Yeah this is bad and to this I say; vote with your wallet and support the devs/games you believe in.
I don't know the Wargame community to explain this outburst of negativity and shit posting.
I think the community hate/backlash started with Act of Aggression as a game Wargame fans were not expecting.
I saw a similar reaction when playing Valve's new card game Artifact. The game received community backlash/hate from fans that were expecting sequels to Valve games such as Half-Life 3 etc..
Where the hell is the next Half-Life game? That's what two Vancouver-based Valve fans wanted to know when they set up shop opposite the headquarters of the people criminally late on shipping Half-Life 2: Episode Three. Valve founder Gabe Newell met with those "protesters" to deliver them good news and bad.
Newell told Kotaku at Gamescom that Valve's first public protest by a couple of "very nice" Canadians ended peacefully, even though the cops showed up.
"They wanted to know when Episode Three was coming out," Gabe said of his run-in with two diehard Half-Life fans. "I said 'I can't tell you.' And they were, like, 'Okay…'" (Kotaku asked Newell the same question. He said "I got nothing for you.")
But it wasn't a total loss for the protesters.
"We asked them how many sodas they had," Newell said. "They only had two, so we sent them some sodas and some pizza." The group also got a tour of Valve's offices and some hands-on time with Dota 2. "We needed people to test," he explained.
"We were worried," Newell said of the cardboard-wielding micro-mob. "The cops showed up after someone else in the building called the police. He rode up on his Segway, but it turns out [the cop] was a big Half-Life fan. So he completely understood where they were coming from and didn't chase them off."
While the Half-Life 3 fans' protest may not have gotten us any closer to details on the further adventures of Gordon Freeman, they at least made an impression on Valve's co-founder.
"They stayed for two days. We miss them."
Gabe Newell/Valve are terrible at communications and transparency.
If Valve improves on this, the Epic store do not stand a chance.
I know Eugen is a small company but there are lessons to be learned here.
Gabe Newell is still on our side so Valve will be fine, watch this;
Sanya Weathers was hired off an EverQuest rant site to serve as the CM for an upstart MMO called Dark Age of Camelot. She was paid very, very little money, but dived into the gig headfirst. “I am not sure if I’m the first in the games industry to treat this job like relationship building, but I was at least in the first wave,” she says.
“I learned very quickly that my biggest weakness and my biggest strength was missing the forest for the trees. That is the main thing that causes anger and frustration for players,” continues Weathers. “What sounds like constant moaning is actually a hundred different complaints when you zoom in closer, and almost all of the issues can be handled by giving more information, by including people in the bigger picture. So I don't get numb to it, because I'm right there in the trees with my players. I can then take that feeling and use my privileged access to get the whole story and share it.”
CMs are punching bags for all this community anger.
I know death threats are never OK but good CMs need a thick skin and look at the big picture.
So what is the big picture?
20 years ago gamers were optimistic about the future of gaming. Nowadays gamers assume the worst and are bad-tempered. But who really is responsible for this break of consumer trust?
Respect goes both ways. How many gaming CEOs/exec respect the gaming community in words and action?
predatory business practices? lies and deception? abuse of fandom? Dehumanization of the customer: https://modelviewculture.com/pieces/the-whales-of-microtransactions-and-the-elephant-in-the-room
In game development, we often talk about “whales”. They are an outlier; a small group of consumers that make up 50% of all in-game revenue:
“These people are very valuable users who are single-handedly making games profitable so that game companies can make a lot more games for those people who don’t pay anything.”
– VentureBeat, “Only 0.15 percent of mobile gamers account for 50 percent of all in-game revenue”
The western gaming industry needs to clean house and reboot.
Start with EA's anti-consumer practices before pointing fingers at gamers for having a hobby and enjoying a leisure activity.
The gaming industry is now under siege and there will be some consequences to this.
The industry did this to itself as they have failed to self-regulate:
As gamers we have to vote with our wallet to save the console/PC market.
The mobile market is in a death spiral and has gone completely off the rails.
I feel pity the sorry sacks that are gonna be reeled in by M$ and used as slaves, I would honestly never work for them as much as Bill Gates seems like a nice guy.
MS used to care about PC gaming with Ed Fries and Bill Gates. Rebuilding trust with PC gamers won't be easy as they burned many bridges. https://www.linkedin.com/in/edfries/
The 'golden era'? When Bungie & Ensemble Studio was with MS. As Ed Fries said in interviews, after leaving MS (1986-2004) he knew the 'money suits' would take over and they sure did.
Maybe there is a few good guys left but yeah most top gaming exec have either retired or going full corporate. CD Projekt might become good with Cyberpunk 2077, we shall see.
I’ve never talked about this before, but the irony of Don Mattrick as Xbox Chief was huge for me: when I first came to EA Canada to present the idea of a Microsoft console, he nearly blocked me from addressing the company because he didn’t believe it was possible. It was tense.
Some gaming exec are very skeptical about these new subscription services from Microsoft, EA, Google and Apple etc. Microsoft are making a big push to become the 'Netflix of gaming'.
The top executive at Take-Two Interactive, the parent publisher of Rockstar Games and 2K Games, has weighed in on two major video game industry trends: subscription and streaming. CEO Strauss Zelnick said today on an earnings call that he is skeptical of subscription-based models but more optimistic about streaming, at least in some scenarios.
Starting with subscription services, Zelnick said Take-Two as a company is open-minded because it wants to "be where the consumer is." Take-Two could get on board if it makes sense from a business and creative perspective--and that might not be so easy.
"You have to find that intersection in business models that serve the customer successfully and also serve everyone else who participates in the value chain," he said. "And that may prove to be a little challenging for subscriptions in this space because people do consume video games differently than they consume linear entertainment."
Zelnick said the average American household spends around 5 hours each day and 150 hours per month consuming linear programming like TV and movies. For interactive entertainment like video games, the average American home spends 1.5 hours daily or 45 hours monthly playing games, he said. A subscription service makes sense with TV and film content because people largely watch many different programs or movies that they can roll through quickly and move on to something new. This makes an all-you-can-eat model like Netflix appealing, Zelnick said.
But with video games, which people spend relatively more time with, a subscription model might be a tougher sell, Zelnick said.
"In the case of video games, it is possible that the average user in those 45 hours might be playing 1, 2, maybe 3 titles; certainly not 70 titles," he said. "In that event, if you play 1, 2, or 3 titles and you play them for months in a row--which often happens in [the video game world]--then a subscription model may not be such a great deal for the customer."
Zelnick went on to say that he is no soothsayer, and overall, Take-Two wants to release games where the consumer is. "This all remains to be seen; we're open-minded," the executive explained. "We want to be where the customer is. But I don't think it is a foregone conclusion that subscription will be as massive for interactive ent as it has proven to be for music and motion pictures and television. But we'll see."
*SNIP*
David Brevik @davidbrevik https://twitter.com/davidbrevik/status/1110239294264737792
I'm very worried about the future of the gaming market. All of these services where developers get paid by the minute are going to have radical impacts on design motivations and predatory practices. If you thought Free-to-play was bad, you haven't seen anything yet.
There is no way to stop this. These changes are coming. When mega-companies like Google and Apple are making this a corporate initiative, gaming is going change forever.
Marcello Lins @MarcelloLins
Care to elaborate! I'm genuinely interested in your take about this new monetization model. What exactly worries you?
David Brevik @davidbrevik
Spotify had a profound impact on the music industry. Imagine a world where authors didn't sell books, but you subscribed to a service and they got paid a penny by the page read instead. It would change everything.
Mike Rose @RaveofRavendale 6. feb. 2019 https://twitter.com/raveofravendale/status/1093167950360690691
Little thread of potential horror:
I am getting very, very worried about the future of Netflix-like subscription models. In the last 6 months, I have been contact by over a dozen different services, who all want to put No More Robots games on their upcoming platforms.
But here's the catch:
None of these platforms want to pay anything upfront. Instead, they want to pay us "per number of hours" that their users play our games, compared to how many hours their users are playing games overall. Which is obviously going to be *shit* for indie devs.
Now here's the real problem: If bigger studios begin adopting this style of platform -- which they already kinda are with things like Xbox Game Pass, Discord Nitro etc -- it forces smaller devs into a position where they may *have* to start being a part of these platforms.
So let's say in 5 years, if Netflix-style subscription models have become the norm, and no-one is paying for games anymore, a la what happened with both music and TV... how are indie devs even making money anymore?
They're not, is the horrible answer.
So yeah, I'm honestly super worried about this upcoming trend -- and this is coming from someone who owns a publisher, and can potentially maximize sales by selling multiple games at once.
If this trend takes over, I don't know how dev studios are even going to survive.
To clarify: From a consumer standpoint, I *love* sub models. I currently use Netflix, Now TV, Amazon Video, Spotify, Xbox Game Pass...
It's not that I'm rallying against them -- I just think we could do with having a real conversation about how they should be implemented best.
*SNIP*
As @rje has pointed out, if you are currently subscribed to PlayStation Plus, Xbox Games With Gold, Twitch Prime, and Humble Monthly, you have already received *28 free games* in February alone.
Fast-forward three years. Can you honestly say you'll still be buying new games?
CoH 3 has to have a story mode. And I would love to see more control and better AI for skirmish mode.
I think Starcraft 2 Co-op mode is the big RTS Revolution to target the casual players.
For Relic/Sega Co-op is a good way to make money from paid-commanders (not pay-to-win but pay-to-help). AI are getting more advanced with OpenAI as used in DOTA 2.
StarCraft II Co-op In-Depth Review - A Real-time Strategy Revolution, 2018
In 2015, Starcraft II introduced a co-op mode, where two players would face up against Amon in a PVE-type mission. The game features several different commanders to play and many different maps to choose from.
There was absolutely no need to depart so drastically from the core DoW gameplay in my opinion and I have no idea why they did it in the first place, trying to always be the best, the newest and the most "hip" almost always backfires
@loksunl said:
The beta just too late for making needed changes before release.
Why relic not make a alpha or included more old player as test group?
Do you think relic need to rethink the decision process of game direction?
Did the relic team learn enough to make a good AOE4?
I am a AOE fans too(not much as a DOW fan), I only have more doubt for RELIC's ability after today.
@r_benb said:
Your points about betas and players as part of our process have been a huge point of discussion in the studio. I can't get into much detail here but even before the launch of DOW, the AOE team has been working very differently to make user research, early play-testing, and community consultation a much bigger part of how we make games.
@7CavPyth said:
What was wrong with the players? I'm not talking about the current problems, but at the source, why did not this game attract people?
@r_benb said:
Before this conversation gets away from us, we don't think anything was wrong with the players. Sure, they're tough on us but they like what they like and that's okay. Our challenge was complicated because DOW players are different than DOW2 players who are different than DOW3 players - each has different priorities, wants and needs.
Xbox Game Pass on PC is official, launching with 'over 100 high-quality PC games' https://www.pcgamer.com/xbox-game-pass-announced/ Microsoft is going to talk more about its all-you-can-eat subscription service for PC at E3 on June 9.
CoH + AoE coming to Xbox Game Pass?
Microsoft has committed to launching the PC versions of all Xbox Game Studios titles on multiple storefronts, including Steam.
In its second big announcement for PC gamers today, Microsoft said that forthcoming Xbox Games Studios titles Gears 5 and Age of Empires I, II & III: Definitive Editions will be released on Steam, and not just the Windows Store.
This will be part of a wider change at the company, which will result in all Xbox Game Studios titles launching on multiple PC stores on the same day
"We know millions of PC gamers trust Steam as a great source to buy PC games and we've heard the feedback that PC gamers would like choice," Xbox head Phil Spencer said in a blog post.
"We also know that there are other stores on PC, and we are working to enable more choice in which store you can find our Xbox Game Studios titles in the future."
Spencer referenced Steam in his blog post, but did not mention the Epic Games Store, which has made great strides in gaining a foothold in a market Valve has dominated for so long. However, Spencer stressed that, "we believe you should have choice in where you buy your PC games."
Xbox Game Studios is already an active publisher on Steam, and Microsoft has confirmed that Halo: The Master Chief Collection will be available there later this year.
Get ready for "Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020," exclusively on Nintendo Switch this winter and "Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 - The Official Video Game" for PS4, Switch, Xbox One, and Steam next year!
Watch The Sega Sammy President Create A Chain Combo In Puyo Puyo Champions:
While we're used to seeing Nintendo's leaders playing games publicly on a regular basis, you don't always see the same thing elsewhere. That's why the promotional clip (see below) for the recently released title Puyo Puyo Champions is so exciting.
Overlooking the fact the game is being played on a PlayStation 4, we get a rare glimpse of Sega Sammy Holdings President, Satomi Haruki, playing the obscure but insanely addictive tile-matching puzzler. He starts off with a defeat in the game's verse mode and then spends the rest of his time attempting to create a chain. It takes him a while, but he eventually manages to pull off a five chain combo on his eighth go.
Today’s launch of Puyo Puyo Champions makes more sense when you know its Japanese title – Puyo Puyo eSports. This is Sega’s attempt to push the cute puzzler into the competitive sphere
The Japan Esports Union (JESU) announced that it will accelerate efforts to enhance the recognition of esports in Japan to prepare for its possible appearance at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics as an exhibition event.
According to a report by the Japan Times, the union said will be establishing regional branches across 11 prefectures in the country to provide education and training on organizing esports tournaments.
The planned regional branches will also assist in developing and training local esports players to widen Japan’s pool of esports talent. JESU states that they will begin branching out by January next year.
The announcement came in light of the esports market in Japan growing by an astounding ¥4.8 billion or about $42.5 million this year.
“The popularity of esports has grown from last year to this year and we will push it to a new stage next year,” said JESU chairman Hideki Okamura.
The union also said that a crucial step in raising the level of skill of Japanese esports athletes is to dispatch them to international tournaments or by organizing matches with competitive foreign players.
So far, Japanese players have been dominant in fighting games such as the Street Fighter series and Dragonball FighterZ, among others. However, they have yet to break through to other major esports titles, such as Dota 2, League of Legends, and Overwatch. This is largely due to the PC market in Japan paling in comparison to that of the console and handheld gaming platforms.
I’m seeing double, here; four Tokyo 2020 Olympics video games coming to consoles, arcade and smartphones starting as early as this summer.
Sports video games outside of annualized licensed titles from EA, 2K and SIE are few and far between. If you can’t print money with them via ultimate teams and other similar fantasy modes, then it’s hard to find a mainstream interest. That hasn’t stopped Sega from going all in ahead of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, however.
The Japanese games giant will be releasing four video games in preparation for the summer games next year, with the earliest release coming later this year. Details of the four games came via an announcement on Twitter, with Olympic Games Tokyo 2020: The Official Video Game coming to PC, PS4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch next year.
TOKYO -- Japan's three esports organizations have merged into a single entity, as stakeholders look to pump up the country's nascent esports market.
Esports, or competitive gaming, is rapidly growing in popularity around the world, with Asian countries, especially China and South Korea, leading the way. Japan has so far lagged behind, but the newly formed Japan Esports Union, or JESU, will try to change that.
"The global audience for esports is set to reach 300 million people by 2019, and 500 million by 2020. That is no different from real-life sports," said Hideki Okamura, representative director of JESU and executive vice president of Sega Sammy Holdings, at a news conference announcing the merger on Thursday in Tokyo.
Hinted by Klobrille & Adam Isgreen (see below tweet), Microsoft is building new in-house AoE4 team/studio (remaking Ensemble Studio?).
This is Microsoft Redmond, not Relic Vancouver.
Good news for CoH development?
It's highly unusual to hire Design Director + Franchise Narrative Lead this late in AoE4 production.
MS also hiring in-house lead programmers, producer and beta program manager.
At the very least, this confirms MS have multi-title agreement with Sega/Relic.
Microsoft Redmond | AoE4/AoE5 Job Announcements Adam Isgreen, Creative Director Age of Empires Franchise (2015-present) | Microsoft Studios Global Publishing:
https://twitter.com/klobrille/status/1133497898874875904
@klobrille
Helping Adam on this one. If you are a professional and may want to shape the future of Age of Empires, this might be for you.
As a side note, it's great to see MS pushing this franchise again. I feel like good things are coming.
I think it's rather obvious at this point that MS is building an in-house team for the Age of Empires franchise while maintaining to work with Relic through MSGP for now. And that's fine as long as they have a strong in-house team and a multi-title agreement with Relic/Sega.
The next generation of gaming consoles is expected to launch in 2020, and Xbox is rumored to be building two devices, one of which is apparently designed specifically for streaming games.
But even though this is good news, it’s still worrying that Microsoft is only looking for the position now, two years after “Age of Empires 4” was announced. There’s also the fact that Relic Entertainment has been tasked to develop this game. Why is Microsoft the one actively looking for a design director instead of the studio that is developing it?
The answer to that is muddy since both Microsoft and Relic Entertainment are maintaining their silence about “Age of Empires 4.” Overall, however, it’s still good that progress is being made for the beloved RTS title.
Our team in Xbox Game Studios is responsible for delivering entertaining and engaging products in the Age of Empires franchise for Windows platforms and beyond. We are looking for an experienced Design Director to join us to help create world-class entertainment for diverse audiences from around the world.
The Design Director is responsible for overseeing the day-to-day game design of multiple titles. You will work closely with the Studio Creative Director on overarching goals for the products, game pillars, feature messaging, analytics interpretation, and evangelization of our titles. You will interact with our partner teams on a regular basis as a subject matter expert for design as well as learning the unique intricacies of each teams’ design capabilities and engines. You will collaborate closely with other discipline leads to shape and hone our titles into world-class entertainment. You are comfortable presenting our vision, goals and status to both internal and external stakeholders. You have a love for and play games, with an ability to talk to them and deconstruct them that shows an understanding of the art of design and its many manifestations across genres and platforms.
Responsibilities
Evaluate game designs, builds, UI, and gameplay elements
Be a subject matter expert on game systems, logic, and design tools for our titles
Write design documentation and white papers on design strategies
Prioritize, plan, and communicate features and risks in collaboration with partners and discipline directors, with an eye for getting ahead of potential problems before they arise
Develop analytics goals, KPIs, and user research outcomes for titles to measure success and drive user enjoyment
Identify, document, and pitch design opportunities for increasing our audience reach and appeal on a worldwide scale
Be a franchise advocate, able to speak to internal or external stakeholders, press, or our audiences.
Qualifications
5+ years’ experience in game design in a senior, lead, or directorial design role
Multiple complete loop projects (created, tested, shipped, supported) with design credit
Ability to easily switch between different products with different audience goals, feature sets, and design philosophies
Complete understanding of the entire design process, from early high concept to post-launch support
Demonstrable familiarity with Real-Time Strategy games in a development or enthusiast capacity
Excellent interpersonal skills
Excellent written and verbal communication skills
Comfortable learning new and potentially proprietary toolsets and pipelines
Comfortable engaging with diverse teams and disciplines
Comfortable speaking to press or audiences
Passionate about games and their world-wide potential
Experience with Strategy and Role-Playing games is a plus
A love of history is a plus
At Xbox Game Studios, we are hard at work continuing the great legacy of Age of Empires, our beloved RTS game. We are a passionate group responsible for this amazing franchise and are expanding our team looking for a wonderful colleague that will be responsible for Games-as-a-Service.
As a Senior Producer, you will work closely with multiple functional teams to ensure smooth operations, updates and engagement of our games, based on real world data and customer feedback. The GaaS producer will be the essential person who help us grow our game business, with key focus on players engagement, directly impacting long term community sentiment. The ideal candidate will be one who has superb communication skills, is process and data oriented, an agile self-starter who enjoy breaking down complex issues, and one who is truly passionate about making our players happy while simultaneously helping the wider teams hit our KPI targets. This gives you an important role with direct impact ensuring that we put our players first and deliver games that delight and engage.
*SNIP*
Our team in Xbox Game Studios is responsible for delivering entertaining and engaging products in the Age of Empires franchise. We are looking for a passionate game and technology industry veteran to help us create world-class entertainment for diverse audiences from around the world. This is a rare opportunity to join a creatively driven team, develop exciting new projects, and take advantage of the newest technology available with backing and support from across Microsoft.
Our candidate has 8+ years of experience with C++, experience shipping Real Time Strategy games in a lead capacity and demonstrate strong technical skills with game engine development and a track record of delivering high quality software.
In addition to technical leadership, we are looking for someone with strong communication and interpersonal skills, and a self-driven approach to work. The ideal candidate understands first party development and enjoys collaborating with internal and external partners.
*SNIP*
Do you love Real Time Strategy games? Do you hate it when your gatherer units get stuck to trees or wander off to enjoy the scenery? We sure do. If you do and are a skilled software engineer with the proven ability to keep our gatherers in-line and on task the Age of Empires franchise wants your help!
We’re looking for a Software Engineer to join our team to drive the navigation systems for Age of Empires. If successful you will closely collaborate with design and engineering teams globally and focus on developing a cutting edge RTS specific navigation solution for Age of Empires engine for use in Age IV and anything beyond, as well as offering support and guidance to help improve navigation in our older Age of Empires titles. You should have experience building cutting edge RTS navigation solutions and be keeping up with, if not pushing, what the state of the art in the field of navigation is.
Responsibilities
As a senior member of the Age of Empires Franchise team you will
- Be the navigation subject matter expert for the franchise.
- Understand and be able to implement state of the art for large group pathfinding techniques.
- Collaborate with partners both internal and external on titles new and old.
- Guild and possibly step in and help implement, if not design and lead efforts to build pathfinding solutions.
- Help teams troubleshoot issues, build more robust solutions and test frameworks.
- Find new ways to drive what the state of the art in the field is.
Qualifications and skills
4+ Years of experience in feature level development
Experience working in an Agile Environment
Ability to multi-task
Excellent written and oral communication skills
Ability to quickly gain familiarity with existing large code bases and quick ramp up effectively contributing to a code base.
Comfortable engaging with diverse teams and disciplines
Be able to collaborate with both internal and external partners, local and all over the world.
New Age of Empires Franchise Beta program Prototype builds & extended test opportunities
Senior Program Manager: https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/senior-program-manager-at-microsoft-1118620173/ http://archive.ph/hG5Ws
At Microsoft Studios Global Publishing, we are hard at work continuing the great legacy of Age of Empires, our beloved RTS game. We are a passionate group responsible for this amazing franchise and are expanding our team looking for a wonderful colleague that can manage our Flight/Beta program.
As the producer for our Beta program, you are a key link between the players and the development team. You will be responsible for the day to day management and execution of our Age of Empires Franchise Beta program, an important initiative where early and prototype builds of our Age of Empires titles are provided to players for feedback and extended test opportunities. You will help manage all aspects of the ecosystem including creating the long term roadmap, working with our various teams on planning & execution, interacting with and managing beta communities, and ensuring feedback from our players is heard, categorized and prioritized.
This gives you an important role with direct impact ensuring that we put our players first and deliver games that delight and engage.
At heart, I am a community builder. My aim is to create next-level games and gaming platforms by building bridges between development teams and their communities, providing opportunities for advocacy and leadership within the larger gaming community, and by empowering players with the tools and understanding they need to inspire meaningful, positive change in the games they love.
ModSquad is looking for an experienced Community Content Project Manager to help us at Microsoft Studios Global Publishing. Our ideal candidate will have strong organizational skills, the ability to manage multiple concurrent projects, and a strong eye for quality community content. In this role you will work closely with the Age of Empires Community Managers and other internal teams to ensure a world-class brand presence in both customer-facing channels and internal reporting.
The day-to-day tasks can greatly vary depending on the phase of development, but key responsibilities include
*SNIP*
ModSquad is looking for a Community Content Specialist to help us at Microsoft Studios Global Publishing. Our ideal candidate will have strong visual content creation and copywriting experience, a passion for interacting with fans, and a keen eye for quality Community content. In this role you’ll be working closely with internal and external teams creating visual and written content to engage a worldwide audience.
*SNIP*
https://twitter.com/klobrille/status/1133497898874875904
@klobrille
Helping Adam on this one. If you are a professional and may want to shape the future of Age of Empires, this might be for you.
As a side note, it's great to see MS pushing this franchise again. I feel like good things are coming.
I think it's rather obvious at this point that MS is building an in-house team for the Age of Empires franchise while maintaining to work with Relic through MSGP for now. And that's fine as long as they have a strong in-house team and a multi-title agreement with Relic/Sega.
But even though this is good news, it’s still worrying that Microsoft is only looking for the position now, two years after “Age of Empires 4” was announced. There’s also the fact that Relic Entertainment has been tasked to develop this game. Why is Microsoft the one actively looking for a design director instead of the studio that is developing it?
The answer to that is muddy since both Microsoft and Relic Entertainment are maintaining their silence about “Age of Empires 4.” Overall, however, it’s still good that progress is being made for the beloved RTS title.
Our team in Xbox Game Studios is responsible for delivering entertaining and engaging products in the Age of Empires franchise for Windows platforms and beyond. We are looking for an experienced Design Director to join us to help create world-class entertainment for diverse audiences from around the world.
The Design Director is responsible for overseeing the day-to-day game design of multiple titles. You will work closely with the Studio Creative Director on overarching goals for the products, game pillars, feature messaging, analytics interpretation, and evangelization of our titles. You will interact with our partner teams on a regular basis as a subject matter expert for design as well as learning the unique intricacies of each teams’ design capabilities and engines. You will collaborate closely with other discipline leads to shape and hone our titles into world-class entertainment. You are comfortable presenting our vision, goals and status to both internal and external stakeholders. You have a love for and play games, with an ability to talk to them and deconstruct them that shows an understanding of the art of design and its many manifestations across genres and platforms.
Responsibilities
Evaluate game designs, builds, UI, and gameplay elements
Be a subject matter expert on game systems, logic, and design tools for our titles
Write design documentation and white papers on design strategies
Prioritize, plan, and communicate features and risks in collaboration with partners and discipline directors, with an eye for getting ahead of potential problems before they arise
Develop analytics goals, KPIs, and user research outcomes for titles to measure success and drive user enjoyment
Identify, document, and pitch design opportunities for increasing our audience reach and appeal on a worldwide scale
Be a franchise advocate, able to speak to internal or external stakeholders, press, or our audiences.
Qualifications
5+ years’ experience in game design in a senior, lead, or directorial design role
Multiple complete loop projects (created, tested, shipped, supported) with design credit
Ability to easily switch between different products with different audience goals, feature sets, and design philosophies
Complete understanding of the entire design process, from early high concept to post-launch support
Demonstrable familiarity with Real-Time Strategy games in a development or enthusiast capacity
Excellent interpersonal skills
Excellent written and verbal communication skills
Comfortable learning new and potentially proprietary toolsets and pipelines
Comfortable engaging with diverse teams and disciplines
Comfortable speaking to press or audiences
Passionate about games and their world-wide potential
Experience with Strategy and Role-Playing games is a plus
A love of history is a plus
At Xbox Game Studios, we are hard at work continuing the great legacy of Age of Empires, our beloved RTS game. We are a passionate group responsible for this amazing franchise and are expanding our team looking for a wonderful colleague that will be responsible for Games-as-a-Service.
As a Senior Producer, you will work closely with multiple functional teams to ensure smooth operations, updates and engagement of our games, based on real world data and customer feedback. The GaaS producer will be the essential person who help us grow our game business, with key focus on players engagement, directly impacting long term community sentiment. The ideal candidate will be one who has superb communication skills, is process and data oriented, an agile self-starter who enjoy breaking down complex issues, and one who is truly passionate about making our players happy while simultaneously helping the wider teams hit our KPI targets. This gives you an important role with direct impact ensuring that we put our players first and deliver games that delight and engage.
*SNIP*
Our team in Xbox Game Studios is responsible for delivering entertaining and engaging products in the Age of Empires franchise. We are looking for a passionate game and technology industry veteran to help us create world-class entertainment for diverse audiences from around the world. This is a rare opportunity to join a creatively driven team, develop exciting new projects, and take advantage of the newest technology available with backing and support from across Microsoft.
Our candidate has 8+ years of experience with C++, experience shipping Real Time Strategy games in a lead capacity and demonstrate strong technical skills with game engine development and a track record of delivering high quality software.
In addition to technical leadership, we are looking for someone with strong communication and interpersonal skills, and a self-driven approach to work. The ideal candidate understands first party development and enjoys collaborating with internal and external partners.
*SNIP*
https://twitter.com/JezCorden/status/1133381538484240384
@JezCorden
Not a single Xbox E3 plan "leak" from NeoGAF, Era, or 4Chan has been real yet btw. They're all guesswork, made up of existing rumors or outright wishful thinking.
In each list I've found at least a couple of things I know aren't true.
BTW I'm not saying EVERY ITEM in those lists is false. Some of them are of course obvious, yeah there'll be Halo Infinite news, yeah there'll be Gears 5 news, but some of the points weren't true, which called into question some of the wilder claims like "Dinio" Crisis 3.
Company of Heroes the Board Game Preview by Man vs Meeple (Bad Crow Games):
PREVIEW VIDEO RELEASE - MAN VS MEEPLE
Greetings everyone, our KickStarter launch has been tentatively scheduled for Tuesday June 4th. SEGA is performing their final review of our KS page but otherwise we are ready to go! In the meantime we are releasing a Man Vs. Meeple preview of the game early.
Denmark
SturmTigerCobra
ihitto(wwU)
PanzerGrenadierAngreifen
TheMachine
Relic Entertainment
보드카 중대 
