age-of-empires posts

A few days ago we reported that former Ensemble Studios team member Paul Bettner states during a lecture at GDC 2010 that part of the reason for the development studio's shutdown by Microsoft was, "that every single game we shipped took twice as long as we said it would take, and took twice as much to make it." He also said that lots of crunch time and low morale were also big reasons.

Now another former Ensemble team member, Ian Fischer, has responded to Bettner's comments on his blog site. Fischer, who worked as a game design for the studio, paints an entire different picture of Ensemble's situation. He disputes Bettner's view that there was low morale at the studio, saying that their employe retention rates, "were in the vicinity of 90 [percent]" He also disputes Bettner's game budget claims, saying that while each game did cost more to make, their work was "no costlier or less efficient than any other developer of our caliber during this period of operation." He also states that all of the games made by Ensemble were profitable for Microsoft.

So what does Fischer believe Microsoft decided to shut down Ensemble in 2009? He believes that the studio's many non-RTS game prototypes which were never developed into full games might be to blame. He states, "Had we decided to crank out RTS after RTS instead of chasing after the MMOs and FPSs and RPGs and RTS-differents we constantly had in prototype, I'm sure we would have been a more efficient studio that could have operated with zero crunch. "

In 2008, Microsoft announced their plans to shut down Ensemble Studios after March 2009. Fans of Ensemble's games, particularly the Age of Empires RTS series, were in shock. After all, the game were big sales hits, selling millions of copies. Why would Microsoft want to close down the studio behind all of that success?

Our sister site Joystiq attended a GDC 2010 lecture where that question may have been answered. Paul Bettner, a former manager for Ensemble, said that things at the developer were not all wine and roses. Indeed, he said morale at the studio was low when the developer was making what turned out to be their last game, the Xbox 360 RTS title Halo Wars. He stated, "The reality is that every single game we shipped took twice as long as we said it would take, and took twice as much to make it." Because of constant crunch time, he says that the quality of the games suffered and so did the people.

Microsoft's shut down earlier this year of Ensemble Studios caused a number of ex-Ensemble team members to form their own new companies. Perhaps the highest profile of them is Robot Entertainment which is now the caretaker of the Age of Empires online community. That means Robot Entertainment is releasing new patches for the Age of Empires series of RTS games.

Today, Trinigy announced that Robot Entertainment has licensed their Vision game graphics engine "to develop a multi-platform game". Other than it will be an original title no other info on the game was revealed. In their press release, Robot Entertainment's lead programmer Vijay Thakkar stated they choose the Vision engine because it "consistently stood out in terms of performance and how quickly our developers could see their ideas running in game." The big question is will Robot Entertainment be able to succeed as much as Ensemble did during its memorable run?

Microsoft used to be one of the biggest names in PC game publishing but even its library of older PC game titles have been hard to find in terms of downloadable versions. That will be changing soon thanks to an announcement from the GameTap PC game download service.

The service will be adding quite a number of PC games from Microsoft to its already large library of titles. Games like Age of Mythology, Age of Empires 2, Rise of Nations, Freelancer, Fable: The Lost Chapters, MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries and the Zoo Tycoon series will be a part of the new Microsoft-Gametap agreement. Sadly no Impossible Creatures but you can't get everything you want.

The two year period of 1996 and 1997 was a huge era for the PC gaming. It seemed as if there were a number of things that came together at the right time for PC game developers to take advantage of. One was the success of Windows 95 which quickly became the de facto development platform for titles (good bye MS-DOS). Another was the farewell to 3.5 inch floppy disks for game distribution. It had already started by 1996 but by the end of 1997 nearly all PC games used the CD-ROM format allowing for more content to be crammed into games.

But there were even more developments that occurred, such as the surging popularity of this new-fangled Internet dealie that made online multiplayer much easier to get into. The Internet itself spurred consumers to buy PCs like never before. More powerful processors allowed games to have higher resolutions and perform faster. Finally the 3D acceleration movement popularized by companies like 3dfx allowed games that supported such hardware to look more realistic than ever.

It goes without saying that the 1996-1997 period had some pretty remarkable games come out, and we look back at just 15 of them in our latest feature installment.

Click on the image above to continue reading We Love The 90s (for PC Games): 1996-1997

We've been reporting a lot of the shut down of Ensemble Studios because, well, we still can't believe that one of the most successful PC game developers in history has been closed by its parent company Microsoft. Their final game was the Xbox 360 exclusive Halo Wars and the game's final credit roll (recorded by our sister site Joystiq) has the various Ensemble team members saying their final goodbyes.

There's lots of thanks to family and friends in this very atypical final game credit sequence but many of Ensemble's members have already found employment at two new developers: Robot Entertainment (who will actually be supporting and adding onto Halo Wars) and Bonfire Studios. The big question: Will either of these studios take on a new Age of Empires game? Stay tuned.

Last week the newly formed Robot Entertainment launched their teaser web site, announcing their presence to the world. The Texas-based developer was founded by Ensemble Studios co-founder Tony Goodman and has quite a few of former Ensemble team after being basically kicked to the curb by Microsoft's shutdown of the studio.

Today the company revealed a little more about itself via a press release, stating that they currently have 45 team members, all former Ensemble employees. They have taken up the mantle to support the online community for the Age of Empires series of PC RTS games and will is also creating its own original game project.

In addition, Goodman had some interesting things to say in his press release, saying ""The video game industry is in a state of upheaval; not just games, but the entire landscape. Everything is changing: where we buy games, how we buy games, how much we pay, how long we play, who we play them with. As a fast-moving independent team of game developers, industry leaders and market experts, Robot Entertainment is ideally positioned to play a transformative role in the industry's future."

As promised, some of the team at the now defunct Ensemble Studios have gotten together to form an all new game development studio. That studio has launched a teaser web site introducing the company's name: Robot Entertainment.

Other than the fact that the company has Ensemble Studios co-founder Tony Goodman as its "Robot Overlord" it's currently not known what Robot Entertainment has planned for the future. One of the companies that was to form from the shut down of Ensemble was to provide post-launch support of their latest game, the Xbox 360 RTS title Halo Wars. It's unclear if Robot Entertainment is that company.

[Via Gamasutra]

Dallas-based Ensemble Studios has now officially closed its doors and with that shutdown ends an era of PC gaming as the Age of Empires creators move on. Gamasutra has a new feature that offers a tour of the Ensemble offices in its final days and also reveals some unannounced game projects that never got off the ground.

A couple have been revealed before such as a Halo MMO and a RPG called Sorcerer. However the article reveals other titles such as a sci-fi action-RPG called Nova and a platformer called Barn. There's even a photo of some art designs for a action game called Agent. Even their just completed Xbox 360 game Halo Wars started life as an original property called Phoenix. The article states that half the Ensemble team will reform under a new company headed up by Ensemble co-founder Tony Goodman.

Tomorrow one of the most respected and well know PC game developers will shut their doors for the final time. Dallas-based Ensemble Studios, the creators of the multi-million selling Age of Empires RTS series, will be shut down by its owner Microsoft. Last week the developer completed its work on the Xbox 360 exclusive game Halo Wars.

Today Ensemble's co-founder Bruce Shelley posted up what will most likely be his final blog entry on the site (in fact sources at Ensemble have told Big Download that Microsoft plans to shut down the Ensemblestudios.com web site on Friday night). Shelley states, "It is hard to believe that the day has finally come when Ensemble Studios closes its doors and we move on to whatever is next." Throughout its history there hasn't been much turnover at the studio with Shelley saying, "60% of the people who worked on Age of Empires I were with the studio to the end."

While Ensemble is closing down, Shelley states, "There are at least two new studios being formed by ES employees and I expect both to do very well." One of the unnamed studios will be providing support for both Halo Wars after its release and the ESO online service for their Age of Empires/Mythology titles. The Agecommunity.com web site will also stay online. Shelley states, "We had a burst of games being played right around Christmas, suggesting a lot of Age of Empires III and The Asian Dynasties were received as gifts. The number of players online has jumped up to about 4000 now at peak times and the total number of ESO accounts is now over 800,000."

Shelley still has not revealed his future plans but his final blog statements express his thanks to everyone who has played an Ensemble-created game. He states, "On behalf of everyone at ES, past and present, thanks for your support over the years. Your feedback on our games made the next version better. Buying legitimate copies made it possible for us to keep making them. Thanks also to those who wrote us to express regrets about the end of our studio and even the end of this blog."