EA unlisted the Freeware versions for this.

[meow]

Tiberian Sun, Red Alert, and Classic C&C were all freeware for many years following the release of C&C3 and they took those downloads down to force people to buy this.

Don't support these practices. You can still find downloads for the freeware versions of most of the classic C&C games here:
https://cncnet.org/
https://cncnz.com/features/freeware-classic-command-conquer-games/

I'm sure you can also find other mirrors if you dig.

[NOBLE SIX]

Once freeware always freeware. Doesn't matter if its on the EA page or not

[dprog1995]

There is this chance that they unlisted them since they don't want to keep a server online for those free games when other sites such as Moddb host them without EA paying them any money.

[meow]

İlk olarak dprog1995 tarafından gönderildi:

There is this chance that they unlisted them since they don't want to keep a server online for those free games when other sites such as Moddb host them without EA paying them any money.

Doubtful.

[EXile1A]

İlk olarak Patrick 🕇 Swayze tarafından gönderildi:

Once freeware always freeware. Doesn't matter if its on the EA page or not

Actually a game is "freeware" only on the grace of the publisher. In the case of C&C EA still holds right until it goes into the public domain. So technically they can stop any download.

But:
Until we get word from CnCNet or other similar places that they've ♥♥♥♥♥♥ a Cease and Desist order I highly doubt EA even cares about CnCNet hosting a patched version of the games. (Though in all honesty EA is scummy enough to try. I will not deny that.)

Still, the OP is claiming something but does not provide any further proof of this.
Meanwhile I can find a download for C&C with ease.

https://archive.org/search.php?query=Command%20%26%20Conquer

And No, EA doesn't need to provide a download link on their own site for games they've labelled Freeware.

[davidb11]

To even claim EA is somehow scouring the entire internet to stop free downloads is silly.

Also, evne if something is unlisted, it does not mean it cannot be found. Phone Numbers can be unlisted, but still be found.

EA does not even need to legally put the download up on their own webpage.
They can literally say it's free to download, but not give you a link.

[NOBLE SIX]

Really though, I am never gonna play og C&C ever again once the Remaster is out.

[Dan]

They probably took them down because they have plans to remaster them too, you never know.

[Nyerguds]

-The EA community manager back in the day literally said that the game was still freeware despite it no longer being hosted on EA servers.
https://i.imgur.com/eXnyfrF.png
https://i.imgur.com/52SZsAT.png

-In fact, after the original release of C&C as freeware, when RA and TS had also been made freeware, they put up a page on the official site with all those downloads.
https://web.archive.org/web/20100214144634/http://www.commandandconquer.com/classic
This page only disappeared with the revamp of the site when they announced Generals 2.

-The main source for getting the freeware games nowadays, as you posted yourself, is CnCNet. There are multiple people from the CnCNet community (myself included) in the C&C Remaster Community Council, getting an inside look on things. EA is most certainly not trying to take down these downloads, and has always been supportive towards projects like CnCNet and the community patches, despite fan-patching being a pretty grey legal zone.
In fact, if you open the above archived freeware downloads page and scroll down to the end, you can see I'm actually mentioned and thanked on that page.

-An EA community manager on the EA Answers forum confirmed back in 2016 that it was freeware.
https://answers.ea.com/t5/C-C-The-Ultimate-Collection/Is-red-alert-1-and-tiberian-sun-now-freeware/td-p/5420723

-As the person who personally hosts and maintains the patched freeware download of C&C95, I can assure you EA never did anything to urge me to take it down. Instead, they invited me to the community council because of my expertise on the game's internals.


A lot of links have gone down over the years, but this is simply because the community as a whole declined, since there hasn't been a proper C&C game in over a decade. But there has never been any specific action on EA's side to take down anything related to the freeware C&C games.

[King_Kiff]

Conspiracy hats on boys, OP is handing out the foil.

[marionettethree]

Another "please hate EA for no reason" thread.

Seriously, stop this. They aren't even do anything wrong with this game. If we complain when they do something wrong, then shouldn't we being fair and support them when they do thing right?

[myronik]

İlk olarak marionettethree tarafından gönderildi:

Another "please hate EA for no reason" thread.

^this

Download pages were gone long time ago, way before Remaster was even announced. But OP was sleeping the whole time and awoke just now only for weak "Grrrr EA bad" thread.

[Junkman]

It was probably just an effort to avoid confusion. People will see they are free there but $20 on steam etc etc

[davidb11]

İlk olarak Junkman tarafından gönderildi:

It was probably just an effort to avoid confusion. People will see they are free there but $20 on steam etc etc

To be fair, they were unlisted quite a long time ago.

[TaxOwlbear]

So EA unlisted the games a decade ago in anticipation of the remasters? They were really planning ahead, weren't they?

[Franss the Coffee Addict]

What do you mean they are unlisted? They are still downloadable on the site