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 II
The multiplayer-only "Age of Empires Online" was released in 2012. While the game was freely accessible, it featured premium content which could either be earned through gameplay or purchased, enabling the player to use higher-tier equipment and new game modes. Active development of the game ended on January 1, 2014, when executive producer Kevin Perry stated that adding new content was "no longer cost effective," and announced that the game would be moving from "development phase" to its "support phase". The game servers were subsequently shut down on July 1, 2014.