Command & Conquer 4 is the latest title to announce that it’s ditching LAN play and dedicated servers.
The game will also require a constant internet connection to play.
Electronic Arts producer Sam Bass told Destructoid that this is due to the global player progression system which works across singleplayer, multiplayer and skirmish.
"All the information is stored in a server. So if you go to another machine - friend’s house, Internet café, whatever – you can login with your profile and all the stuff you’ve unlocked is accessible to you there. It all lives on a server so you can’t really do dedicated servers with that."
He goes on to say that EA Los Angeles has "completely redone the networking back end of this game," promising that this new system is "a lot more solid, a lot more modern. There's a really solid network and ... getting into a game is much easier than it was in the past."
EA’s new DRM strategy is similar to that announced by Ubisoft last week. Join in our community’s discussion on this news.
For our part, we think anger at developers and publishers for dropping dedicated servers and LAN support is misdirected: Ubisoft, EA (and its spokesperson, Mr Bass) are accentuating the positive: The real issue here is copyright protection and piracy. As to what effect such DRM will have is another question entirely.
