In 1995 Ensemble Studios formed as an independent studio and kicked out a little game franchise known as Age of Empires. The title has received many accolades from the first in the franchise extended out to all the Age of Empires releases and spin-offs, all-in-all selling millions of copies.
Ensemble Studios had a mission “to create great games and a great place to work,” says Bruce Shelley from Ensemble Studios. Bruce Shelley also helped design Sid Meier’s Civilization and Railroad Tycoon with MicroProse prior to his work at Ensemble Studios. Now, however, he’s a bit upset at the closing of Ensemble Studios because they were profitable, created top-quality titles and had a great working environment.
Ensemble Studios, from his perspective at least, was a place you’d go to work and be happy with what you’re doing. When you’re working along nicely and become blind-sided by the news, it’s not surprising he didn’t take it lightly.
“Everyone at our studio was shocked, and I think remains very disappointed that this is going to happen. I believe we thought we were immune to shut-down talk because our published games have done so well and have been so profitable. Plus we felt we had built a really stable (low-turnover), talented, hard-working, and creative team, which is not easy to do. We thought we were among the best studios in the world, and that may be true, but we don’t fit in the future plans of MGS as an internal studio so we’re out.” (ensemblestudios.com)
What’s the future plans for Ensemble Studios? As we’ve stated before, they plan to live on in spirit, within the bounds of a new name and a new game plan. “I believe the spirit and mission of ES will be carried forward in this new company if enough of the key leaders agree to take part, which I expect to happen. There has been no announcement about what the new studio will be working on when it gets going,” says Shelley.
This is a horrible way to have to launch a hot new intellectual property. Usually creating a new title with a building fanbase would lead to excitement, parties and high hopes for the future of the franchise. Instead, people will be dusting off their resume in hopes to continue a life of game development.
Hopefully the leaders will indeed form a brand new company and build brand new hot products with their entire staff intact. Then, take their titles to a different publisher (besides Microsoft) and make some money and fans.
New Guitar Hero Game a
I liked the show, it was fun. I really hope Liam (I hope I remembered the name) will recover.
@New R18+ guidelines drawn up:
It is a step forward, true, but not without some question marks.
I personally don’t like their definition for what’s allowed in terms of violence for R18+. It’s very ambiguous, and it could lead to a handful of people selecting what’s R18+ and what’s RC depending on their personal taste and/or “gifts” received from publishers …
Lol “device that you could plug in” 😀
Jonah, enforcing such fines is a bit more difficult and costly than what a government is willing to invest.
@Kojima: This year has become meaningless
I feel the guy 🙁 … I also have no idea how the last 365 days passed.
Derrick, I definitely agree with the CISCO engineer vs. game devs. While I do put some heart on the stuff I work at my day job, it is far less that what I put into mods or other personal projects.
And while the money comes from the day job, the satisfactions and frustrations come from personal projects. It’s where the heart is.
@Chinese labor camp prisoners forced to play MMOs:
Playing MMOs as a punishment … there’s just something weird about it. I mean as long as you have the freedom of choice as to when to start playing and when to stop playing, MMOs don’t seem that scary.
But when you’re forced to stare in the monitor for hours and hours, day after day, I can see this having the negative effects that would make playing MMOs an effective punishment.
I guess any activity can be turned into a punishment, as long as you can turn the punished person into hating that said activity.
– you can play it while pooping!
Actually, that is a good selling point 🙂 Think of Chinese prisoners again: now they can stack all consoles in a room and have the prisoners “work” from anywhere on the compound 😛
Derrick, you’re not letting down anybody. I enjoyed the podcast a lot, mostly for the personalities of you guys. And by reading the comments in the show you allowed the listeners to somehow connect with you guys.
Anyway, I’ll keep an eye on the RSS feed. Who knows.
at first i was happy because when i updated the podcast on a smartphone i finally saw the new episode and i said yes!!!! Then i saw the title i was like oh man but its okay derrick and jennifer i will only consider this a pause and you could continue anytime you like @qotw i would like to be surprised to see the podcast up and running again
ill be playing minecraft while your gone and will always wait for your comeback
Thanks for all the memories. The TD gaming podcast got me through 2 years of night shifts and was always a weekly highlight. All the best to all of you in the future.
Hope things continue to improve with your son, Derrick and Jennifer. Thanks for your efforts Jonah over the last 20 episodes. And farewell to my fellow listeners and commentors. (Especially Herr_Alien, who always had something insightful to add. Maybe you should team up with Jonah for continuing the cast =D. )
Roger, Wilco, Over and Out.
@Tristan: the thought occurred to me too, but unfortunately (1) I am too PC-centric to be of an actual use to the podcast and (2) spare time is always an issue for me. To get an idea, I got a copy of Portal 2 for … almost a month now and I only managed to play 30 minutes of it.
Add to that time zone differences and things like synchronizing schedules can become hairy.
As for the question of the week, I would love to see the podcast continue.
Jonah, a piece of advice, if you do decide to continue: take a small break to think a bit on the format, find somebody to co-host it, help you out with editing (btw, since editing doesn’t require synchronizing schedules, I can help out with that).
I’ve really enjoyed the podcast since I started listening to it a couple of years ago and it’s sad to see Derrick and Jennifer leave, but I hope things work out well for you and your family. All the best for the future. Thanks to Don too, he was a pretty cool host 🙂
I do hope that you find a way to continue the podcast Jonah, as I think you’ve done a really good job as co-host for the last 20 or so episodes. But if it doesn’t work out, thanks for your efforts too.
And yes, Herr_Alien, you’ve been a legendary listener 😛 Every week without fail there’d be a comment from Herr Alien with many insightful nuggets of wisdom.
So anyway, if this is the end….. So long, Farewell… and I leave you with this:
“Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need… roads.”
A new episode is coming out tonight. Didn’t have time for Reader Feedback, but hope you enjoy it!