It's been over two years since Age of Empires 4 was first announced. Let that sink in for a second. It was revealed with a minute-long teaser trailer, and since then Microsoft has been tight-lipped as to what we should expect from the long-awaited revival of this legendary strategy series.
The curtain was pulled back today, as Microsoft revealed our first look at in-engine gameplay – showcasing British and Mongol armies going to war – and GamesRadar+ had the opportunity to sit down with Adam Isgreen, the creative director of the Age of Empires franchise. Our first question was, of course, where in the hell has the game been these last two years! Isgreen was only too happy to answer.
"What we decided on pretty early was that we were only going to show what we knew would deliver and that was kind of our mantra. So everything you've seen in here today – and we've hidden a whole bunch of little things in here that people will find as soon as they start to go through the trailer frame-by-frame," Isgreen laughs, explaining that the trailer has been captured from an early pre-Alpha build so we shouldn't look too closely. "But it's so important to us that everything you see in this trailer is stuff that you will see once the game lands."
"And as we go forward and start to show more – and there is a whole bunch of things we have not shown yet, and not just civilizations, but aspects of the game that people don't have any idea about yet – all of it's real, none of it is fake," Isgreen tells me, pulling attention to the army sizes, the battles atop walls, and numerous quality-of-life enhancements. "None of it's not going to be there. We don't want people to be like, 'oh, what happened to that Falcon that was circling around the Mongols; I can't believe they took that out!' Nope, it's all in. Wall combat as well, it's all in there – it's all in the game and it's all working, as of right now at least. As we continue through development and show more of it, it's our promise that it is all real. That's one of the reasons that it has taken so long to show anything new, we want to guarantee that we always show real gameplay."
Age of Empires 4 doesn't have a release date yet, but it is expected to launch for PC towards the tail end of 2020. We'll have more on the upcoming strategy game soon, and we can already confirm that it's looking bloody wonderful. Age of Empires 4 was built in a new engine for PC (sorry folks, it doesn't sound like a console version is currently in the works), with developers Relic Entertainment and World's Edge – a new internal Microsoft studio, created to help make this game the best that it can be – as well as numerous other partner studios, all coming together to ensure that this is a series revival worth remembering.
For future reference I achieved the two jobs below: INTERNAL BRAND MANAGER: https://boards.greenhouse.io/relic/jobs/744038 http://archive.ph/YTK3Y
This job announcement, executive producer seems related. Unless someone is leaving, Relic is working on 3 games (2 unannounced). Usually only one executive producer for each game development.
As previously reported by Daily Hive, Relic Entertainment remains one of the oldest gaming companies in Vancouver. Its 20-year run is a rare hallmark in a space that has seen the shuttering of many mid-sized gaming studios over the years. Sitting at just under 250 staff, the company plans to grow steadily to a headcount of 330 over the next five years. This year alone, Relic has added over 50 people.
“We don’t have any plans to stop anytime soon,” Relic Entertainment COO, Heidi Eaves, told Daily Hive in a sit-down interview.
“The barrier for us isn’t the space, it’s how competitive the industry is.”
Eaves recognizes that there is a vibrant video game industry in Vancouver, and competition for experienced technical workers can also extend into other industries. While local and US companies are starting to build an incredible tech hub, “right now there simply aren’t enough people to go around.”
Affordable real estate prices/housing is a big part of job mobility.
It sucks for Relic/Sega but Vancouver is now nr.2 most expensive NA city. San Francisco is nr.1.
According to CBC News report:
How dirty money is driving up real estate prices (Vancouver/BC) | The Weekly with Wendy Mesley
At the centre of the money laundering ring is a powerful China-based gang called the Big Circle Boys. Its top level “kingpins” are the international drug traffickers who are profiting most from Canada’s deadly fentanyl crisis.
Fun facts, check dates:
1) CoH World Championship Finals Weekend
Saturday the 16th and Sunday the 17th of November
2) Microsoft X019
Confirmed AoE4 news and likely new Xbox GamePass announcements: 14.-16. November https://www.xbox.com/x019
*SNIP*
On the official website of Age of Empires, the countdown to the start of the „next adventure” with the strategy game series has begun. It will end on the day of the start of the X019 event at which Age of Empires IV is to be shown.
But how can you be sure that this is about the presentation of the fourth game from the series? After all, it could be associated with Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition, which is due to debut on November 14. The point is that on the official website of the series there is a separate countdown to the release of AoE II, ending just before the start of Xbox Inside. Furthermore, the mention of the "next adventure" seems to indicate a new installment of the series. It's not really about a new undisclosed production, either. In June, Adam Isgreen (the creative director of the franchise) made it clear that the priorities are to refresh the original trilogy and the fourth installment of the series. Although this was true for the possible return of Age of Mythology, in this context it seems doubtful that developers could work on a completely new project.
Also made MSM news, follow @Slasher on twitter (esport consultant/insider) if interested.
He appeared as MSM guest last week and did a good job representing the game community: https://twitter.com/Slasher/
I tried deleting my Blizzard account since last week but they want Government photo ID from my country
All Hail the Dragon Emperor!
Today I checked my account again (delete account + personal data request).
It's been over a week before this Blizzard boycott started and they still don't fix this so-called "bug":
What a fucking joke.
This might be illegal within EU due to new data protection laws.
Europe's New Privacy Law Will Change the Web, and More:
Do they only have one engineer working on this bug? how convenient?
Blizzard: Maybe you'll change minds after Blizzcon?
Seekingalpha | Sell Activision Blizzard:
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4295993-sell-activision-blizzard-hong-kong-misstep-will-cost-fortune
Conclusion
Activision Blizzard's eagerness to abandon its western customers in favor of China opened Pandora's box. The negative press is just starting: expect protests at Blizzard events and further outcry from politicians. Canceled subscriptions from World of Warcraft and canceled preorders of games like Reforged will hurt the company's top and bottom lines.
*SNIP*
Regardless of Blizzard's intentions, they destroyed potentially billions of dollars of customer goodwill in their eastern and western markets.
Bellular News | Blizzard LOCKDOWN: Overwatch Launch Event CANCELLED, Pro Player CLAMPDOWN: Interview & Cams Are CUT:
Blizzard have cancelled an Overwatch launch event at NintendoNYC, likely in light of the Blitzchung situation. We've also seen them clamp down on Collegiate Hearthstone, cutting player cams & cancelling post-match interviews.
Below some re-posting from CoH2.org/Reddit, relevant to both Activision Blizzard (Tencent jumped at the opportunity to buy 5 percent of the company) and Epic (Tencent's $330 million investment in Epic Games). In 2013 Bobby Kotick (Activision CEO) led an investment group + Chinese investment/strategic relationship which helped Activision escape Vivendi who was the majority shareholder.
That investment group has since sold off a majority of it’s shares. Current biggest share holder is the Vanguard Group, Inc.
It's almost like Activision doesn't care about the long term viability of Blizzard as a company but is mostly concerned with doing the video game equivalent of asset stripping where IPs are exhausted by releasing high margin mobile games that alienate the core fan base and slowly lead to the demise of the company and its brands.
The problem is that Activision has a very shortsighted view of things. They're obsessed with quarter on quarter growth and making sure everything the company does shows a direct profit. But competent business involves thinking past the current quarter to ten years down the line. Blizzard has been a staggeringly successful independent company but has been making bad decision after bad decision since it was acquired by Activision. It doesn't take Nostradamus to project what will become of Blizzard in five years.
*SNIP*
Part of the problem is that claims such as Activisions that RTS games are unprofitable are not based on solid evidence, nor are they unchangeable, natural facts. The reality is that StarCraft I and II have made a ton of money for Blizzard, so not continuing the series because RTS are unprofitable is just stupid.
Capitalists are not necessarily rational or intelligent. Many of them are not particularly knowledge about the industry they are in. As a result, they end up taking a lot of received wisdom on-board and just mimicking other big companies rather than seriously thinking through a long-term growth strategy. Activision has been on the yearly sequels until an IP stops being profitable train for a long time, and I suspect that's what they'll try to do with Overwatch (Blizzard's most marketable franchise).
*SNIP*
Except there's a reason that publishers have systematically been killing game studios for decades now: the research they do is inherently conservative in it's outlook. The focus is on genres with consistent sales over and above doing something more risky that has the potential to be way more profitable.
Consider where innovation and smash hits have come from in the last decade. A lot of them have come from Indie studios. Minecraft has been insanely profitable, PUBG has created a genre of imitators while making tons of money, etc. AAA game publishing has been stagnant and slowly eroding itself through running IP after IP into the ground with annualized releases that are more or less identical to what they were before.
This isn't because there are necessarily a bunch of morons at the top but because they have systemically short sighted incentives (namely, quarterly profit reports). The long term trajectory of this strategy, the one Activision appears to be pursuing with Blizzard, is a long term loss of profitability and probably the closure of the studio.
CAN BLIZZARD BUY BACK ENOUGH SHARES TO GET RID OF ACTIVISION?
On July 25th 2013 Activision Blizzard announced they were buying back 429 million and million ASAC II LP, an investment vehicle led by Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick and Co-Chairman Brian Kelly, to which they have personally committed $100 million combined, separately will purchase approximately 172 million shares.
Most notably that investment group has since sold off a majority of it’s shares.
Source Jason Schreier: https://kotaku.com/the-past-present-and-future-of-diablo-1830593195
Activision merged with the publisher Vivendi (at the time, Blizzard’s holding company) to become Activision Blizzard in 2008, but over the past decade Blizzard has prided itself in remaining a separate entity. With its own management structure and its own campus in Irvine, California, Blizzard has always stood out from Activision’s other divisions and subsidiaries. (Activision HQ is based about an hour northwest, in Santa Monica.) Rather than sticking to strict production cycles that result in, say, annual Call of Duty games for Activision, Blizzard has traditionally given its developers as much time as possible. That’s one of the reasons the company has been renowned for making some of the greatest games in the world.
This year, however, Blizzard employees say that one of the biggest ongoing conversations has been cutting costs. To fans, and even to some people who work or have worked at Blizzard, there’s a concern that something deep within the company’s culture may be changing.
They bend the knee to money, like every other company. Their purpose is to make money not to take political sides.
It's more complex than that. A few points;
1) There is a difference between a private company and a publicly-traded company that has shareholders.
A private company such as Valve is less greedy than most publicly-traded companies. That is not to say a private company can't be greedy and vice versa.
Two exceptions to this corporate greed is "old Blizzard" and CD Projekt Red both publicly-traded companies.
New ownership/leadership, new ideas. At this point, it is obvious the "Activision influence" is changing Blizzard inside out.
https://www.gamesradar.com/blizzard-canceled-games/
The story goes that for every game Blizzard sees through to completion, it cancels another - a roughly 50 percent release rate for games that have had potentially years of work poured into them: "I've gone back every few years and checked the math on that, and it's pretty consistent," Morhaime said, as reported by Eurogamer. "It's like half the titles we work on never make it."
Valve is more pro-free market than Chinese companies that steal and copy anything they can get their hands on. Copyright laws/enforcement in China are a joke.
Due to corporate ownership there is no such thing as a 100% neutral company. They all have a political bias which can be seen in lobbying money.
Follow the money.
We can't really separate a free market and human rights as they are interconnected.
The founder of the free market is Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations, 1776) and the founder of unalienable human rights/individual sovereignty is Thomas Jefferson (Declaration of Independence, 1776).
Both core ideas/ideologies was created in 1776 and not a coincidence.
This is a battle of ideas that has been going on for the last 200+ years.
2) Blizzard has not been consistent at all in neutrality nor is they impartial with eSport rules/TOS.
3) China by law has a closed market. It’s very difficult for western game companies to get into the Chinese market without working with a Chinese company and/or Government (Drift0r explain this).
IMO, this is borderline extortion of western companies and abusing a legal vacuum.
4) Yes, we should do legal business (not racketeering) with China even though it’s an utterly corrupt superpower.
5) Unfortunately, many people living in the west take freedom of speech/human rights for granted as it was given to us from previous generations. Because those rights did not cost us much it must not be valuable right?
For billions of people on this planet, defending basic human rights could mean going to prison or worse. The price is very real.
6)
The fact western game companies (including big tech/Google) have to create two separate products is so fucking telling.
A “real world” western version and a censored Chinese version are ridiculous. Then Chinese gamers use VPN to bypass “censored” products.
In a secret project now publicly exposed, Google engineers were forced to do Chinese censorship with a separate search engine. That engine was called Dragonfly
The list goes on.
Western consumers have right to some transparency or we can't vote with our wallet and just mindless consumerism.
Blatant lie from "Blizzard PR" written by Chinese writers (allegedly):
Blizzard Bans More Esport Players To Save Face!
Damage Control & Hypocrisy Exposed
Blizzard: Every voice matters as long as you don't anger the Dragon Emperor!
Happy to announce the AU Hearthstone team received a six month ban from competition. While delayed I appreciate all players being treated equally and no one being above the rules: https://twitter.com/Xcelsior_hs/status/1184333609370619905
Esports Talk | Blizzard Issues Longest Ban EVER in Collegiate Esports to 3 Kids:
ReviewTechUSA | BLIZZARD DOES IT AGAIN! They Suspend ANOTHER Hearthstone Team!:
More YouTubers will likely cover this news story and I'll update accordingly.
Many players and YouTubers have criticized Blizzard for inconsistency and esport players not treated equally as no one being above the rules.
So finally Blizzard did the right thing with "impartial" enforcement but they continue to lie about China's growing influence and self-censorship within the company.
For good confirmation of China's growing influence go check Blizzard's Chinese social media account, Blizzard employees covers signs in protest, ex-Blizzard Mark Kern and Kibler's public statement as top Hearthstone caster.
There is also confirmation from a semi-anonymous interview with an oldschool Blizzard artist.
That is a current employee working there for more than 20+ years.
All Hail the Dragon Emperor!
Blizzard leadership is still making bad optics/PR.
This is the biggest international shitstorm since Star Wars Battlefront 2.
Is China's conglomerate bulldozing things with money? Blizzard hypocrisy exposed? Blizzard make Blitzchung into a martyr? Does capitalism come full circle? Buying cheap products from China is backfiring? This shitstorm has it all and more.
NPR Interview with Brian Kibler about Blizzard controversy (include Transcript):
https://twitter.com/bmkibler/status/1182815861842726912 https://www.npr.org/2019/10/11/769193142/international-politics-barges-into-the-world-of-video-games
*SNIP*
BRIAN KIBLER: Players who have gotten caught cheating in tournaments have received much smaller penalties that have come much later. And this was, you know, instantly.
KIBLER: China's a huge market for them. It makes up a enormous amount of their overall business. And I imagine it could have been very legitimately, like, at risk if they, you know, hadn't done something about this.
LIMBONG: It's not just a matter of potentially offending the Chinese government and the mainland audience. It's also about a huge Chinese holding company named Tencent. Tencent has a financial stake in a lot of gaming companies, including a share of Activision Blizzard and also Ubisoft, Epic Games - it owns all of Riot Games, which makes the popular League of Legends. Activision Blizzard and Tencent didn't get back to us for this story. Brian Kibler said that, sure, it could be a defensible business position to punish Blitzchung.
KIBLER: That doesn't mean that morally that this is the right stance to take, by any means.
LIMBONG: And a loud portion of the gaming world seems to agree. There's been a furious online response, with subscriptions being cancelled and boycott campaigns being launched against Activision Blizzard - all this right before the company's big convention called BlizzCon later this fall.
The Blizzard Interview:
Yesterday there was a semi-anonymous interview with an oldschool Blizzard artist.
20+ years with the company and claim he is one of the oldest Blizzard left..The interviewer (veemonro) vetted him and ex-Blizzard game designer Mark Kern know him.. Hopefully, he doesn’t get into big trouble as the interview was good.
The full interview has been removed from Youtube (I listen to most of it), Veemonro made a short summary:
This Blizzard employee agrees with the public suspicion that the recent Blizzard PR statement was partly written by Chinese writers. Also spotted by Mark Kern.
Blizzard President’s Apology Was Written By A Chinese Person, Say Bilingual Chinese-English Speakers:
An analysis of the @Blizzard_Ent letter about @blitzchungHS and the #FreeHongKong incident.
I apply everything I know from having been in the leadership team at Blizzard, my legal background, my decades of game industry experience, and my work with Chinese companies. https://twitter.com/Grummz/status/1183215204525412352
*SNIP*
Blizzard has exemplified the Streisand Effect here. It is exceedingly likely that no one would have even batted an eye over Blitzchung’s statement if Blizzard simply let him collect his winnings and keep playing. But its reaction has created an entirely new Western pro-Hong Kong, anti-Blizzard, anti-China movement among the gaming community that spreads Blitzchung’s message far, far past its initial reach, and now Blizzard finds itself in a can’t-win situation where they risk upsetting China (which they were trying to avoid in the first place), or they lose the faith and trust of their Western audience (which may have already happened for many).
It’s going to be one hell of a BlizzCon.
Update: Blizzard has now issued a...rather odd statement about the whole incident, which you can read here.
Late yesterday, Blizzard issued a statement that I can’t describe as anything but bizarre, something that feels like it was crafted by a dozen different PR people and lawyers to say a whole lot of words without really answering any of the core questions this incident raises.
Blizzard has now woven a web of contradictions so complex there is no possible way to untangle it. To commit to China is to spark further controversy, to deny china, is to sever a cash pipeline so large it would mean a radical change in their business model and existing plans...
Sometimes when you aggressively flirt with the line of ultimate disaster... you go just a shade too far and cant come back.
PCgamer | Every game company that Tencent has invested in:
A quick reference of how China's largest tech conglomerate has quietly expanded into videogames.
https://www.pcgamer.com/every-game-company-that-tencent-has-invested-in/
Tencent's $330 million investment in Epic Games back in June 2012 triggered one of the most dramatic shifts in PC gaming of the last decade, ushering in a new era of free-to-play games as a service. Seeing that "the old model" of selling games wasn't working, Epic founder Tim Sweeney decided to join forces with Tencent to better learn about operating live-service games. It paid off.
With the introduction of a new game by Tencent, people can now also clap along to Xi Jinping’s speech from their own living room. The game became an online hit on October 18. It was already played over 400 million times by 9 pm Beijing time.
*SNIP*
Chinese game companies have grown huge not just because of market size, but because the government subsidizes them. They get free land, free offices, and huge infusions of cash.
This cash was and is used to do expand and buy up stakes in US gaming companies.
I’ve seen firsthand the corruption of Chinese gaming companies, and I was removed from a company I founded (after Blizzard) for refusing to take a 2 million dollar kickback bribe to take an investment from China. This is the first time I’ve ever spoken pubically about it.
I’ve also seen how American company reps in China have been offered similar bribes to get licenses for large AAA titles. Not everyone refused like I did.
Chinese companies tried to ruin my career with planted press stories. Money is often paid for favorable press in China and some of that money flows here to the US as well.
Unfortunately, money talks. China has succeeded in infiltrating all levels of tech, gaming and more.
Unfortunately, US and European companies are loath to take risks and invest in game companies legally as much as China was. China remained one of the few places mid tier studios could get funding.
So again, China influence grew. I’m sure this is the same for movies as well.
But now we are in a situation where unlimited Communist money dictates our American values. We censor our games for China, we censor our movies for China. *SNIP*
Good analysis by Drift0r & Inside Gaming. Explain the complex situation for western game companies that do business in China.
Drift0r | Chinese Censorship of US Media Explained (Blizzard, NBA, & South Park):
Inside Gaming | How Chinese Censorship is Changing Gaming - Inside Gaming Feature:
You keep your replies to this post on relevent information and topics. Political topics such as Hong Kong's ongoing protests vs China are off limits.
This thread will be locked if it devolves into a political conversation.
To forum moderation:
I'll try to keep irrelevant politics out of my news posts.
To understand this Blizzard controversy see below argument from Thezipper100 which I fully agree with;
https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/dgv8u7/i_would_like_to_thank_blizzard/
ElwoodJD
People who say “keep politics out of my (insert thing here)” are not only gutless but mindless. Politics pervasively shapes every aspect of our lives, and for those without the privilege of living in even a fairly democratic society it’s the equivalent of saying “I don’t want your suffering to ruin my good time.“
Thezipper100
I actually understand that viewpoint when it's irrelevant politics (I.E. bringing up the us' abysmal homelessness situation during a R6 match), as we use games to distract ourselves from this shithole of a world, especially shit we can't do much against.
However, Blizzard MADE this relevant. They pushed it in front of everyone and made it related and relevant, all while showing their higher ups as some of the worst scumbags imaginable.
That's what the people complaining about politics need to understand, it's relevant because of what blizzard did, and we can't just not mention it as it already has and will affect the game, blizzard, and us in the future.
During my CoH2.org radio silence I tried explain this coming war privately to Nigo as he was asking questions.
If need be, I see forum bans as a badge of honor. Feel free to move my news posts and if something is to controversial ask me to edit it. No personal attack with logical fallacies/shoot the messenger.
We are all on the same side sharing a hobby.
I suggest learning corporate doublespeak and a true grassroots movement without corporate overlords.
Be ready for a new internet era with virtual freedom/human right warriors not fake corporate narrative/npc mob that never was grassroots to begin with (controlled opposition).
Nothing can prevent this from snowballing.
Going against unalienable human rights and you'll be on the wrong side of history. It's not even left vs right, this is humanity vs corporate scumbags/crony capitalism/authoritarians. It's an international crisis that has been looming for decades and many insiders are watching this closely.
Activision Blizzard walked into a minefield and caught between a rock and a hard place.
Denmark
SturmTigerCobra
ihitto(wwU)
PanzerGrenadierAngreifen
TheMachine
Relic Entertainment
보드카 중대 
