Company type | Subsidiary |
---|---|
Industry | Video games |
Founded | 1994 |
Founder | Tony Goodman |
Defunct | January 29, 2009 |
Fate | Defunct |
Headquarters | Dallas, Texas, U.S. |
Products | Age of Empires Age of Mythology Halo Wars |
Owner | Microsoft |
Parent | Microsoft Game Studios |
Ensemble Studios was an American video game developer. It was founded by Tony Goodman in 1994 and incorporated the following year. It borrowed the name of Ensemble Corporation, a consulting firm founded by Goodman in 1990. [1] It was acquired by Microsoft in 2001 and operated as an internal studio until 2009, when its development capabilities were officially disbanded. [2] Ensemble developed many real-time strategy games, including the Age of Empires game series, Age of Mythology , and Halo Wars . In addition to game development, Ensemble Studios also made the Genie Game Engine used in Age of Empires , Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings , and Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds . The studio sold 20 million games and was worth an estimated $500 million. [3]
Ensemble Studios developed the Age of Empires game series of real-time strategy titles, comprising Age of Empires , Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings and Age of Empires III . They also released Age of Mythology , a spin-off from the original series. Expansion packs were also released for all their games including two for Age of Empires III. Their last release was the real-time strategy game called Halo Wars for Xbox 360.
Release Date | Title | Genre |
---|---|---|
1997 | Age of Empires | real-time strategy |
1998 | Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome | expansion pack |
1999 | Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings | real-time strategy |
2000 | Age of Empires II: The Conquerors | expansion pack |
2002 | Age of Mythology | real-time strategy |
2003 | Age of Mythology: The Titans | expansion pack |
2005 | Age of Empires III | real-time strategy |
2006 | Age of Empires III: The WarChiefs | expansion pack |
2007 | Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties [4] | expansion pack |
2009 | Halo Wars | real-time strategy |
Cancelled | Titan (Halo MMO) [5] [6] | massively multiplayer online game |
Sorcerer [7] | fantasy-adventure RPG | |
Nova [7] | ||
Wrench [7] [8] | platform game | |
Bam [7] | ||
Agent [7] | ||
In 1998, Rick Goodman left Ensemble Studios and started a new independent studio, Stainless Steel Studios.
In 2000, Brian Sullivan left Ensemble Studios and started a new independent studio, Iron Lore Entertainment, to develop the action role-playing game Titan Quest .
In 2001, Microsoft acquired Ensemble Studios [9] for $100 million. [10] Ensemble remained at their original location in a high rise office in Dallas, Texas, until April 2008 when Microsoft moved them to the Shops at Legacy in Plano, the same location as GearBox Software. [ citation needed ] Their office was 50,000 square feet and designed to house 120 employees. [11]
In 2008, Ensemble announced that it would close after the release of Halo Wars in 2009. According to multiple independent reports, all non-essential staff were laid off and remaining staff were given incentives to remain until the completion of the project. [12] Microsoft issued an internal statement on September 10, 2008 which was then leaked to the public. [13]
The company shut down on January 29, 2009. [14] It was also stated that there are at least two new studios being formed by ES employees. [15]
In February 2009, former Ensemble Studios head Tony Goodman started a new independent studio, Robot Entertainment, and a number of the existing employees have been offered a position in this company. [16]
Following the announcement of Robot Entertainment, former Ensemble Studios producer David Rippy started a new independent studio, Bonfire Studios, composed entirely of former Ensemble staff members. [17] Bonfire was later renamed Zynga Dallas through its acquisition by Zynga and released only one game as an independent company.
In 2008, a third studio called Newtoy, Inc. was created by several developers from Ensemble, [18] which released Chess With Friends for the iPhone in November 2008, [19] and Words With Friends in August 2009. [20] Newtoy was also acquired by Zynga and renamed Zynga With Friends, a moniker off of Newtoy's successful 'with friends' series. Newtoy released two games while they were independent.
In March 2009, a fourth studio, Windstorm Studios, was founded by ex-staffer Dusty Monk as a one-man company. [21] Dusty Monk later closed this studio on March 21, 2012 and joined Robot Entertainment with his former co-workers. [22]
In June 2013, a fifth studio emerged, Boss Fight Entertainment, [23] founded by previous employees of Ensemble Studios and Zynga Dallas. Boss Fight Entertainment is located in McKinney, Texas and is developing games for mobile platforms. The studio was acquired by Netflix Inc. in 2022. [24]
Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. is an American video game holding company based in New York City founded by Ryan Brant in September 1993.
Xbox Game Studios is an American video game publisher based in Redmond, Washington. It was established in March 2000, spun out from an internal Games Group, for the development and publishing of video games for Microsoft Windows. It has since expanded to include games and other interactive entertainment for the namesake Xbox platforms, other desktop operating systems, Windows Mobile and other mobile platforms, web-based portals, and other game consoles.
Stainless Steel Studios (SSSI) was a video game developer, started in 1997 by Rick Goodman and Dara-Lynn Pelechatz. The company was based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and focused on the development of real-time strategy games.
Wargaming Seattle, formerly known as Gas Powered Games, was a video game developer located in Redmond, Washington. The development studio was started in May 1998 by Chris Taylor and several other ex-Cavedog Entertainment employees. In 2013 they became the Seattle studio of Wargaming. Wargaming Seattle was closed down in July 2018.
Age of Empires is a series of historical real-time strategy video games, originally developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Xbox Game Studios. The first game was Age of Empires, released in 1997. Nine total games within the series have been released so far as of October 28, 2021.
The Genie Engine is a game engine developed by Ensemble Studios and used in several computer games, such as Age of Empires, Age of Empires II and its expansions and Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds. Some of those games have been ported to the Apple Mac.
Stephen A. Rippy is an American composer from Texas who is well known for his musical compositions for the soundtracks of various video games, most notably the Age of Empires franchise by Ensemble Studios and Microsoft Games.
Robot Entertainment is an American video game developer and publisher based in Plano, Texas. Its founders previously founded Ensemble Studios, which was shut down by Microsoft. Other members of the company founded another studio, Bonfire Studios. Robot Entertainment took over Ensemble's responsibility of maintaining and updating Halo Wars until February 28, 2010, when Microsoft Studios assumed control of the game servers and updates. Also, in January 2011, Microsoft Studios took over updates and servers for Age of Empires III. Robot Entertainment have since released games including Orcs Must Die!, Orcs Must Die! 2, Hero Academy, Echo Prime, Orcs Must Die! Unchained, Hero Academy 2 and ReadySet Heroes.
Zynga Dallas was a video game development company based in Dallas, Texas. After Ensemble Studios was shut down by Microsoft in 2009, Bonfire Studios was one of four companies founded by former Ensemble employees. Bonfire's co-founders were Bill Jackson, David Rippy, Scott Winsett, and Stephen Rippy.
Zynga Inc. is an American developer running social video game services. It was founded in April 2007, with headquarters in San Mateo, California. The company primarily focuses on mobile and social networking platforms. Zynga states its mission as "connecting the world through games".
Halo Wars is a real-time strategy (RTS) video game developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360 video game console. It was released in Australia on February 26, 2009; in Europe on February 27; and in North America on March 3. The game is set in the science fiction universe of the Halo series in the year 2531, 21 years before the events of Halo: Combat Evolved. The player leads human soldiers aboard the warship Spirit of Fire in an effort to stop an ancient fleet of ships from falling into the hands of the genocidal alien Covenant.
Corrinne Yu is an American game programmer. She has worked on games including King's Quest, Quake II, and Halo 4. Her engine work included Unreal Engine 3, Microsoft's Direct3D Advisory Board, and CUDA and GPU simulation at Nvidia. She has also designed accelerator experiments for nuclear physics research.
Bungie, Inc. is an American video game company based in Bellevue, Washington, and a subsidiary of Sony Interactive Entertainment. The company was established in May 1991 by Alex Seropian, who later brought in programmer Jason Jones after publishing Jones's game Minotaur: The Labyrinths of Crete. Originally based in Chicago, Illinois, the company concentrated on Macintosh games during its early years and created two successful video game franchises called Marathon and Myth. An offshoot studio, Bungie West, produced Oni, published in 2001 and owned by Take-Two Interactive, which held a 19.9% ownership stake at the time.
Video gaming in the United States is one of the fastest-growing entertainment industries in the country. The American video game industry is the largest video game industry in the world. According to a 2020 study released by the Entertainment Software Association, the yearly economic output of the American video game industry in 2019 was $90.3 billion, supporting over 429,000 American jobs. With an average yearly salary of about $121,000, the latter figure includes over 143,000 individuals who are directly employed by the video game business. Additionally, activities connected to the video game business generate $12.6 billion in federal, state, and local taxes each year. World Economic Forum estimates that by 2025 the American gaming industry will reach $42.3 billion while worldwide gaming industry will possibly reach US$270 billion. The United States is one of the nations with the largest influence in the video game industry, with video games representing a significant part of its economy.
CastleVille is a defunct social network game made by Zynga's Dallas studio and was released in November 2011. It combined a number of elements from the company's other "Ville" range of games. On launch it had received a million "likes" on Facebook. By the end of its first month, it had become the fifth most popular game on Facebook with 26.5 million players. The game was a freemium game, meaning there is no cost to play but players have the option of purchasing premium content.
Tony Goodman is an American video game executive and entrepreneur. He is the co-founder of Ensemble Studios and Robot Entertainment.
Hero Academy was a two-player turn-based tactics video game created by the developer Robot Entertainment, known for their previous series Orcs Must Die!. The game was first released for the iPhone iOS platform on January 11, 2012, with ports later being released for the Microsoft Windows, OS X and Android platforms. In the game, players take turns moving units on a board and attacking enemy units with the objective of being the first to destroy the other player's crystal or eliminate all of the other player's units. The game received generally favorable reviews from critics. In his review for Ars Technica, Andrew Webster noted that the gameplay was simple and easy to learn, but that the game also offered a satisfying depth within each turn. The game also features cross platform play across all installed platforms. A sequel to the game was launched in January 2018. On January 9, 2019, Robot Entertainment announced in a blog post that Hero Academy and its sequel would cease operations on April 8, 2019 as one had been long defunct and its sequel had been operating at a financial loss for several months.
Bethesda Game Studios Dallas LLC is an American video game developer based in Dallas. Founded in 2007 by Tom Mustaine, Marc Tardif, and Shawn Green, the company was briefly owned by 6waves Lolapps (6L) in 2012 but returned to independence after the publisher laid off all development staff. ZeniMax Media acquired Escalation Studios in February 2017, and it became part of Bethesda Game Studios as Bethesda Game Studios Dallas in August 2018.
Microsoft Corp. has agreed to buy Ensemble Studios Inc., the Dallas-based software developer responsible for the top-selling Age of Empires game franchise. Microsoft, of Redmond, Wash., said Friday that Ensemble will continue to create titles from its Dallas headquarters.
Ensemble Studios ... plans to relocate its operations to the Shops at Legacy in Plano, according to published reports.