Ensemble studio goes bye bye...

[Lien]

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/phil-spencer-ensemble-closure-is-right-thing-for-our-business

Ensemble studio
1995-2009

Well... It was rumored but now it's official. In 2009, you may want to pay your condolence to the game developers which was founded in Dallas, Texas, and that brought you Age of empire I, II, and III, their expansions, Age of mythology, the DS version of age of empire (it's actually fun!) and the soon to be release, Halo Wars.

As to why Microsoft decided to closed down the studio who won more then 25 awards worldwide will remain a mystery...

Sigh... there goes the hopes for Age of mythology 2... I even signed that petition darn it!

 

[Solaris10]

no....NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

It sucks!



EDIT: altered page-stretching text
-used44

 

[kapow]

thats too bad, age of empires is one of the earliest games i remember playing and it's still good

 

[Rekkie7]

What? That makes no sense

 

[MikeyVassallo]

It isn't really a mystery... it says so right in the article.

"Today, we shared with our employees at Ensemble that we have plans to close the studio after Halo Wars RTM. Such a decision is never easy. Like any business, we’re accountable for making tradeoffs and the right level of investments that will drive profit and future growth. However, as we reviewed our first-party portfolio and where we need to invest and divest our resources to achieve our long-term strategies, it became clear to us that closing the studio and redeploying those resources to other more scalable ventures is the right thing for our business at this time.

And RTS once ever 3 years isn't generating enough profit to warrant keeping the doors open. Even a Halo one.

They were owned by Microsoft and Microsoft owns the rights to the AoE games, so I'm sure we will be seeing lots more of them, just not from Ensemble.[/quote]

 

[Lien]

^^ hmm... that was weird... i didn't see that part before... Bah that's just me! must of scroll down too fast.

But hey! making a game every 3 years was good for us! they made a lot of research and effort.
Of course, Microsoft doesn't care about efforts, just profits so... yeah...
It's still unfair!

Isn't it weird though? First Bungie becomes independant from Microsoft, then Ensemble gets laid off. Sounds like a conspiracy going on here...

 

[LinksOcarina]

Unless Ensemble was private,this wouldn't of happened. But few companies have the scratch to be a private developer now a days anyway. Only established companies like Capcom and EA can afford to not be bought out.

Now that I think of it, are there any independent, private studios out there now? Blizzard was until the merger with Vivendi and Activision, and the only one I can think of now is Double Fine, Tim Schafer's studio which only has Psychonauts and Brutal Legend to it's name....

 

[used44]

Isn't Brutal Legend basically scrapped?

 

[MikeyVassallo]

God I hope so. It looked awful. Just shitty pants awful.

 

[LinksOcarina]

God I hope so. It looked awful. Just shitty pants awful.

I thought it looked good.

And it's not scrapped, it's been delayed until March of 2009.