End of boxed Command & Conquer games

Iconic PC franchise could abandon boxed releases to focus on free-to-play.

Discussing this year’s entry in the Command & Conquer series, Developer Victory Games stated it would favour the free-to-play business model over boxed releases for the franchise moving forward.

"I think maybe the days of a boxed Command & Conquer release are probably over," Victory general manager Jon Van Caneghem told Videogamer.

He went on to highlight the decision to skip retail as one that would hopefully give the franchise a wider global reach.

"We have fans in every country around the world: Eastern Europe, China, you name it… We want to be able to bring this game to everyone, and I think not going the retail route was the way that we could expand our audience to a bigger audience," added Van Caneghe.

VictoryGames says it wants to target the Asian market, which it believes to be one of the biggest markets for the game. And with the lack of a retail market in the country, free-to-play is the correct business model.

The developer will support its latest addition to the Command & Conquer series with a ‘live service’ platform, which will see new content such as factions and missions added on-the-fly.

Victorybelieves this platform will extend the game’s life, and has been designed to support the title for the next ten years.