So where are they now? Dallas Observer discusses Robot, Bonfire and Windstorm
No, thats not a picture of Ensemble Studios’ old offices. Instead it is a picture of a near by building which was demolished before the closure of Ensemble Studios as discussed in Bruce’s Blog.
You may be wondering where Robot and Bonfire are based now that they have disbanded from Ensemble. Well the Dallas Observer revealed today that Bonfire Studios has taken up the helm in Ensemble Studios old offices in Dallas. Robot Entertainment on the other hand are based in Plano.
It may be assumed that Robot have taken up offices in Plano and that these offices are the same offices that Ensemble Studios was planning to move into before its closure. One might also remember that Bruce Shelley hinted in his blog that with Microsoft shutting down the studio means that they no longer have to pay for these new offices.
With Robot moving out of the old Dallas offices and moving into Plano this may explain why its taken a little longer for them to get thier website up and running. No doubt the move involved lots of work re-creating an IT Infrastructructure for the company.
More information on this can be found here in the Dallas observer: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/040409dnmetvideogames.3b84ec9.html
Ensemble’s Halo Wars sells a million copies already, becomes the fastest selling console RTS ever!
Great news for Halo, RTS and Ensemble fans as Microsoft has revealed that Halo Wars has ALREADY sold more than a million copies and has become the best selling RTS of this console generation! What a great reason to celebrate!
Outstanding job Ensemble!
This news is somewhat bittersweet as despite Halo Wars outstanding early success the studio was shut down. Hopefully Robot, Bonfire, Windstorm will have the resources they need to keep making great games.
Good job!
Sources:
http://www.t3.com/news/halo-wars-becomes-the-best-selling-rts?=38421
http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/news.phtml/23064/24088/halo-wars-sells-millionth-game.phtml
http://www.virginmedia.com/games/gamingnews/news-story.php?storyid=37317869
Oh and by the way… Its not over yet, Robot is working on DLC as we speak!
Bonfire’s Bill Jackson talks about opening a new studio in the current economic climate
Joystiq have had a quick few words with Bill Jackson the ex Producer at Ensemble Studios who has joined the Bonfire venture. He discussed briefly the last 12 months and says that despite what has happened with Ensemble “It’s actually a great time to work on innovative game designs and think about ways to change our business models to support those games.”
The full article can be read here: http://www.joystiq.com/2009/03/17/weathering-the-economic-storm-start-ups-speak-out/
David Rippy head of Bonfire “Ensemble was a victim of its own success.” “Next game wont be an RTS; wont be published by Microsoft”
Bonfire Studios head David Rippy (ex Ensemble management) has revealed his thoughts on the Ensemble closure relating the to Microsoft never green lighting projects outside the RTS genre resulting in the studio being pigeonholed with RTS games. Rippy went on to discuss Bonfire Studios and that the first game they will make would not be an RTS game and that it would not be published by Microsoft.
This will be the first time the ex-Ensemble team will have worked together on a game outside of the RTS genre and we will finally see what else they are capable of. No doubt it its exciting times within the studio and we wish them the best of luck. Keep with us for all the updates of the upcoming “too hot to handle” game. – any guesses on the platform? Word on the street is that alot of Ensemble people are playing around with iPhones.. could that be the next platform?
You can read the full informative article here: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/ensemble-studios-victim-of-its-own-success-bonfir and is well worth the read
Care for some Halo Wars concept art?
Kotaku have bags of unseen Halo Wars concept art right here: http://www.kotaku.com.au/games/2009/03/ensemble_says_goodbye_with_halo_wars_concept_art-2.html
It will probably be the last concept art you’ll see from Ensemble Studios. Interested folks might want to check out other concept art for unreleased Ensemble games here:
http://remember-ensemblestudios.com/?p=229
Some of these concept arts are wallpaper worthy!
Official Xbox Magazine talks to Dave Pottinger about Halo Wars and Robot Entertainment
Official Xbox Magazine (OXM) has interviewed Dave Pottinger who was the lead designer at Ensemble Studios and who has now joined the Robot Entertainment entity of ex-Ensemble employees as lead designer.
You can listen to the podcast here: http://www.oxmpodcast.com/?p=184 Dave is on at 40:00 onwards. Discussing things like the fatality system and Y-abilities that didnt make it to the final Halo Wars build and why there was no Covenant campaign.
Ensemble says its final goodbye. Halo Wars credits
Special thanks go to Joystiq who today posted the video of the heart-felt credits to Halo Wars. For those who haven’t yet seen the Halo Wars credits it contains the final goodbye from Ensemble Studios thanking fans for the support over the last 12 years. The credits also contain shout outs from everyone who worked on the game (thats everyone in the studio.) Many shout outs honour their family but also thank Ensemble and Tony Goodman for creating a great place to work.
It is clear from these messages that there was genuine love for working at the Studio and demonstrates the number of real people affected by Microsoft’s sad decision to close the studio.
You can watch the credits here:
UPDATED: Robot to support Age Community come March
Robot is poised to resume Age Community moderation in March following the transition period from Ensemble Studios into Robot Entertainment. It is expected a moderator from Robot will make a post to the community informing everyone what the plans are. Robot has reported that the support for Age will be no less than it was when under the Ensemble Studios moderation.
Good news for fans!
UPDATE:
Aloysius, community manager at Robot Entertainment has now confirmed that Robot is offcially taking over the Age of Empires 3 community and that support will be the same as that under Ensemble Studios. You can read the announcement below along with a direct link:
Hi everyone,
I’m Aloysius and I’m the Community Manager at Robot Entertainment.
We’ll be taking the baton from Ensemble Studios for Age3 community and customer support.
We’ll be providing the same level of support that Ensemble always has, so expect a bigger presence on the forums.
A couple questions that I know a lot of people are asking:
Q: Are you taking the ESO servers down?
A: There are no plans to, and in fact we have been doing hardware and software upgrades to the servers so that they are even more stable, so you guys can keep on playing.
Q: Can you make a fan-made patch official?
A: Unfortunately that cannot take place due to legal reasons. A Robot made patch may eventually come out, but there is no date set for that yet.
Source: http://forum.agecommunity.com/forums/thread/796060.aspx
Halo Wars is out tomorrow (UK)
Tomorrow Halo Wars will be released across Europe and Ensemble’s last game will be revealed to the masses. Its going to be a great ride playing Halo Wars campaigns, skirmishes and of course LIVE matchmaking. Remember Ensemble wishes you good luck and to have fun. This is the last game from Ensemble and it is dedicated to the fans which have supported them for over 12 years. Be sure to watch the credits for a reminder of the great team which worked on this game for four long years.
Hats off to them.
My gamertag is “deanparkr” and I hope to see fellow fans on Xbox Live soon.
Bruce Shelley discussing the studios closure – LIVE Blog + Video
Brian Leahy is blogging LIVE from the DICE summit where Bruce Shelley is on stage right now discussing the Ensemble closure. You can read the blog here:
The blog brings to light more information as to why Microsoft could close down such a great studio. Some of these reasons being that the studio became too fragmented as there were more teams working on different ideas and that maybe they lost communication with Microsoft.
WATCH BRUCE:
IGN have video footage of Bruce’s DICE talk here: http://video.ign.com/streaming/dice-2009/index.html Unfortunately at the time of writing the player is down but hopefully it will be up soon. Remember to skip to 4pm as that was the time Mr Shelley was presenting.
GAMASUTRA:
Gamastura’s report of Bruce’s speech can be read here: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=22402.
It would seem that Ensemble had problems diversifying and that it created separate teams too late in the process. Bruce Shelley believes that this lead to the studio being out of sync with Microsoft. A sad speech. Though, Bruce speaks positively of new Ensemble start up studios. Robot and Bonfire.
