Rumor has it that Gamestop bought up impulse from Stardock after Sins Trinity OUTSOLD C&C4, just to try and try and force people to stop buying indie games from it. (By their typical tactic of "customer service") Stardock took the money from the sale and built up Rebellion and swapped over to Steam. It was harsh on those of us who bought from them directly, but there is a reason that Sins: Rebellion is completely standalone and contains all the content from the basegame and 2 previous expansions. So I am not surprised that Gamestop isn't going to support AI War anymore.
Still, only thing that prevents me from completely believing the rumor is that I don't see what Gamestop has to gain by trying to hold back indie games... Steam makes a very nice profit from the indie games that it distributes. You would think that Gamestop would want a piece of it. It's not like indies are really that much of a threat to major AAAs. Sure Sins may have outsold what was supposed to be the most anticipated RST game of all time, but IMO that was more of a fail on EA's part than success on Stardock's side. (Not that I am harping on Sins, I LOVE that game.) EA screwed up so bad with C&C4 that it was doomed.
You do NOT take the core of the gameplay and gut it out. (Base building? Why ever would we keep this in a C&C title? Tech Trees? Lets make it completely irrelevant to the story and based solely on total games played. With Multiplayer games counting for more than Campaign games. Its not like there is a story that people have been waiting to see finally come to an end or anything) You do NOT take biggest plot twist of the game and most anticipated event yet (the arrival of the Scrin, and their main fleet coming to avenge the defeat of the Scrin commander) and THROW IT AWAY, with only a footnote mentioning that they already came and were pushed back. And you certainly do NOT make it an ALWAYS ONLINE game that will TURN IT SELF OFF WITHOUT SAVING IF YOUR NET FAILS FOR MORE THAN 40 SECONDS. And absolutely, above all else, you should never, EVER do all of these things in the same damn game.
If the above seems very, VERY bitter, its because it is. I was a major C&C fan. I have bought and paid for the PC version of every single C&C game up to right before C&C 4. I was willing to beg after I finished Kane's Wrath to see what happens next with the story. I had a geekgasm upon seeing the trailer for C&C 4 with Kane walking into GDI Command with the Tacticus informing them he had come to "save them all". The man is Magnificent Bastard personified, and I couldn't wait to see what he was going to do next. And then... yeah... I gave away all my copies of C&C games. I was done. And I haven't paid for a single EA game since, and probably never will again.
Well... all that ranting aside... I still haven't got my email secured, so for now don't send me anything in an email. I will send you a PM when I get it cleaned up and find out who/what hacked in and what it might have been after. I will just live with a "unclean" install, and ignore the CDO raging at me about it.
