Asmongold TV - This video is from 1999.. | Asmongold

Episode Date: July 1, 2025

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The making of Age of Empires 2, 1999. When it first started the company, I wanted a less corporate environment. And I envisioned a workplace that was something like when I used to get together with my friends in junior high school and high school to play Dungeons and Dragons. There it is. We just all waited for the weekend to roll around so we can play games. And then we played games all weekend. I lived off of almond joy bars and Cheetos. And you couldn't tear us away from playing games.

That's the kind of environment I wanted to create. That's the environment. Exactly. Like, this dude says, you know what? All I want to do is sit around and eat Cheetos and make video games, and they fucking did it. Somehow he found me. Yep. He called me up and we talked, had these long, long, multiple hour conversations about the game business.

After several of these, I remember mentioning my wife, I wonder if he's going to start a game company. And sure enough, in late 1994, he said, I think I'm going to do this. I'm going to start a game development company. I had a consulting company, and one of our lead programmers, Angela Loudon and I were working on an accounting application. and we were pretty bored and had been working on that for months. I could see why. He had told me that he had always wanted to write computer games, and I told him I always wanted to start a game company.

And by the morning, we were banging out the code for a tank game, which never got produced, but that's how the company got started. Holy shit. Within a few months of starting, we had narrowed down what we were going to do, the game would be. Just a bunch of nerds sitting there making video games. This is how you get iconic games that send a team. Test of time. People actually love games making decision. Now it's some Harvard MBA with charts and they wonder why games suck now. Nah, it's not a Harvard MBA with charts. I bet probably maybe some of these guys might have had Harvard MBA.

Like, y'all got to remember, this isn't just some random nerd. This is a guy already owned a consulting company. He's programming an accounting application in the early 90s. Okay. Like, this guy is not just some random dumbo, okay? Like, these people know what the fuck they're doing and they're professionals. And I think it was a strong idea. These are giga nerds. The idea of merging the best of real-time strategy with the best of turn-based strategy into kind of a hybrid. I think we had a great idea at that time. And then it was just a question of finding the people and making it all.

Remember whenever the fucking Treboucher or like one of these catapults would like fucking throw one of those things, one of the attacks, and it would like hit one of your horsemen, it would just kill them in like one second? And it's like that what are the odds that it's going to actually hit? them and it does, bro, it used to piss me off. Come together. It's crazy how well this game still up to. The original age vampires, we included a learning campaign. Oh, what the fuck? This is Ghostcrawler.

Holy shit! Wait, what? I had no idea! That's insane! On the Egyptian rise to power. It was more or less just an easier campaign and we try not to over- The player too much. Look at the PC's in the background. Because the age of kings, we realized we needed to really take a step back and actually teach players how to work the interface.

face, how to move units around the screen, how to upgrade technologies, how to fight the enemy. We did this by telling the story of William Wallace. I remember, yes, yes, yes. Oh, that was so good. I remember, so like Age of Empires, the remastered version came out, and I got it for my mom. And what I used to always do is since, like, her account was connected with mine, I would know whenever she would win a game. And whenever she would win a game, I would immediately go downstairs by, hey,

you know because i know she'd be in a good mood i'd be like so um you know i was kind of hungry could you make me like a steak and she's like yeah sure yeah i actually just finished up a game yeah so i'm like oh really that's so convenient did you win and she's like yeah i did i like wow good job yeah wow you really got their ass huh starting off the player with just a a few military units trying to yeah bro like she bought this game for me back in 19 like i remember this game came out, I have the box, like the cardboard box of Age of Empires 2, and like the expansion set for it downstairs. And I got this game whenever it came out in 1999. Break free of the English tyranny and gradually get more and more soldiers to build castles.

I learned more about history from this than I did from school. Our goal was never to let the player think that he was being taught, but to have a fun experience and learn how to play the game while they were doing that. Yeah. When we do the artificial intelligence for the maps, for the computer player to play against the humans, we have two things we need to balance. First is, obviously, the game must be challenging

for even the best players. The second aspect is it has to be fun for even the newest players, so that if someone's mother or their four-year-old kid are trying to play the game, they have to get an enjoyable experience. The computer player has to seem to put up a fight, but it still has to lose.

When a game player is more adept and really wants a challenge, we have to have the AI be as powerful as possible to take him out. Well, the AI was so fucking agro in this game too. Like if you played it on like Omega Hard Mode, it was actually kind of hard. Because like they would rush you in like minute three or four. This is a good example. One of the things that we came across when we were trying to make the game more accessible to casual players.

Formations in most games are fairly intimidating. They have a lot of things that you have to do to be able to get your units into formations and it's a pretty abstract concept. You really can't intuitive. figure out what series of buttons you have to click on someone's user interface to get somebody said robin hood uh cheese steak jimmies how do you turn this thing on marco polo all the og cheat codes well we've replaced cheat codes with micro transactions those are the new cheat codes instead of your cheat code being all your base are belong to us now it's 1499

your units into a formation so the approach that we took with formations was more making it entirely intuitive... Marco Polo was it unlocked the map, I think. Formations in our game, you select your units and tell them to go do something, they automatically go into the formation they're supposed to be in. It's much easier for people to understand and it serves the purpose of the formation. Ensemble Studios is very different by the game companies I've worked at for a number of reasons that are not very subtle.

One is the way that it's managed and organized. Many game companies, there is most game companies, there's like the star, the guy who's in charge of the project, the auteur of the game. There's no stars here in ensemble. The individual people here would be stars at other companies, but here we work as a team. We're all moved together on our project. Anyone on a project, not just the designer, is able to make suggestions, improvements, be listened to. From the financial officers to the front desk personnel, we're all worked together very closely as a team.

Wow. One of the things that people think of when they think about games is they think about the fun that goes into the game, getting the game in the box and out on the shelf for people to start playing. Yeah, happy employees imagine that. two, three, sometimes even four years to develop a game. It takes us about 24 months to actually put together a major release like Age of Empires 2. Holy shit. There, dude, there he is.

Oh my God. And they're just sitting there. Look at that fucking CRT monitor. The old keyboards. Oh my God. Bro. There was a ball in this mouth, most likely. Keep that in mind.

We'll work on age two, upwards of 40 people, I think, at one point. over 10 programmers. That's a pretty big... Bro, look at that posture. I can guarantee... Like, this guy now is actually a real cave troll. Yeah, look at that, bro. He's evolved into a cave troll.

Programmers to kind of corral and work together. Oh, my God. Particularly when we were all pretty well versed in the engine and everybody could do a lot of different things. It was kind of a juggling match sometimes to figure out which person got which tasks. But then the same time, we had a couple of tasks. that were really only good and suited for one person

because of all the experience built up. I think we did a really good job on a project management of keeping the tasks flowing and keeping everybody busy. And again, I think that all comes from the communication and cooperation and respect that we all share as ensemble employees. Damn. Well, this reminds me so much of 90s television and early 2000s television.

This is so good. I love this. Wow. Well, look at a game is decided by many people. It's owned by many people. It's not just one person, although one person can bring up the initial thoughts of what a game is to look like. So initial sketches are done, a lot of brainstorming, a lot of gathering of reference, and then everyone kind of sits down and puts it up on a board. Start making decisions on how the game will be based off of clear objectives and lots of input.

The process that we take to get artwork in the game is first the idea goes to a sketch artist. sketch artist creates a few drawings it goes through a review process from the review process it goes to an artist who I feel like back in the day

everybody's clothes just like sucked like nobody had like name brand clothes it was like so what kind of shirt is that gray that's it holds the model and textures the model

after the model is textured it usually goes an animator, the animator animates, and from there, off into the game. Oh. We try to make the music. I hope the... Well, you know they're probably not going to talk about it, but like, what if they talk about, like, how they did the monk sound, the whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, fucking... The conversion thing.

...is a moodsetter, more than a focal point in the game. We feel that it's secondary to the sound effects. The sound effects give you a lot of information as to what's going on. They sure do. And we try to complement that rather than overpowered. Traditionally, we use a lot of synthesizers and samplers to achieve our sound. But more recently, we've started involving a lot of acoustic-type instruments. Is that how it happened right there?

As much percussion as we can find. Whenever we're out at a store, it doesn't matter if it's on an official trip or not, we find things we bring them in. We might not even know how to use them. Oh, my God. But that doesn't matter. as long as we can make interesting sounds with them, they serve a purpose. To me,

the best compliment is when someone says that they put our game CD in their car to listen to the music. While we try to keep it as a background thing, and it's more... Yeah, I feel like nowadays, like back then, game music was, like, cool, but, like, now I feel like game music

has definitely improved as, like, a general thing. Like, obviously, you still have shitty music and there are the iconic songs from back in the day, but I do feel like game music overall has evolved a lot. From a mood setter in the game, it's great that people feel like they can take it away and listen to it on its own. Playtesting is the heart and soul of what we do.

There's really no way that anyone can make a game in a vacuum. And at least our experience. So what you're saying is like they basically, they'll test. So I guess what they used to do back then is they would like test the game before they bring it out. That's crazy. Wow. You don't believe that? Yeah, that's like, yeah, it's back.

back in the day. The more iterations of the game that you can get out there, the better a game you're going to have is an end result. So one of the things that we embrace as part of our core philosophy is getting a game playable as soon as possible and getting it out in front of the entire company and having everyone play the game and generating feedback on a constant basis.

So the people at the company play the game they make. Okay, okay, all right. It's three times a day. During crunch time, there's basically a game going on constantly. And we mirror this as we go out. Okay. begin the game, you may have a small core of your game playing this game and getting that

kind of feedback. When we get a little bit more evolved in the process, then the entire company is playing the game. And when we're getting even closer to being complete, we have our beta test where we have thousands of people playing the game, giving us feedback. Oh, there he is again. Yeah, so it's basically just like a bunch of dudes

sitting there playing a game. Wow. It's basically ways to improve our game. It's really been the process that's worked for us, and I think it's one of the crucial things to creating a game that people are going to enjoy. I basically know a game that's ready personally when the vast majority of the people in the company

who are playtesting it, as well as the feedback from our outside playtesters, is very positive. I mean, I have to use a groundswell of feedback that says, yes, it feels right. People are having fun playing the game. Huh. I think the most exciting time of finishing a product is when you actually go out and see it on the shelves

the first time you can there it is right fucking there man holy shit up the box of your game in it and go to the cash yep i remember bro whenever this shit came out oh my god we went so hard on this bro like some of the new like i remember they they had like the aztecs and like the spanish bro like the spanish went so hard like that was my favorite because they had these dudes on a horse with a gun the conquistadors oh my god man man Man. Wow, this was fucking good. Here and say, yes, I'm going to buy my game here. There it is.

It's really pretty thrilling to know that you can touch that many different people's lives. It can be pretty humbling. The difference between Ensemble Studios and other game companies that I've worked for has been profits for one. And profits means that you can spend money on nice equipment. Yeah, they make money. You have R&D budgets and you have. Well, like, what's funny about this is like now, like, now. like people have like these same these same things like walls with action figures but like now it's a

bunch of funco pops and anime girls this is back whenever real men just made video games about like william wallace fighting for uh the fucking uh independence of scotland you know you budgets and you have the best equipment that's one tangible thing i think the most important I think the most important intangued is the way we really try to take care of people or really people oriented. A lot of companies talk about their people or being their no one asset, etc. But I think Tony Goodman, as our president, has really made out an important focus. He really is concerned about the people working here. I wouldn't really compare Ensemble Studios management to other companies.

What I would say, though, is that we really have well-seasoned management team that has great, business acumen. We focus on making sure that this is a profitable company producing AAA quality titles that's been demonstrated with the company receiving many awards. And we really tried to focus on being the best game company possible. Man, it was a good time. Where is the future for Ensemble Studios? And I want y'all to understand something, okay? Is that gaming actually wasn't better back then. Okay? Like, there were so many duds. Like games, bro, like, you would buy the game and it said it would work with Windows 95, but it would only work with one version of Windows 95.

Or it would work with Windows 95 and then you get Windows 98 and it's not fucking backwards compatible. And so the game literally just doesn't run at all. And then you call the people that work there, and there's like some fucking nerd at IBM, and he calls you stupid for not knowing that Windows 95 isn't the same thing as Windows 98. They're like, did you update your driver? Yeah, well, you shouldn't have done that. Hope you kept your receipt. All right, fuck you.

See you later. And that was it. Yep, skill issue. They never gave a fuck. There were so many games that were literal garbage back then. But I'm talking about this shit would make an indie game that like some Kickstarter one-person dev game. It would make this look like a AAA endeavor. Yeah, I mean, gaming back then, it was buyer beware.

This is an interesting question. Freeware. People ask me all the time when I'm traveling about that kind of question. I mean, they're usually thinking of five or ten years out. And I tell them, we only need to know what's going on to you. from now or three years from now, because that's when our next game will be done. We've got to be sure that the next game will be successful when it comes out in two years or one year or three years.

So I generally don't think in our horizon larger than that. But I think we know how to make games. We've learned how to make really excellent games. We have a real broad array of talent at Ensemble, and we've created a real top PC franchise in Age of Empires. We're going to go on producing real-time strategy games, but we're also working on a really fantastic console game, but you think we'll be a real hit. And sometimes down in the future we're going to be working on online games and possibly

a massively multiplayer game. But the future looks bright. Oh, those were the days. Those were the fucking days. God, man, it was just, there's a video right there. a video right there it fucking hurts to see. I just like, dude, back in the 2000, I remember like we were like kids and like me and my friend Lowell, like we would both sit in my mom's chair and it's like, you know, because we were kids,

we could both fit on it. And we would take turns sitting on the right side of the chair so we could play Asia Empires. And it was just a, it was a really good time. Vietnamese still play ancient empires too A lot of people do Yeah a lot of people still play Asian empires Iskushia? Yeah yeah man like it was just They made Halo War strategy game

I never played that I never did It's a category on Twitch Yeah I know I've watched it before man I have it's just like it's weird to just like go back and watch something like that I think that's funny Thank you.