Microsoft's attempt to reinvigorate its aging Age of Empires game franchise most recently resulted in a free-to-play game distributed on the company's (now shuttered) Games for Windows Live service. The game, Age of Empires Online, launched as a free title with two civilizations available to play as; any additional civilizations (initially) cost $20 apiece, a hefty price despite the amount of content therein (30ish hours per civilization). Longtime AOE fans, understandably, reacted negatively to the game's business model, which took the content previously offered in full from older AOE games and broke it up into an a la carte, F2P title.
As Microsoft AOEO executive producer Kevin Perry told a crowd of GDC Europe attendees this morning in a panel titled "F2P the Wrong Way: Age of Empires Online," the game outright "wasn't ready for launch" when it arrived in Summer 2011. Though Perry ran through a variety of ways that his team helped to fix AOEO's course, he brought up one particularly interesting factor: Valve's Steam game service. When the game hit Steam in March 2012, the game's DAU (daily active users) spiked by more than three times -- a larger bump than any other change by far, including new content (as seen in the above image).
Filed under: Gaming, Software, HD, Microsoft
Comments
Microsoft revealed at its E3 event that Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition will arrive this fall. As with the updated Age of Empires, this version of the classic RTS includes 4K support and remastered audio, as well as a brand-new campaign called T...
Were you planning your gaming calendar around Age of Empires: Definitive Edition's release on October 19th? You'll... need to find an alternative. Microsoft has pushed back the launch of the remastered real-time strategy collection at the last minute...
It's been over a decade since Age of Empires III came out in 2005, but fans of the lauded RTS franchise will once again be subject to Gandhi's merciless wrath: Age of Empires IV is officially in development. At Gamescom today, Microsoft announced the...
Hey, Blizzard: you're not the only developer that can remaster a classic real-time strategy game. Microsoft has unveiled Age of Empires: Definitive Edition, a rework of Ensemble Studio's history-based conquer-the-map title. Graphics and sound get the...
