Age of Ensemble, Part 2: Perfecting the Formula

12/17/2008 4:51 PM | 0 Comments | Page 3 of 5

The turnover in Microsoft management teams meant rebuilding professional relationships on a regular basis, but Shelley and Goodman emphasized that, for the most part, they got along well with their bosses. "New people sometimes don't have any history with us."

More resources meant expansion, and that would change the culture that many of the employees were so fond of, especially Goodman. "In a company with a hundred people, even with little turnover, the average person can't keep up with everyone's name. The nice thing about grade school was that the group never broke up. Everyone took the same classes. Nobody ever talks about that." He wanted Ensemble to be like a class where everyone shared and knew the same experiences. This became more difficult as Ensemble became more successful.

For the most part, the Ensemble employees that spoke to me were convinced that the purchase by Microsoft opened up new possibilities for the team. It was a vote of confidence that the deep-pocketed publisher was grateful for what the Age of Empires games had done for its bottom line -- even if this effectively kept the studio in the Age series. An action game that Petersen had been championing was put on the cutting floor. "Microsoft had just bought Rare, which was known for its action-adventure games. So we were told not to do [the action game]. Then Rare did Viva Piñata, which isn't an action game at all, so we probably should have done it anyway."

A detour into fiction

Even before Microsoft purchased Ensemble, there were struggles within the studio regarding how far they could break from the path laid by their success.

"By this point [the late 1990s], we'd done two historically-themed games and two expansions," Ian Fischer recalls, "and there was interest in working on something that would allow us to explore new territory. We had several all-day, full-team brainstorm sessions during which we collectively concocted and discussed the merits of approximately every possible setting for an RTS. Age of Submarines, Age of Elves, Age of Mad Max, Age of Lasers, Age of H. G. Wells' Time Machine, Age of Angry Dinosaurs, Age of Tanks, Age of Dirigibles, Age of Vampires, Age of Umpires -- somewhere there's a document with dozens and dozens of pitches."

Ancient myth seemed to be a decent compromise. It would allow the team to play to its strengths (history) but also try some new unit designs (flying units, special powers and so on).

For Tony Goodman, Age of Mythology sits in an uncomfortable place in Ensemble's history. It is an Age game but not an Age of Empires game, and that led to some confusion. "I hear a ton of people say that [Age of Mythology] is their favorite game in the series. But I've struggled with that from a business standpoint. Microsoft's research showed that half of consumers had no idea this was connected to the Age of Empires franchise." Both Microsoft and Ensemble were reluctant to simply stick the Age of Empires label on the game, fearing this would dilute the purely historical leanings of the series. "But we had a lot of fun with that game. What are all the favorite monsters we have from Greek mythology? [Ray] Herryhausen [had provided] the only visualization of Greek monsters in our generation." This was a chance for Ensemble to add something new to the gaming universe by drawing from our communal familiarity with classic myth and legend.