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.
Jonah, you can simply skip the iOS and Facebook games 🙂
@NGP to be called the PlayStation Vita: … I liked more the NGP … Now I could be biased, I never saw the ad you guys mentioned.
@PS4 in development .. oops, no it’s not: Now, if we ignore the PSN security issues, I would consider this kind of inconsistencies funny. Now, what if they’d do the same with PSN? I can imagine the dialog:
Q: Is PSN secure?
A1: PSN is air tight secure.
(a few weeks later)
A2: PSN is not that secure.
@Dungeon Empires out of beta: I see this becoming a pretty big game. It blends some sort of ‘Farmville’ and WoW. It’s … nice!
@Dead or Alive 3DS = child porn?
Besides the age of the characters, proper rating would make this easily avoided.
@Call of Duty: Elite announced: good point, Jonah. They didn’t handle the information properly, and that can turn against them, with or without a real reason.
Jordan, the game you mentioned, ‘Eternal Darkness’, I am following a ‘Lets play’ for it.
@QOTW: none, unfortunately. Well, maybe Rage. While id’s games are not the most cinematic ones, I have to admit I liked most of what they released.
I have not listened to this episode yet, but I’m sure it will be good. I’m glad to see that you are keeping it going. Listening to the show since last November and I’m happy that its not going to die.
Hey fellas, glad to see the TD Gaming Podcast is still alive! I’ve been a fan since episode #118. Just a heads-up – the Schommers used to use a program called “Levelator” to even out their audio. I don’t know if you guys do as well, but if not it might help your output.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelator
I’m keeping the Schommer family in my prayers and wishing you all the best as I continue listening faithfully 🙂
Just listened to the podcast, really enjoyed it, but thats what I expected.
About the “Vita”, I’ve been hearing complaints about the naming , but it seems like no matter what they name it, people are still going to complain.
PS4 – I’m glad that they aren’t working on a new console, they need to work on getting the PS3 back to where it was before all the hacking, but again, it seems like no matter what Sony does, people will still complain. They just can’t win.
Bungie – I can’t wait to see this game. Bungie has really only been known for Halo, and I’m very curious to see what they are going to be able to follow it up with. This game will really show what Bungie can do now that they aren’t tied down to one franchise. Also, saw the trailer for Halo 4, seems unnecessary, I thought the trilogy was fine, but 343 seems capable of making a solid Halo without the help of Bungie.
Call of Duty Elite – I am one of the many that watch Call of Duty commentaries on Youtube, and it was clear to see that the majority weren’t happy about the announcement that you will have to pay. That was before it was announced that you would get most features free. Patience certainly isn’t too common in this community. It sucks that that was the way it had to be revealed.
QOTW – I am really excited for Bioshock: Infinite. Have been waiting to see more on it since the first trailer came out. I love this series and to see that they are taking it to the sky makes it seem like the series is being reborn.
@Will, PS4 issue:
It’s more complicated, the ugly way I’m afraid.
The issue with PS3 is that (1) the root key, the one that validates if the DVD is legal or not, was ‘coded’ in the silicon chip, and (2) that key was discovered.
This means that anyone can build custom software (or pirate games) and ‘stamp’ them as legal.
One way to ‘fix’ this is to change the key.
This means that future PS3 have encoded in them the new key, and all games that follow will also use that key. The issue is that the new PS3s won’t be able to play the older PS3 games (different keys), and that the old PS3s cannot play the new games.
The PS3’s root key issue was using a sloppy “security by obscurity” strategy.
The PSN case is strikingly similar: once the hackers discovered the what (old) version of software PSN used, they could then use a list of known security exploits for them.
If you’re wondering where the podcast is, it’s coming soon. We will be adopting a regular schedule once things settle down post-E3.