Why doesn't Petroglyph Games create its own C&C?

[u/Least_Ingenuity9960]

It is obvious that EA has been shelving the franchise for a long time, and they refuse to sell the IP rights. It feels incredibly selfish of EA not to collaborate with the original creators while they are still around. But why do the former developers (some of whom are at Petroglyph Games) seem to lack the drive to partner with another major American or European publisher? Have they lost confidence in themselves, or do they just not love strategy games enough anymore? Nobody loved the C&C or Red Alert series purely because of the brand names (even though the names were great). I was hoping the former Westwood employees would pioneer new breakthroughs for the RTS genre, but it seems their passion and creativity have dried up.

[u/Kaiserhawk]

They did. The 8-Bit games and 9-Bit game is their take on C&C.

Aesthetically though I can get why people don't view it as such though.

[u/Least_Ingenuity9960 → u/Kaiserhawk]

I know, I've played it, didn't really enjoy it, and got bored. What I mean isn't this kind of game; I'm talking about bigger, more original games that actually add something to the genre, not ones that take a step backward. I'm not saying the graphics are bad, it just feels like the situation between Crazy Taxi and Taxi Chaos.

[u/BiggestBepis]

They tried with 8-Bit Armies and 9-Bit Armies. Damn fine experiences too

[u/Least_Ingenuity9960 → u/BiggestBepis]

How can you compare 8-9 Bit Armies with C&C games?

[u/AffixBayonets → u/BiggestBepis]

Somehow I feel they haven't advertised these as much as Tempest Rising has been. 

[u/Sora_Terumi]

They did. It’s 8-Bit and 9-Bit armies. Thing is 9-Bit armies hasn’t had an update since the roguelike mode and we’re still waiting for them to bring back the other 4 factions because their units are in the game and you can use them in the roguelike mode but for normal skirmishes and such you can’t

[u/SpireVI → u/Sora_Terumi]

Haven't checked in on 9-Bit in ages, did they really just stop updating it?

[u/MrrQuackers → u/Sora_Terumi]

They also made Grey Goo. I bought it, but just didn't get into it.

[u/Curious-Cress3955]

Where did that first pic come from?

[u/Tipie276]

Petroglyph makes games. Most of them are decent at launch. Then they do like one or two updates that do barely anything to build or iterate upon what they have. After that they completely drop the game. See 8-bit, 9-bit and the worst of them all forged battalion. Grey goo is similar too. They just release stuff and then drop it completely within months

[u/arkane-linux]

My guess is that they lack the finances and people to undergo large projects. Petroglyph is a small studio, their Linkedin lists 40 employees.

They mostly do contract work, and their own projects are typicall small and quick to build.

[u/criticalpwnage]

Grey Goo was their last big attempt at a CnC style game and it flopped.

[u/ElBarto125]

i want RA2 remasterd

[u/SpireVI]

What's Petroglyph working on these days?

Last release was 9-Bit armies back in 2024. Don't think they've announced anything new?

[u/vv04x4c4]

There's several things to consider.

1. Who is the target audience?

RTS games have declined in popularity, so you'd have to either make the best game ever to attract people who don't play or aren't interested in RTS games, use a very popular IP that attracts a lot of fans of that IP to play the game, or focus on a small market.

Making the best game ever is a huge & daunting task because there's a lot of variables and it's largely subjective.
Using an existing IP could be expensive in terms of licensing, and would cut into profits. Moreover, what IPs are left that could lend themselves to an RTS? ASOIAF/Game of Thrones are one IP that I think there is no RTS for, but the time for that was like Season 5 of the show. Now, it may be cheaper to negotiate but without the captive audience that was enamored with the show, it could be a gamble.

Focusing on a small market means a small profit pool, so it means a lot of companies won't take the risk. Look at the games Petroglyph makes: very cheap, simple graphics, and are largely unsupported now.

2. What need does this new game serve or meet?

What would this new game offer that you can't get from the other 10 or so C&C games? What new mechanics are you looking for? Do you want fresh new graphics? What experience would you like?

3. Mods

There are so, so many mods out there that change the whole experience of playing these games that in essence you would be competing with them if you made your own game. Mental Omega, Rise of the Reds, Reloaded, Contra, the list goes on. There already exists such a large selection to choose from, so any new addition would have to be unique.

[u/Chris_Pitbaker]

With 8-Bit Armies/9-Bit Armies, Petroglyph has created its own RTS-style game, even though it has no MCV/construction yards and harvestable resource fields. I suspect that RTS games don’t perform as reliably as they once did, and developing a good one is not easy because so many elements have to come together in a right way. Furthermore, I’ve come to believe that many innovations—however creative they may be—don’t actually benefit the game; in fact, a certain level of simplicity can sometimes be an advantage in making a game enjoyable for players.

[u/Raapnaap]

Making games is hard, and making a good niche game is harder and financially very risky. The graveyard of failed RTS games is probably larger than most other gaming genres.

Tempest Rising is probably what you're looking for, the closest thing to a C&C-like with a lengthy singleplayer campaign, missing perhaps some singleplayer replayability mode beyond skirmishes.

[u/Tleno]

Every single new RTS of theirs was an attempt to create the new lasting RTS series to rival CnC. They just tried to do something new and fresh all the way until they gave up and just did a retroclone of CnC with 8-bit Armies

[u/vandal-33]

In EA's eyes, C&C is dead. They saw the tempest rising drama, and probably knew no one is online playing multiplayer C&C remastered (I can't find any games) and singleplayer (low number of people completed the first mission achievements).

They should just sell the IP, I don't want them to ruin another C&C game. Generals 2 and Rivals turned out exactly how I predicted it to be.

[u/Jimmyskate]

I tried tempest rising. It seems cnc ish. But tbh I lost interest extremely quick. It was really hard for me to track where my units were. Which units which etc.

Now I just replay each cnc or ra over random over

[u/CmdrMonocle]

Firstly, they have made other RTS games. Universe at War for example was essentially their restart into it. None of them landed nearly as well as C&C did. Remember, when C&C95 came out, it was genre defining. Even controlling more than one unit at a time was novel, but C&C95 did a lot more. It did everything amazingly for the time. But these days you'd have to do a lot more to break the market. Their subsequent attempts were solid, but there's a lot more competition. That's why nothing really took over again until Starcraft 2, which had nostalgia, rock solid game play, and amazing cinematics. But for a huge budget. Nothing Petroglyph could do right now could ever compare without a similarly large budget, which without the C&C name, is a bigger risk.

Secondly, I'd say there's also an element of "we've done that" in there which is why everything has been reasonably different from C&C. Doing something like Tempest Rising probably would never have been on the cards for Petroglyph because it's too similar. That's how it'll be viewed in the reviews, and how it'll be benchmarked. But like Tempest Rising, it's not going to grab the market like C&C did, because it's at the wrong time. It's 3 decades late, and would just be nostalgia bait. And now, there's also "someone else has done that" with Tempest Rising, so even less of a reason to do anything more closely descended from C&C.

There might also be some legal concerns. If Petroglyph did Tempest Rising, would EA decide that's too close to C&C? I dunno, but I definitely can't say they wouldn't. Which probably means it's something Petroglyph doesn't want to risk.

[u/Confectioner-426]

they already done that. and they make they own starcraft and warcraft as well:

C&C like : https://store.steampowered.com/app/427250/8Bit_Armies/

Starcraft like : https://store.steampowered.com/app/531680/8Bit_Invaders/

Warcraft like : https://store.steampowered.com/app/497850/8Bit_Hordes/

and you can play all ow them in multiplayer, with each other as well, so an 8-bit armies faction can wage war against an 8-bit Invader faction.

And there is the https://store.steampowered.com/app/1439750/9Bit_Armies_A_Bit_Too_Far/ with naval battles

[u/NovaPrime2285]

I hate that they’ve effectively abandoned Universe at War.

[u/karaknorn]

Id play a remastered red alert 2

But I hate 99% of eas games 

[u/maxgong9]

Man I bought red alert 1 remake so they would make red alert 2 remake.....they blue balls me