Games released all Paragon assets after they canceled the game.
- Epic released those to add value to their engine not as a write off
  EA released this to boost Steam Workshop content - which would boost sales - not as a write off
- As I understand accounting, you really don't need to do stuff like this to write off your assets.
  I'm not saying there isn't a cynical corporate reason for doing this but I doubt this is it.

its odd that they open sourced Generals and the first CNC and Red Alert, but nothing in between.
CNC3 was my favorite, and I'll die on that hill . but RA2 was obivously the fan favorite, and Tiberian Sun had probably the best atmosphere
- Sometimes licenses get in the way, it's possible they bought an engine or tech from a 3rd party and don't have the legal standing (or don't know if they do or not) to release the source.
  
  someone else here suggested that the source code for TS/RA2 was lost. which wouldnt surprise me.
  These are games that were made when and before the Zoomers were being born. they are ancient by most people's standards.

Holy shit.
I hope they opensource Dungeon Keeper.
- Can you say why? The opensource project is already insanely good.
  
  To make the opensource project even better! :P
  The compiler has optimized the rendering engine too much to be decompiled into any useable code. Somebody is working on Linux and 64bit support which will need to have this completely rewritten. https://github.com/dkfans/keeperfx/blob/master/src/bflib_render_gpoly.c
  The maintainer of KeeperFX told me that EA does not have the original code anymore though.

Finally someone can fix Twilight Flame

Best computer game theme ever

It's about thyme!

They're still requiring EA Play or $6 for the bundle on steam.
- Correct. Doom and Quake still cost money as well.

Who cares. EA sucks balls
- Not when they do this.
- EA sucks balls, but this is one objectively good move from them. It's worth noting, especially from a games preservation perspective.
- This is an opportunity where if you'd used your brain you'd have come to a different conclusion.
- I wish.
  I have dry balls.
- You can hate the company while accepting this. EA doesn't have exclusive control over that game anymore.
  
  I will never have anything good to say about EA

Abusers will often buy gifts to placate the victim. It's a cheap and empty move that changes nothing in the end. Do not be fooled.
- Are you okay? They open sourced some classic video games. They didn't roofie your drink.
  
  They roofied my drink.
  
  Go ahead and fall for their PR campaign. You wouldn't be the first and you won't be the last.
- I'm sorry but comparing this to domestic abuse is just insane
  
  It's literally the exact same tactic
- EA doesn’t open source old games: EA are scum and anti-consumer.
  EA open sources old games: EA are scum and anti-consumer.
  If it’s good it must be bad, right?
  
  That's correct
- I am under the impression that lemmy is more negative than reddit
  
  People are people; I feel we've generally got quite a good vibe going on so don't let the grumps bring you down!