For anyone who see the preview back in February, this is not exactly surprising, but it certainly brings home the reality of the situation—that the preview did not unfairly represent the actual game.
This deeply upsets me, because the Age of Empires franchise is one I really care about. 1, 2, 3, 4, and Age of Mythology are all excellent games, and every one of them belongs in the top 20 RTS games of all time. Microsoft might not be developing this game (that’s getting outsourced to Chinese company TiMi with a history of producing trash mobile games), but they are tarnishing their brand by allowing it to be associated with this game.
But it gets worse. They are apparently also silencing critics of it. Back when February’s announcement came out, some select few creators were allowed to put out videos about the game using exclusive footage of the game, and were told they’d be paid for their role in promoting the game. But they retained editorial control over the videos. YouTube channel Age of Noob put out one such video, and while tempered in its tone, it was largely negative.
Yesterday, the YouTube channel Age of Noob put out a video saying he never got paid, as well as more specifically saying how bad the game was. Today, he put out another one saying he was forced to take down that one (in vague terms—it would not even be clear he was talking about AoE Mobile, if you hadn’t seen the first video). In a pinned comment he also said that after making the second video, he found out he had been removed from the Age Franchise Partners programme.
If this is how Microsoft is willing to treat their biggest game franchise (well, biggest one that they didn’t buy after it was already huge), and the creators that help promote it, that is incredibly disappointing.
Who the fuck validated the bright idea in a management meeting : let’s outsource the mobile project to that Chinese company which produced those trash games ? Those people need to be fired like yesterday. Crazy how a company can sabotage itself…
It’s honestly shocking. They went for a decade with heaps of trashy mobile games advertising using stolen AoE art assets. When they finally announced a mobile game, I assumed it was because they thought they had cracked how to do a good mobile game that would do justice to their franchise. I guess the reality was more “oh, look how many companies are making lots of money ripping off our IP. We could rip off our own IP and make all that money!”
For anyone who see the preview back in February, this is not exactly surprising, but it certainly brings home the reality of the situation—that the preview did not unfairly represent the actual game.
This deeply upsets me, because the Age of Empires franchise is one I really care about. 1, 2, 3, 4, and Age of Mythology are all excellent games, and every one of them belongs in the top 20 RTS games of all time. Microsoft might not be developing this game (that’s getting outsourced to Chinese company TiMi with a history of producing trash mobile games), but they are tarnishing their brand by allowing it to be associated with this game.
But it gets worse. They are apparently also silencing critics of it. Back when February’s announcement came out, some select few creators were allowed to put out videos about the game using exclusive footage of the game, and were told they’d be paid for their role in promoting the game. But they retained editorial control over the videos. YouTube channel Age of Noob put out one such video, and while tempered in its tone, it was largely negative.
Yesterday, the YouTube channel Age of Noob put out a video saying he never got paid, as well as more specifically saying how bad the game was. Today, he put out another one saying he was forced to take down that one (in vague terms—it would not even be clear he was talking about AoE Mobile, if you hadn’t seen the first video). In a pinned comment he also said that after making the second video, he found out he had been removed from the Age Franchise Partners programme.
If this is how Microsoft is willing to treat their biggest game franchise (well, biggest one that they didn’t buy after it was already huge), and the creators that help promote it, that is incredibly disappointing.
Who the fuck validated the bright idea in a management meeting : let’s outsource the mobile project to that Chinese company which produced those trash games ? Those people need to be fired like yesterday. Crazy how a company can sabotage itself…
It’s honestly shocking. They went for a decade with heaps of trashy mobile games advertising using stolen AoE art assets. When they finally announced a mobile game, I assumed it was because they thought they had cracked how to do a good mobile game that would do justice to their franchise. I guess the reality was more “oh, look how many companies are making lots of money ripping off our IP. We could rip off our own IP and make all that money!”
There’s always Xcom - the shining example of what a mobile port could be.
I wish other companies would see that and go “yeah, that’s doable”
Instead, this crap happens.
Why can’t we ever have anything nice
… from public corpos
I think the answer there would be “capitalism”.