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Title: Obligatory Goodbye to Ensemble thread. Post by: LanTheWarder on September 10, 2008, 11:27:25 AM I really enjoyed Age of Empires 2 and I am halfway interested in Halo Wars, but I am pretty surprised that they are getting shut down.
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/54654 (http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/54654) Quote Microsoft has decided to close Ensemble Studios following the completion of Halo Wars. After the closure, the Ensemble leadership team will form a new studio and has agreed to provide ongoing support for Halo Wars as well as work on other projects with Microsoft Game Studios. The team at Ensemble has made invaluable contributions to the games industry with their Age of Empires and Age of Mythology games and with the highly anticipated release of Halo Wars. This decision does not reflect at all on Ensembles talent or the quality of Halo Wars. in fact, many people who have had a chance to test drive Halo Wars agree that it is on track to being a fantastic game. This was a fiscally-rooted decision that keeps MGS on its growth path. While the decision to dissolve Ensemble was not an easy one, Microsoft is working to place as many Ensemble employees who do not move to the newly formed studio into open positions within Microsoft as possible. As to our overall strategy at MGS, it remains the same. We are committed to growing MGS with world-class talent both internally and with our external partners around the globe. We have recently added some well-known developers to our team and will continue growing the team. Were particularly excited about the titles we have in the pipeline and continue to evaluate additional opportunities to bring incredible games to life with the industrys best. Our investment in games has never been greater than it is today. Reading the press release it leads me to believe that people were making too much at Ensemble or they want to relocate the studio (Maybe they are going to LucasArts route and outsourcing to India). Otherwise why would you shutter a studio, but keep the leadership team to make a new studio. Title: Re: Obligatory Goodbye to Ensemble thread. Post by: Yegolev on September 10, 2008, 11:53:10 AM It's not what you know, it's who you know.
Title: Re: Obligatory Goodbye to Ensemble thread. Post by: FatuousTwat on September 10, 2008, 12:08:51 PM Bah. AoE2 was the first RTS I ever played, and really got me into the genre. I hated Age of Mythology and was meh about AoE3.
Title: Re: Obligatory Goodbye to Ensemble thread. Post by: NiX on September 10, 2008, 12:30:42 PM Apparently the heads at MS are trying to get the ex-Ensemble people to move to the new company.
Title: Re: Obligatory Goodbye to Ensemble thread. Post by: FatuousTwat on September 10, 2008, 01:51:47 PM Why dissolve one company that has been around for years and has good brand recognition, just to form a new one and move the people who just got fired to the new company?
I'm being serious... What is the point? Title: Re: Obligatory Goodbye to Ensemble thread. Post by: Ingmar on September 10, 2008, 01:58:31 PM Resetting everyone's vacation time back to two weeks a year?
Title: Re: Obligatory Goodbye to Ensemble thread. Post by: schild on September 10, 2008, 01:59:59 PM Whoops. Fuck me. Thought I was in the NCSoft thread. :why_so_serious:
The Ensemble thing is fucking clownshoes. Title: Re: Obligatory Goodbye to Ensemble thread. Post by: Trippy on September 10, 2008, 02:45:26 PM The new studio that's forming sounds independent of MS.
Title: Re: Obligatory Goodbye to Ensemble thread. Post by: schild on September 10, 2008, 02:46:02 PM The one handling Halo Wars that's moving from their current location doesn't seem to be independent. I'm sure the ex-Ensemble people will make another RTS/RPG company.
Title: Re: Obligatory Goodbye to Ensemble thread. Post by: NiX on September 10, 2008, 03:54:40 PM Why dissolve one company that has been around for years and has good brand recognition, just to form a new one and move the people who just got fired to the new company? I'm being serious... What is the point? Who knows. I'd speculate that it's to curb the cost of keeping certain employees, but I can't begin to think that MS would do something so blatantly illegal in terms of following HR. Of course my knowledge of employee rights and such is bound to Ontario/Canada, so this could be a legitimate tactic, but I'd hate to think something that unethical could be done. (I know, I know.. ethics.. business.) Edit: On reading a couple articles it would seem this is just MS splitting from Bungie but to a greater extreme. From what I can gather MS believes Ensemble (or whatever they'll become) would be better off as an independent studio pulling contracts for MS and having them publish their games. Essentially the "fire and hire" bit is just MS soaking up whoever doesn't want to move over to the new company. Title: Re: Obligatory Goodbye to Ensemble thread. Post by: Trippy on September 10, 2008, 03:57:12 PM The one handling Halo Wars that's moving from their current location doesn't seem to be independent. I'm sure the ex-Ensemble people will make another RTS/RPG company. No it does -- it's just they've agreed to support Halo Wars as one of their projects and MGS will be their publisher. |