Hmmm keep in mind the page is quite old and still has Ensemble studios which has gone defunct. But then again the design could still keep in chronological order especially since the announcement trailer went through all the periods in order.
Phil Spencer (head of Microsoft Studios + Xbox) recently said he was a fan of Ensembles vision for AoE.
Could just be PR speach but then again you have Quinn Duffy working as AoE4 Game Director (COH2 game director). So yeah, who knows. I highly doubt Relic/SEGA will give up on COH3, so I don't worry about that.
I'll wrap up with a nice one. Tell me a little bit behind the process behind how Microsoft decided to bring Age of Empires back. Had it been kicking around for a long time?
I want to give Shannon Loftis a ton of credit. Shannon's been in Microsoft Studios for a long time, and is somebody I've worked with and have a ton of respect for.
There's some franchises... it's interesting, as we're investing more in our first party, and we've looking at new IP in some of our existing franchises and things that do really well, Age is just one of those things that year after year on Steam, we see it continue to sell, even though the infrastructure that's underneath the game is creaking a little bit. The community's been there supporting it.
She said, you know, this is something we should bring onto our modern platform. Make it visually more up to speed. You're obviously not going to take that game and completely make it a 4K game and everything, but make it look something closer to modern. Support some of the Live features that we have. And then let's think about where this franchise can actually go.
We own it, so maybe it seems like we're talking about ourselves a little bit, but I think it's one of the important franchises in gaming, and I think it deserves a future.
It's the 20th anniversary. So this could be the start of the renaissance? That's how you feel about it?
I do. And I think the interesting thing is the community's been out there kind of supporting this game without us. And shame on us, right?
They crashed the website today.
[Laughs] I'm really excited. They crashed our website? I actually didn't see that.
Straight off the reveal. They had it back up quickly.
Good! Good. I was involved... I started working with Ensemble on Age 3, I think was the first one I as a studio manager was working with them on. That was a studio that had some real vision in what they wanted to do with this mix of history and RTS coming together. I think it's one of those franchises that deserves a great future.
I'm not surprised only by the timing. If anything this confirm they are planning to port both COH and AoE4 to Xbox that runs windows 10. This is a growing cross platform team IMO, they will recruit new devs for this. I suspect they will do PC first on steam and then port later to Xbox. With Halo Wars 2 they got that backward and no steam support except Halo Wars: Definitive Edition. Hopefully, this is PC first, xbox second. Info from Phil Spencer (see below interview link) about AoE seems to confirm this will be on steam.
Introducing @AgeOfEmpires IV [T], only on #Windows10. Check out the brand new trailer. #gamescom2017
Working with Head of Microsoft Studios/Phil Spencer, properly save SEGA a lot of money building a larger cross-platform team. This is a win-win deal for both publishers. Combined with Creative Assembly, this will grow to become a pretty large RTS team. Who knows, maybe Creative Assembly will be involved in COH3 (for Xbox).
I said years ago they were planning something bigger than Halo wars 2 and this is just the beginning. Wargaming/CA team also has plans to bring Total War: Arena to console.
Phil Spencer (MS gaming executive) is the real deal and does seem to care about making good games. After Ed Fries left MS gaming, xbox/pc had some bad years with leadership and studios leaving/going defunct.
I'll wrap up with a nice one. Tell me a little bit behind the process behind how Microsoft decided to bring Age of Empires back. Had it been kicking around for a long time?
I want to give Shannon Loftis a ton of credit. Shannon's been in Microsoft Studios for a long time, and is somebody I've worked with and have a ton of respect for.
There's some franchises... it's interesting, as we're investing more in our first party, and we've looking at new IP in some of our existing franchises and things that do really well, Age is just one of those things that year after year on Steam, we see it continue to sell, even though the infrastructure that's underneath the game is creaking a little bit. The community's been there supporting it.
She said, you know, this is something we should bring onto our modern platform. Make it visually more up to speed. You're obviously not going to take that game and completely make it a 4K game and everything, but make it look something closer to modern. Support some of the Live features that we have. And then let's think about where this franchise can actually go.
We own it, so maybe it seems like we're talking about ourselves a little bit, but I think it's one of the important franchises in gaming, and I think it deserves a future.
It's the 20th anniversary. So this could be the start of the renaissance? That's how you feel about it?
I do. And I think the interesting thing is the community's been out there kind of supporting this game without us. And shame on us, right?
They crashed the website today.
[Laughs] I'm really excited. They crashed our website? I actually didn't see that.
Straight off the reveal. They had it back up quickly.
Good! Good. I was involved... I started working with Ensemble on Age 3, I think was the first one I as a studio manager was working with them on. That was a studio that had some real vision in what they wanted to do with this mix of history and RTS coming together. I think it's one of those franchises that deserves a great future.
Meanwhile, Heaton will continue in his role as studio director at Creative Assembly while also becoming a flag bearer for the continued development standards of Sega Europe's numerous studios. In addition to supporting Sega Europe's other studio directors, Heaton will also advise on best practice and encourage cross-studio collaboration across the business, and keep in close contact with Sega Europe's COO and president about all studio and development matters.
Cross-studio collaboration might be related to Relic expanding to console. CA AAA console team was Halo Wars 2 and Alien Isolation.
Hey there! I'm a community manager at a game studio and a freelance artist. This is where I come to play all my fave games and to get creative during my time off. Go ahead and give a follow so you know when I'm live!
No DoW3 credits included. So they have been working on other unannounced projects/games since they gave up on their five years COH2 plan.
Senior, versatile, experienced designer with 20 years in the Computer Games Industry including 17 years at critically-acclaimed studio, Relic Entertainment.
Titles/Roles Include;
Homeworld - Designer
Impossible Creatures - Designer
Company of Heroes - Senior Designer
Company of Heroes; Opposing Fronts - Gameplay Supervisor
Space Marine - Lead Designer
Company of Heroes 2 - Game Director
Several SEGA leaders has been promoted to support the 2020 plan, this includes but not limited to;
Meanwhile, Heaton will continue in his role as studio director at Creative Assembly while also becoming a flag bearer for the continued development standards of Sega Europe's numerous studios. In addition to supporting Sega Europe's other studio directors, Heaton will also advise on best practice and encourage cross-studio collaboration across the business, and keep in close contact with Sega Europe's COO and president about all studio and development matters.
Cross-studio collaboration might be related to Relic expanding to console. CA AAA console team was Halo Wars 2 and Alien Isolation.
Before leaving to join Tencent (owner of Riot Games) Jurgen Post gave several good interviews on SEGA;
"The games is where the love of the community starts, then secondly for the studio, and thirdly there is the publisher. So at some point, the success of the studios will start to reflect on Sega."
In 2012, Sega cut back to focus on three key series – Sonic, Football Manager and Total War – and has been gradually adding additional franchise ‘pillars’ ever since.
In 2013 it acquired Relic, along with the Company of Heroes and Dawn of War IP. This year, it has added Endless Space creators Amplitude to its family of studios.
Then there’s an altogether different pillar – one devoted to independent games.
“It’s called Sega Searchlight,” explains Post. “It looks into new creative opportunities, the sort of titles that could be a standalone pillar in the future. One example is Motorsport Manager by PlaySport. When it was released on mobile, it did 1.6m downloads... OK, it’s a $3 product, but it shows there is an appetite for something different. Now we are bringing it to PC this autumn. That’s a Searchlight product, and we have more of those with announcements due over the coming months.”
SEGA Europe IPs expanding into Asia;
“Another area we are focusing on is China. We have launched Football Manager Online in China, and we believe there is a big opportunity for strategy games in the territory, so we’re looking into that.”
He concludes: “It is an exciting times with lots of opportunities.”
Expanding RTS to console;
He continues: “As a non-strategy gamer, Halo Wars 2 is very easy to get into. It also plays very well on console. It is a great opportunity to bring the RTS genre to a wider audience, but also to bring RTS to console... these are all great learnings for all of us.”
The duo, who were previously responsible for titles such as Theme Park, Black & White and Fable, already have a new sim title in development, and the wider team at Two Point Studios is made up of ex-Bullfrog and Lionhead employees.
Bullfrog has previouly created RTS titles such as Dungeon Keeper and Populous with the legendary game maker Molyneux. Peter Molyneux with Lionhead previously worked with Relic founder (Alex Garden) when he was with Microsoft/Xbox. IMO, during the Homeworld era these two were among the very best RTS visionaries. Thx to EA, they really messed up Dungeon Keeper with mobile games.
Warhammer 40k: Dark Millenium Online - $30 million - Former THQ executive Danny Bilson told Eurogamer last year the publisher spent around $30 million on this licensed MMO before the title was cancelled.
Homefront - $50 million - THQ's attempt to take on Call of Duty had a $50 million development budget, according to former Kaos Studios producer Dex Smither (Update: Link to his CV removed at his request; he subsequently confirmed the $50 million budget figure to Kotaku directly).
RTS games - year 2001:
Black & White $5.7 million - Peter Molyneux's Game Developer postmortem for the game said the god game cost $5.7 million to develop.
RTS games - year 2006;
Anno 1701 - €8 million - A press release from developer Sunflowers pegged development costs of the strategy game at eight million euros.
Empire Earth III - $10 million - A former Mad Doc Software producer said the strategy sequel cost $10 million to develop.
As a series Warhammer 40k Dawn of War has sold more than 7 million copies worldwide, whilst the “Company of Heroes” series, a real time strategy game based on the modern history of warfare from World War II and after, has sold more than 4 million copies worldwide.
In the same time period (2014-2017), Relic grew to almost 200 devs. Vancouver living expenses are high especially real estate. This means their salaries have to be considerably higher than other cities to attract new talent outside Vancouver.
Relic has openly said this was their biggest RTS to date and they recruited many new devs based on that premise and future AAA games.
Denmark
SturmTigerCobra
DonnieChan
Inane EliteVideoGameMasturbater
SturmTigerCobra
Relic Entertainment
