Ensemble co-founder says goodbye as studio closes

no more AoM too
noooooooo..............

yea....i still play that occasionally, one of the best settler players ever...

comment above at juju

They have to end with a bang, so it has to be good! NO! It will be great!

Agreed.

Cause your mum...

I HATE HER SO MUCH! The dirty tramp :(

They're closing because Ensemble was the most expensive to run developer in all of Microsoft Game Studios and they haven't released a game since 2005.

Well, they released the Warchiefs xpack in 2006, so they've been working on Halo Wars for 2 years.

Sadly no. They were a money hole for Microsoft. And yes, it's sad but true. The expansion pack the created was hardly anything to gloat about as being a good cash cow. It took them a long time to bring Halo Wars to us, and it will probably be a masterpiece, but I do see where Microsoft is coming from, and I am deeply sorry for the great developers at Ensemble Studios.

They thing that is screwed up is that Halo Wars is going to bring in a lot of money, and to me it does make since why they as shutting them down when they will bring profit to Microsoft. Microsoft is going down hill to me, they keep closing the doors of companies to save only a little money. They would profit if they just stuck through this rough time.

Anyway good luck to all Ensemble Studio member. I hope that your great work with your games will provide you jobs at a different company.

Rare may still be around, but their talented people are long gone, and with Free Radical gone too, fuck only knows where those people are now.

The average xbox gamer doesn't care unless it has to do with the development of average shooter No 1m and a half.

You know the other day that little ahole called Longhorn said something about a Rare game Banjo Kazooie nuts and bolts mostly because he doesn't have a clue what the game is and because he is a half retarded sh*t but it put things in perspective.

You have people like Alien Lord and Longhorn respectively fanboys of each system x360 and PS3 and the only things the buy for certain are games that allow them to teabag or make rage using as little skill as possible.(Possibly 12 year olds have problems and stress that I’m not aware that of . )

It seems you can’t release games these days that aren’t shooters without having tons of money behind them. The only successful games that survive this are RPGS because they have a huge fan base or games with lots of publicity and media approval like Braid or Little Big Planet.

At the end I’m being screwed for primitive aholes that don’t know anything better unless the internet tells them to do it. I wouldn’t be surprised if in the future all games are about space cavemen raping aliens for a living and online the puregameplay consist of people teabagging each other with laser chainsaws and grenades.

Now I feel sad, I thought I was the average Xbox gamer. I guess playing Carcassonne, Castle Crashers, and Armed and Dangerous doesn't make me average right? :(

finaldarklord, just to let you know, there is a new studio forming out of free rad's ashes called pumpkin beach. So there's hope yet...

I'm going to go reserve the Limited Edition and pay it off.

1. Halo is just a fun franchise and Halo Wars look amazing

2. It's a tribute from me to Ensemble Studios. I think they deserve it.

Already pre-ordered.

But does it pay them now that they are closed? Or does it all go directly to Microsoft?

Maybe they should release good games on PC instead? You know, so they're not broken at launch or are 3 year old ports that will only work if you buy their latest OS as well.