Ensemble Studios Officially Closes Its Doors

WHAT?!?!?

WHY is Ensemble studios closing down? WTH!?

WHY?

Ive been the fan of them ever since Age of empires 1, since i was a 7 year old (born in 1990).

and Age of Mythology is one of the best RTS games I ever played.

What the hell is going on?

No seriously i need an explanation on why thier closing down. If its ****ing MS doing thier stingy **** again like they did with FASA, creators of Mechwarrior and others then o man, my anger is going to make me spontaneosly combust.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.....****!.

Today we can safely say that MS has surpassed EA in becoming the "evil big corporation" for PCgamers. For a decade EA was synonymous with a big company that buys out indpendent devs, strips them off their IPs and finally closes them down. But today we see what while EA might be the one who started the trend, but in this case the student has surpassed their teacher and MS is now worse than EA ever was.

The two new studios, one will be handling Halo Wars support, the other one is enigma, but the second one is where the leads of Ensemble seem to be going and irt looks like they will stay the hell away from MS. I hope the first studio will do the same, for their own sake

That sucks. What was MS's official reason for shutting them down?Guybrush_3

Read thison why thier ****ing Microsoft game studios decided to kill off Ensemble

MS doesnt give a crap about the PC platform no more. Piracy is..i mean HAS killed that platform, no ones want to make games exclusively for it anymore.

Even Crytek has now decided to make console games instead, they say that the regret making crysis for PC only as so much of it was pirated and in the future they wont be making any PC only games.

The biggest name in RTS just died.

Read thison why thier ****ing Microsoft game studios decided to kill off Ensemble

MS doesnt give a crap about the PC platform no more. Piracy is..i mean HAS killed that platform, no ones want to make games exclusively for it anymore.

Even Crytek has now decided to make console games instead, they say that the regret making crysis for PC only as so much of it was pirated and in the future they wont be making any PC only games.

The biggest name in RTS just died.

e011234

Read thison why thier ****ing Microsoft game studios decided to kill off Ensemble

MS doesnt give a crap about the PC platform no more. Piracy is..i mean HAS killed that platform, no ones want to make games exclusively for it anymore.

Even Crytek has now decided to make console games instead, they say that the regret making crysis for PC only as so much of it was pirated and in the future they wont be making any PC only games.

The biggest name in RTS just died.

e011234

All good things must come to an end.

A toast to the developers of my First game AoE...A toast to all the hours on AoE, AoE 2, AoM, and AoE3

Read thison why thier ****ing Microsoft game studios decided to kill off Ensemble

MS doesnt give a crap about the PC platform no more. Piracy is..i mean HAS killed that platform, no ones want to make games exclusively for it anymore.

Even Crytek has now decided to make console games instead, they say that the regret making crysis for PC only as so much of it was pirated and in the future they wont be making any PC only games.

The biggest name in RTS just died.

e011234

Blizzard just died what? I didn't hear that Relic and Creative assembly were shut down?

[QUOTE="e011234"]

Read thison why thier ****ing Microsoft game studios decided to kill off Ensemble

MS doesnt give a crap about the PC platform no more. Piracy is..i mean HAS killed that platform, no ones want to make games exclusively for it anymore.

Even Crytek has now decided to make console games instead, they say that the regret making crysis for PC only as so much of it was pirated and in the future they wont be making any PC only games.

The biggest name in RTS just died.

KungfuKitten

What MS wants aren't profitable developers, they want developers that are profitable on consoles.

[QUOTE="e011234"]

Read thison why thier ****ing Microsoft game studios decided to kill off Ensemble

MS doesnt give a crap about the PC platform no more. Piracy is..i mean HAS killed that platform, no ones want to make games exclusively for it anymore.

Even Crytek has now decided to make console games instead, they say that the regret making crysis for PC only as so much of it was pirated and in the future they wont be making any PC only games.

The biggest name in RTS just died.

crazymaghie123

Blizzard just died what? I didn't hear that Relic and Creative assembly were shut down?

Argh. ok ONE of the biggest names in RTS just died. But IMO i liked the AOE games and AOM better than war3, SC, DOW etc.

This is great news. NEver played a single game from them. Maybe because their all on the platform I never play. :DCedmln

[QUOTE="Trigger_Hppy"]

Ensemble Studios closing its doors is one of the saddest things to happen to video games in a long time. Just think about how many hours I've sunk into Age of Empires II...

Ensemble Studios will be missed, I hope they all do well in whatever they're planning. :(

limpbizkit818

Forget AOE, AOM was the best. I can't believe Ensemble is gone :cry:

QFT. I still play AOM now. A very very sad day to see such a great studio go. Great years of gaming thanks to those guys.

To be honest, I couldn't care less after the mediocrity that was Age of Empires 3.aliblabla2007

[QUOTE="aliblabla2007"]To be honest, I couldn't care less after the mediocrity that was Age of Empires 3.KungfuKitten

Except that I'm not a console gamer, so I haven't seen much of Factor 5's work.

Also, Ensemble's screwup with AoE3 didn't seal the deal. Halo Wars doesn't interest me at all, gameplay wise, and the only thing that stands out about the game for me is the fact that it's Halo.

[QUOTE="KungfuKitten"][QUOTE="aliblabla2007"]To be honest, I couldn't care less after the mediocrity that was Age of Empires 3.aliblabla2007

Except that I'm not a console gamer, so I haven't seen much of Factor 5's work.

Also, Ensemble's screwup with AoE3 didn't seal the deal. Halo Wars doesn't interest me at all, gameplay wise, and the only thing that stands out about the game for me is the fact that it's Halo.

To be honest, I couldn't care less after the mediocrity that was Age of Empires 3.aliblabla2007

[QUOTE="ps3_owns_360Wii"]i cant wait until i get halo wars:DAll_that_is_Man

why?, its a real time strategy ...and its not on the pc......and it since it brands the name halo I doubt it will be that great just because they know that enough people will buy it for that reason alone

So long, and thanks for all the fish. DrinkDuff

Crispy Gamer wrote an excellent retrospective of Ensemble that definitely deserves a read if you've got the time. It's a sad day when one of the giants of RTS gaming (who created the best RTS ever IMO) passes away... :(agentfred

[QUOTE="aliblabla2007"]To be honest, I couldn't care less after the mediocrity that was Age of Empires 3._Pedro_

Ex-employees are forming a new studio that will still work closely with M$ so its not all bad. Age of Mythology has to be my third favourite RTS of all time, I dont know why but i never enjoyed the empires series.-DrRobotnik-

[QUOTE="ps3_owns_360Wii"]i cant wait until i get halo wars:DAll_that_is_Man

why?, its a real time strategy ...and its not on the pc......and it since it brands the name halo I doubt it will be that great just because they know that enough people will buy it for that reason alone

Ex-employees are forming a new studio that will still work closely with M$ so its not all bad. Age of Mythology has to be my third favourite RTS of all time, I dont know why but i never enjoyed the empires series.-DrRobotnik-

Ex-employees are forming a new studio that will still work closely with M$ so its not all bad. Age of Mythology has to be my third favourite RTS of all time, I dont know why but i never enjoyed the empires series.-DrRobotnik-

Heck, let's be honest...even the studio that is will just handle HW support, for their own game I'm afraid they will have to go elsewhere.

[QUOTE="-DrRobotnik-"]Ex-employees are forming a new studio that will still work closely with M$ so its not all bad. Age of Mythology has to be my third favourite RTS of all time, I dont know why but i never enjoyed the empires series.KungfuKitten

And third, games those studios are expected to deliver in the next few years are expected to be more strategic and profitable to the company than anything we would be finishing after Halo Wars.

Yea right MS. People RARE spend more on thier games I'm sure and haven't even turned in a profit. What a joke, you honestly want them to believe it was a money thing? I'm pretty sure they were pissed off to no extent.

Age of Empires (3 million)

Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome [expansion pack] (1 million)

Age of Empires III (2.5 million)

Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings (2 million shipped)

Age of Mythology (1 million)

yea ms I'm sure you can't afford to keep these guys around with every game being a million seller but you can keep rare around with thier lackluster games and lackluster sales. SIGH.

And third, games those studios are expected to deliver in the next few years are expected to be more strategic and profitable to the company than anything we would be finishing after Halo Wars.

Yea right MS. People RARE spend more on thier games I'm sure and haven't even turned in a profit. What a joke, you honestly want them to believe it was a money thing? I'm pretty sure they were pissed off to no extent.

Age of Empires (3 million)

Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome [expansion pack] (1 million)

Age of Empires III (2.5 million)

Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings (2 million shipped)

Age of Mythology (1 million)

yea ms I'm sure you can't afford to keep these guys around with every game being a million seller but you can keep rare around with thier lackluster games and lackluster sales. SIGH.

Espada12

actualy the real numbers are higher, Shelley has said he's proud that Ensemble has never made a game that sold less than 2mln copiesAdrianWerner

True, European sales have never been counted. It was never really about money and I´m glad they started their own studios.