In a suspicious act of generosity, EA quietly slashes the Steam price on 4 Command and Conquer games to nearly nothing

Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 header art - woman dressed in red wearing a beret and wielding an assault rifle

(Image credit: Electronic Arts)

Like some kind of evil Victorian capitalist attempting to make up for a lifetime of exploitation, EA appears to have unexpectedly slashed the prices on some truly excellent RTS games immediately after making headlines for, ah, laying off 5% of its workforce. Every little helps?

Spotted by PCGamesN (and, for clarity, likely not related to those layoffs at all, I just have a bad taste in my mouth), EA seems to have wordlessly revised the prices for Command and Conquer 3 and Red Alert 3 down to practically nothing. Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars and Kane's Wrath are now $2 (£1.89) each, as is the Red Alert 3 main game. Red Alert 3 – Uprising, meanwhile, is a mere $1.49 (£1.49).

Those price changes appear to have kicked in yesterday, March 4, per data from SteamDB, and mark a significant reduction. Both Tiberium games were $15 (£15) before the change, while the Red Alerts were each $20 (£18). But the plot thickens: A glance at the EA App by, well, several members of the PC Gamer editorial team reveals that the prices there don't seem to have shifted. Mostly, the EA App's prices are as they were on Steam before this reduction, with the baffling exception of Red Alert 3, which seems to be $27. And we couldn't even find Tiberium Wars.

So either the price change hasn't yet made its way over to the EA App or the Steam changes are some kind of mistake. Honestly? I'd bet the former, given that I imagine the number of people going out of their way to buy these very old games on EA's own platform is a barely existing trickle.

I've reached out to EA to ask if the price changes are intentional and permanent, and I'll reach out if I hear back.

If you don't have them, you should absolutely grab these games at their new price point. Say what you like about EA's stewardship of the Command & Conquer games (Tiberium Twilight was so bad it eventually got delisted), Tiberium Wars, Kane's Wrath, and RA3 were all great. Joe Kucan screaming "By my own forces!" lives rent-free in my head for life.

One of Josh's first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he's been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.