Age of Empires (video game)
"Age of Empires" was a hit in the German market, where it debuted at #1 on 's sales rankings for the latter half of October 1997. After holding this position in the first half of November, it remained in Media Control's top 5 through the end of 1997. The following year, "Age of Empires" placed consistently in the top 3 through March, when it rose again to #1 in the last two weeks of the month. By the end of May, it had spent 28 consecutive weeks in Media Control's top rankings, with placements of fifth and eighth that month. "Age of Empires" proceeded to become the fourth-best-selling computer game in the German market during 1998's first nine months. It received a "Gold" award from the (VUD) in August, for sales of at least 100,000 units across Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Sales in the German market totaled 115,000 units by the end of September, and the VUD raised "Age of Empires" to "Platinum" status, for 200,000 sales, by November. At the 1999 Milia festival in Cannes, "Age of Empires" took home a "Gold" prize for revenues above €15 million in the European Union during 1998. It remained at 14th on Media Control's charts for the German region by January 1999, continuing a 60-week streak on the charts.
Age of Empires Online
In designing the new look for the game, Robot had six artists come together to create a new art style which would look similar to the previous games from the series, yet look more "visually appealing", "timeless", and "bright". Among the art team was Ensemble Studios' first artist Brad Crow, who had worked on every "Age of Empires" game produced by the studio. The team implemented several ideas to give the game an improved core visual interface over that of its predecessors such as; increasing the field of view so that the player was able to see more on the screen, a tighter user interface to allow more of the field of play to be visible, a new building design to make them encompass less screen space — while also making them look more recognizable, and giving each unit a unique look and animation making them more easily distinguishable from each other.