Age of Empires
Age of Empires is a series of historical real-time strategy video games, originally developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft Studios. The first title of the series was "Age of Empires", released in 1997. Seven titles and three spin-offs have been released.
Age of Empires
The development phases of the "Age of Empires" games were similar in several ways. Due to the games being based on historical events, the team often had to do large amounts of research. However, the research was not in depth, which, according to "Age of Empires" designer Bruce Shelley, is "a good idea for most entertainment products." Shelley also said that Ensemble Studios took most of the reference material from children's sections at libraries. He pointed out the goal was for the players of the game to have fun, "not [its] designers or researchers." At the Games Convention Developers Conference in 2007, Shelley continued with this thought and explained that the success of the series laid in "making a game which appealed to both the casual and hardcore gamer." Shelley also remarked the "Age of Empires" games were not about history in itself, but rather "about the human experience;" they focused not simply on what humans had done but on what they could do in the future such as "going into space." Ensemble Studios developed "Age of Mythology" in a different way than the previous two games. The team had worried they "couldn't get away" with a third historical-based game, and chose mythology as the setting after they had discussed several options.