Long Live AoE

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What's in this Lootbox?

• 🏰 Age of Empires is Still Alive

• 💰 This Web Browser Game Made Over $124M in 2021

• 📺 Netflix Is Hiring

• 📷 Meme

🏰 Age of Empires is Still Alive

Age of Empires is the all time champion of the Real-Time-Strategy (RTS) genre.

Ok you Starcraft players are going to rip me a new one so I'll re-phrase.

Age of Empires is the all time OG of the RTS genre.

The original Age of Empires (AoE) launched on Oct 15 1997. Marking this year as the 25th anniversary of the genre leading franchise.

AoE 2 launched shortly after in September 1999 and to this day still has a cult following. How much of a following?

Its still consistently top 75 on Steam for concurrent players (link).

Sadly AoE 3 & 4 were largely duds but the brand recognition (and nostalgia) are still very much alive.

During a 25th anniversary celebration event last week the franchise made 2 big announcements.

1. AoE II (definitive version) & AoE IV would be coming to Xbox consoles

2. A new AoE Mobile game is in the works and "Coming Soon"

Honestly not sure how playing AoE on a console will feel but I'm very excited about the mobile version if they can capture the original AoE 2 feeling.

Here's their 25 Anniversary video: link

💰 This Web Browser Game Made Over $124M in 2021

Speaking of nostalgic video games remember RuneScape the OG F2P MMORPG?

Jagex (the studio behind RuneScape) recently released their 2021 fiscal year revenue report and posted a whopping $124M. This is roughly a +4% YoY change and the 7th consecutive year of revenue growth for the franchise.

RuneScape for most of us was the classic browser based game which is apparently still alive and crushing it. Last year the franchise made its long awaited entry onto mobile platforms which is largely credited with the growth seen this past year.

If you're thinking of starting a new game studio... don't forget to consider browser based games as an opportunity.

📺 Netflix Is Hiring

This is your friendly reminder that Netflix will either become a gaming giant or die trying. While headlines are filled with the addition of an ad supported tier for Netflix, what people really should be paying attention to is their investment in Games.

Netflix has been in the gaming space since 2011.

That wasn't a typo you just forgot about Qwikster.

They've also been developing games both in-house and publishing and currently have a library available on mobile (included in your subscription). They're just getting started though.

As early as yesterday morning (Oct-31-2022) they've acquired their 6th development studio. Story here.

This is not a full breakdown of Netflix's gaming endeavor (that would take a much longer blog post).

They are however holding a dedicated hiring event Nov 9th if you're looking to jump into the gaming industry or pivot from another studio. Details here.

📷 Meme

This one is too real...

Thanks for Reading :)

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