"Among games that have defined the Real-Time Strategy genre, Command & Conquer is seen as one of the most influential titles. The C&C franchise, along with Warcraft and Starcraft, shaped the identity of RTS games during the '90s and would influence the designs of countless similar strategy titles in later years. Even though the franchise ended with a whimper instead of a bang, it managed to create an indelible impact on the history of videogames. Join us as we take a look at the rise and fall of Command & Conquer."

C&C was probably my most favourite of all the RTS franchises out there. I remember spending hours upon hours with friends playing Red Alert 2 via LAN. I met a few new friends via Red Alert 3 on the 360 at the time, though I eventually moved to PS3 and then PC with RA3.

Me and two other friends managed to get into the beta for C&C 4. We had fun at first, but as the video points out, late players who decided to purchase and jump into multiplayer were often screwed over by vet players, thanks to the XP unlock unit system that C&C 4 sported. The unit balances and nerfs, along with making the game super simple to use, made for a lacklustre C&C title, not to mention how the story ended on a bad note and was never fully concluded. 

All in all I miss Westwood studios and over the years I've just come to resent EA for having bought them and then tossing them away like they have other studios that at a time, made great games. They even tried to form another Bioware studio with the then newly created Victory studios, to merge both and call them "Bioware Victory", to which the studio was supposed to be working on C&C Generals 2 with the Frostbite engine. After 2 years though they ended up cancelling the game and liquidating ther studio altogether, ever since then EA has done nothing with the franchise and it's sad that it's been left there to rot.

I wish someone would buy the franchise off them, but I don't want it to be restrained and rushed and desgined for something other than M+K.

(The music at 17:56 is a brilliant tune to show EA taking the franchise down a bad path )

I miss C&C, they were some of the best rts games I have ever played!

The Rise of C&C - Westwood
The Fall of C&C - EA buying Westwood

Same.

I still play Red Alert 3 on Steam now and then and RA2 over on Origin. 

I just want a new C&C game, I mean we've waited about 7 years now, likely more if you count C&C 4's production time.  EA have BFME RTS franchise as well as C&C and they are doing nothing with it. THe only focus they have are multiplat action FPS games and sports....

Starcraft II is concluded and there doesn't seem to be any hint of big AAA RTS games in the near future, not that I can think of. DoW III is semi AAA and has a Moba like focus (which fans aren't too happy about and myself being skeptical about it).

Basically a publisher buying out someone who proved what they could already do and manage with. The only pros in that documentary, were the increase in budget, but that was all set back by the rushed releases and constant shift in changing the franchise into something else. 

It's not just EA that does this, the same has happened with all sorts of publishers out there. I'd rather a dev team obtain the franchise and work on it themselves, maybe use a publisher just for getting it out there, but refusing any sort of buyout. 

Yea the EA buyouts never really work out in the long run.  Sure the franchises might have some continued success but just look at the EA graveyard.  Westwood, Bullfrog, Criterion, Maxis (I'm counting Maxis and Criterion dead because they pretty much are)

http://kotaku.com/an-updated-list-of-studios-ea-has-bought-and-then-shut-1689498614

SimCity was a great franchise but they seemed to have ran that into the ground not helping with their always online DRM with the last iteration.  Seems like Cities: Skylines is now the new SimCity.

Just found a pretty nice quote from an old article.

"I think our history with acquisitions is somewhat marginal in performance," Jorgensen said when asked if EA has identified any acquisition targets in the industry. "We have some that are spectacular, and some that didn't do so well. It's a headcount business, right? You're buying headcount, and that's always difficult to manage in acquisitions. It doesn't mean we won't do them, but I think where we've been most successful is in smaller acquisitions that we've integrated very quickly."

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20141205/05574329334/ea-admits-that-gobbling-up-talented-studios-then-ruining-them-isnt-working-out-so-well.shtml

Westwood got bought up by EA.

EA has basically killed numerous studios, especially those based on PC. I think they just wanted what was popular on PC at the time, bring it to consoleas and butcher what remained of the IP's they bought up. Most of thise IP's and studios that were working on PC ended up shifting to consoles, then back to PC, but not before screwing them up and letting them die. 

That quote at the end was a nice follow up, and it shows that they just sought to buy to see if it would print them more money, rather than actually caring for what they were even buying in the first place (Sim City 2013 made that loud and clear).

This thread made me sad, RIP Westwood.

Some footage from the cancelled C&C Generals 2 project.