He denies they were ”simply too expensive” as Bettner claims. Every title released covered studio costs ”and made a profit” for Ensemble.
”It is true that each of our games cost more to make than the last. This was not unique to Ensemble and had nothing to do with a “crunch culture”,” posted Fischer on his blog addressing Bettner’s GDC speech, reports Eurogamer.
”Between Age of Empires in 1997 and Halo Wars in 2009, game development budgets, team sizes, and schedules increased across the board. This was primarily fueled by the maturation of 3D and publishers adopting portfolio strategies focused on big-ticket “blockbuster” games.”
”Ensemble danced to this tune and shipped five major titles (each of which gained membership into the million+ club) and four expansion packs (five if you count the one developed by Big Huge Games) during this period.”
”I invite you to compare that to our peers — take a look at the number of games put out by Valve or Blizzard or Epic during the same time and speak with the people we know at these studios about their budgets and teams,” he continued.
”The truth of the matter is, Ensemble Studios, while certainly fond of numerous inefficient development practices, was no costlier or less efficient than any other developer of our caliber during this period of operation.”
Fischer goes on to dispute Bettner’s other claims of burning out developers and artists and accepting ‘crunch time’ almost full time. It’s a lengthy and informative read - a glimpse into the Ensemble window that gave us the iconic Age of Empires series.
”Every single game Ensemble Studios made, across more than a decade, paid for it’s development and made a profit. Microsoft had it’s reasons for closing the studio but to imply that it was because we cost too much is fiction.” Xbox 360 Halo Wars was their last.
