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.
Part 2 of Bruce’s blog restored & new studios update
You can now find the images restored to part 2 of Bruce’s blog archive: http://remember-ensemblestudios.com/?page_id=240
The rest will be restored soon.
Update on new studios:
There has been no news as of yet for a name for the new studios and nor do they have a website setup. I can confirm however that Ensemble people are indeed managing the ESO servers which run Age of Empires 3 and Age of Mythology. My ears are to the ground and will update this site as news develops.
Restoring ES Blogs – Part 1
I have restored images for Bruce Shelley’s most recent set of Ensemble blogs. You can find them in the blog archive.
Over the coming days more images will be restored to older Ensemble blogs. I will be doing Bruce’s blogs first and then Ben Donges after.
Stay tuned!
EnsembleStudios.com goes offline – Remember-EnsembleStudios.com live
Today the official EnsembleStudios.com website has gone offline and now redirects to the Age of Empires community. Thankfully, I was warned this might be the case and took action to archive the final images of the Ensemble website along with copies of ES Blogs.
You will notice the formatting of the blogs isn’t all there yet and is missing images. This is something I hope to have rectified soon. However with EnsembleStudios.com dropping offline today it was a priority to get that text back on the web as soon as possible despite the formatting problems.
Sit tight and images and formatting will be restored to Bruce and Ben’s blogs soon.
Two new companies to form out of Ensemble
Bruce Shelley confirmed in his blog that there will be two new companies forming out of Ensemble employees. One of those studios will be providing support for ESO (Ensemble Online) and Halo Wars and it is presumed that this studio will be run by Ensemble head Tony Goodman though this has not been confirmed. It is completely unknown as to who may be leading the other company. One might ask why Tony Goodman’s new studio is not employing all of Ensemble’s staff. This is because the new studio will not have enough resources and size to employ everyone unfortunately. However as both studios gain momentum there is nothing to stop a partnership in the future.
Strangely enough Microsoft have announced that they want to have a relationship with the “new” Ensemble and that there is very good possibility of games being created under the Microsoft Games Studio banner. There has been no news yet as to what projects the studio will be working on but AOE4 and Halo Wars 2 are possibilities.
Ensemble visionary Bruce Shelley will not be joining either company, sadly. Stay tuned for updates on these new companies.
Below are some links to recent news articles about Ensemble Studios:
Ensemble staff to form two new studios Former employees will continue work on popular titles through new entities – GamesIndustry.Biz
Ensemble involved in Halo Wars’ future
Microsoft Game Studios “very excited” about series potential – GamesIndustry.biz
Bruce Shelley Shares His Thoughts on Ensemble Studios Shutting Down – Softpedia
Goodbye Ensemble Studios. Bruce’s last blog
Today Bruce Shelley uploaded his final blog on the Ensemble Studios website. The blog will only be available on the ES website for a few days so catch it as fast as you can. http://www.ensemblestudios.com/blogs/bshelley/archive/2009/01/29/goodbye-and-thanks.aspx
I have learnt that the Ensemble Studios website may be shut down soon so I will be trying to archive as much as possible before ES closes. It may not be online here straightaway but rest assured I will have all the blogs archived from the ES website and available here as soon as possible.
Goodbye Ensemble Studios. You will not be forgotten.
🙁
Thanks for making great games.
Update: All the blogs on the EnsembleStudios.com website are safe. Ive got them all stored along with screenshots of the Ensemble Studios website
