• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Age of Empires Castle Siege announced

Looks like an updated Castles, to bad it is mobile.

castles2_screenshot2.jpg
 

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
I must say that, strictly speaking from a commercial POV, making a f2p game (which prospers off an enormous audience) exclusive to WP8 and W8 seems counterproductive. But I'm interested in the game, I'd try it. It's clearly not AoE Mobile, but what it is looks fine to me.
 

Syf

Banned
I've really gotta stop believing MS' bull about caring about PC gaming. At least we got the Steam release.
 
A good one? It would probably sell over two millions in the first month with relative ease.
That's delusional. If that were the case they wouldn't have killed the franchise. That's the bottom line. It's just not financially viable. Why kill off Ensemble Studios if AoE games would sell millions in a few weeks time? Why kill them off if another AoE game would be a huge profit? Because they're evil and hate PC gamers? People don't look at these decisions from a business perspective. I've learned to ignore my emotions and look at these things like a robot... strictly in terms of business sense, otherwise I'd go insane.
 

Fantastapotamus

Wrong about commas, wrong about everything
Fuck you EA, fuck you. Just remake 1 or 3 and I would gladly give you money (although 20 euros for a 15 year old game with higher graphics is asking a bit much)

I understand why you would say that, but it's Microsoft not EA. EA usually is a good bet for this stuff tough, your chances were pretty high.
 

Xater

Member
I must say that, strictly speaking from a commercial POV, making a f2p game (which prospers off an enormous audience) exclusive to WP8 and W8 seems counterproductive. But I'm interested in the game, I'd try it. It's clearly not AoE Mobile, but what it is looks fine to me.

You might as well download Clash of Clans or Star Wars Commander right now. It's the same game and those games are terrible.
 

RGamer2009

Neo Member
Don't worry guys! This is only the mobile version. Another team is working on the PC version and it will be amazing!

I wish. RCT got this right at least.
 
Whyyyy god whyyy

Why fuck us over like this? Havent they learned anyhing from the failure of aoe online and the greatness that was AOE2:HD edition?

Fuck you EA, fuck you. Just remake 1 or 3 and I would gladly give you money (although 20 euros for a 15 year old game with higher graphics is asking a bit much)

Just fuck man. This is just using a name for the name
EA? Lol
 

Sentenza

Member
That's delusional.
No, it's not.
It's a realistic and reasonable estimation that doesn't even dwarf how the franchise performed in the past despise the market being much bigger and easy to embrace these days. Age of Kings sold 2 millions in three months in the year 1999.
What would be exceedingly optimistic (but even then not necessarily delusional) is to claim it would match Blizzard-levels of popularity.

I don't think you know what you're talking about.

EDIT; Damn, I was actually arguing with Heavy.
 

Fantastapotamus

Wrong about commas, wrong about everything
I wonder how well the "HEY GUYS, remember that series you like? It's back! In POG iOS form!" modell really works.
 
No, it's not.
It's a realistic and reasonable estimation that doesn't even dwarf how the franchise performed in the past despise the market being much bigger and easy to embrace these days. Age of Kings sold 2 millions in three months in the year 1999.
What would be exceedingly optimistic (but even then not necessarily delusional) is to claim it would match Blizzard-levels of popularity.

I don't think you know what you're talking about.
First of all, why did you only quote two words out of my entire post?

Second, how these games sold a decade ago is irrelevant.


By the way,
EDIT; Damn, I was actually arguing with Heavy.
This is stupid shit. It's insulting and just shitposting.
 

playXray

Member
I think this post has the highest excitement to deflation ratio I've ever encountered. Saw the title and my heart started racing, then read the post and a drop of bile launched itself up my throat and into the back of my mouth.

Still, thank you for sharing. Just wish MS would give us more old school AoE.
 
Heartbreak.

Hey Microsoft (Phil Spencer), if you are serious about PC gaming then get Age of Empires back to its best. Get more of your first party games on PC. Money is money and the PC crowd buys a lot of games.

Hell, even do Cross Buy. I'd buy a lot more Microsoft games if there was a value initiative like that.
 
Because it's the only part I felt deserved an answer. What followed was even more nonsense.

This is nonsense? Looking at it from a business perspective is "nonsense"?

That's the bottom line. It's just not financially viable. Why kill off Ensemble Studios if AoE games would sell millions in a few weeks time? Why kill them off if another AoE game would be a huge profit? Because they're evil and hate PC gamers? People don't look at these decisions from a business perspective. I've learned to ignore my emotions and look at these things like a robot... strictly in terms of business sense, otherwise I'd go insane.


You also again didn't quote the rest of my last post:
Second, how these games sold a decade ago is irrelevant.
The reason it's irrelevant is because gaming habits have changed. Mobas and F2P are huge now. The RTS genre is a fraction of what it was in 1999, which is why it's silly to compare sales of a game from 1999 to today.
 

Sentenza

Member
This is nonsense? Looking at it from a business perspective is "nonsense"?
Yes. Pure, complete, nonsense and a baffling display of historical ignorance about the topic.
The franchise was incredibly successful. Being unpopular is NOT why Microsoft killed it. They killed it because of their switch in focus to the console market.

You also again didn't quote the rest of my last post:
Because it's an even more silly (note: giant euphemism) claim?
 

Sir TapTap

Member
I wonder how well the "HEY GUYS, remember that series you like? It's back! In POG iOS form!" modell really works.

I can't imagine it works well at all...casual audiences don't give a damn about these old IPs, and fans of the old IPs don't give a damn about cheap mobile F2P stuff that's often not even the same genre.

There might be some success stories, but I doubt the IP actually matters on mobile unless it's something with mass-appeal outside of gaming like Star Wars--I know Tiny Tower got a big boost when they made Tiny Deathstar which is basically the same game with Star Wars flavored paint.
 

Fantastapotamus

Wrong about commas, wrong about everything
I can't imagine it works well at all...casual audiences don't give a damn about these old IPs, and fans of the old IPs don't give a damn about cheap mobile F2P stuff that's often not even the same genre.

There might be some success stories, but I doubt the IP actually matters on mobile unless it's something with mass-appeal outside of gaming like Star Wars--I know Tiny Tower got a big boost when they made Tiny Deathstar which is basically the same game with Star Wars flavored paint.

I think the idea behind this is: There are sooo many games like Clash of Clans. So if you have a name that some people might recognize, no matter if they played it or not, they might stop and look at it. My father never played Age of Empires, but he would probably remember the name if he read it.
 

inky

Member
How to make a mobile game:

Take known/old IP -> copy successful mobile game (which is itself a copy most likely) -> piss everyone off (except whales) -> Rinse. Repeat.

We should start taking bets on which will have the worse monetization scheme, this or Star Wars: Commander
 

mkenyon

Banned
That's delusional. If that were the case they wouldn't have killed the franchise. That's the bottom line. It's just not financially viable. Why kill off Ensemble Studios if AoE games would sell millions in a few weeks time? Why kill them off if another AoE game would be a huge profit? Because they're evil and hate PC gamers? People don't look at these decisions from a business perspective. I've learned to ignore my emotions and look at these things like a robot... strictly in terms of business sense, otherwise I'd go insane.
While I can understand being a Lions fan has made you pretty cynical, you have to keep in mind that sometimes people make the wrong business decisions.

Using a studio closure as proof for why a game wouldn't sell is totally circular and kind of silly.
 

nynt9

Member
Microsoft are dedicated to PC gaming!
aka taking PC franchises and putting them on mobile and announcing no PC games
 
I'm guessing a year until Microsoft ports this to Steam like they did with that terrible Halo dual stick shooter then claims 'see, we care about pc gaming!'.
 

Anoregon

The flight plan I just filed with the agency list me, my men, Dr. Pavel here. But only one of you!
I could tell from the name of the game that it was going to be F2P mobile.
 
While I can understand being a Lions fan has made you pretty cynical, you have to keep in mind that sometimes people make the wrong business decisions.

Using a studio closure as proof for why a game wouldn't sell is totally circular and kind of silly.
It sounds like the simplest explanation to me. AoE3 sold a little over 2 million copies lifetime. That's just not enough. With the RTS genre a fraction of what it was 10-15 years ago, it makes even less business sense to make another massive AAA sequel. We aren't in the late 90s anymore. I loved AoE2, C&C, Red Alert, TA, even shit like Dark Reign, as much as the next guy but the genre is all but dead in the current climate.
 

Maztorre

Member
That's delusional. If that were the case they wouldn't have killed the franchise. That's the bottom line. It's just not financially viable. Why kill off Ensemble Studios if AoE games would sell millions in a few weeks time? Why kill them off if another AoE game would be a huge profit? Because they're evil and hate PC gamers? People don't look at these decisions from a business perspective. I've learned to ignore my emotions and look at these things like a robot... strictly in terms of business sense, otherwise I'd go insane.

You're utterly ignorant of Microsoft's recent history with the PC market. They killed off their PC development to try to drive mindshare and sales into the console market. Even the title announced in this thread is Windows Phone/8.1 exclusive - for no other reason than to try and drive users into it's ecosystem at the cost of profit.

What's delusional is thinking Microsoft's motives are purely based on bottom line when they have a history of arbitrarily dropping support at the cost of sales to try and force users either onto new OSes (Halo 2 Vista) or other platforms (everything they did with the PC userbase to get them onto Xbox 360 or Live before they gave up).
 
Why is MS outsourcing their IP when they have a dedicated Tablet/Phone game studio in Lift London?

edit: Oh, Smoking Gun is that dev that helped them with a bunch of Kinect stuff.

The best we can hope for is that this game copies a little bit(?) of the success of Clash of Clans and they can use the money to make an actual AoE game.
 

mkenyon

Banned
It sounds like the simplest explanation to me. AoE3 sold a little over 2 million copies lifetime. That's just not enough. With the RTS genre a fraction of what it was 10-15 years ago, it makes even less business sense to make another massive AAA sequel. We aren't in the late 90s anymore. I loved AoE2, C&C, Red Alert, TA, even shit like Dark Reign, as much as the next guy but the genre is all but dead in the current climate.
Company of Heroes 2 sold 380,000 copies in the first 5 days.

Age of Empires has a much larger mindshare than that game.

I also don't understand why a new AoE needs to be a "massive AAA sequel". That seems like arbitrarily setting the bar to further your point.
 
Top Bottom