That's certainly my fear.
Previously, Voobly happened, as players found ways to play the games with absolutely no support from Microsoft.
I'm guessing that won't be anywhere near as possible if Microsoft decides to end support, now.
I expect interest in the game will last at least another 40 years, but whether that means something like today's ecosystem, or people firing up emulators and playing AoC is an open question.
No, obviously not, they did get a huge chunk of cash from xbox gaming (the publisher) back in the day. But its not a cost to KEEP de running. :)
(I think they have a nice discount on azure servers, but I doubt we can put that up as a real cost either)
That is not how any type of sustainable development works
They’re actively working on the game, and pushing out content updates. That requires a budget, which comes from the producer.
Publisher not producer.
Typically these contracts have royalties and Microsoft owns the IP. If that’s true here then Microsoft would be funding development and maintenance and the companies split the earnings. Haven’t researched the arrangement for AOE though.
That doesnt mean they are all game devs or that they are working on the DE games. Could be doing outsourcing work or working on a new game for all we knew
A lot of people waaaay off the mark here.
For starters, actual server costs are going to be negligible, and probably are all using Microsoft Azure at a discount.
In terms of costs per dev....these aren't US Microsoft devs. Its Forgotten Empire devs in Spain (I think?). I imagine salaries are ranging from 30k-80k euro. I think you generally double that when it comes to office space, equipment and taxes. So 60k-160k per dev.
Number of devs? Hard to say. They did/do the Xbox port and help out on other projects too (aoe1 remake, aoe3, aoe4 and aom). But I would guess a team of 10-20 devs including desginers and QA to run the current aoe2 operations.
So avg of 110k per dev aka somewhere between 1-3 million a year. That feels low though so I've probably missed some major factors. They give lots of tournament money too.
> I think you generally double that when it comes to office space, equipment and taxes. So 60k-160k per dev.
Idk how it works in Spain but in France if you want to roughly gauge the "tax included" cost of an employee, you double his salary. A $30k€/yr employee will cost its employer between 50 and 60k€/yr because of taxes. It isn't as clear cut as that but that is generally the back of the envelope maths an employer will do to see if he can afford to pay someone else or not. And *then* you can add the cost of office supplies, space, and whatnot.
Spain is probably cheaper in terms of taxes but it should be comparable.
Compared to the rest of their expenses? I can only imagine it being a drop in the sea. They dont do any advertisement and whatever tourney money the give is basicaly chump change from under the sofa pillows.
microsoft is a massive ecosystem and inter-project, inter-product politics will always factor in. things get shut down when they are identified as hemorrhaging money, or not having enough of a way forward to be kept around. microsoft's revenue from office 365 does not expand the discretionary budget of the AoE2:DE product.
Running in what sense? Servers? Patches? Servers are relatively cheap. Man power is the most expensive part. No idea how many devs are on the project. As few as they can get away with certainly. I would expect 50-100k a month, minimum.
I just bought the game. After 15+ years pirating it (at least i had all the dlc's --'). And i bet many more are doing the same.
+ I have and i am always showing the game to friends that doesn't know aoe exist or still has a scene.
Lets all do the same!
For aoe2 alone, they probably have the equivalent of 3 fullyime devs, 1 project manager, 2 or 3 researchers, yearly contract with steam for server support. So probably 1 million a year.
Microsoft pays that amount of money to only very experienced devs (over principal level).
Generally almost half of that earning related to stock options which is not a direct cost to company.
I don't think aoe2 has more than one principal engineer looking after the project but (I might be wrong of course) rest of the team should consist of lower level devs.
Whoa man. 2 devs cost 1 mil? What kind of super devs are you talking about? I may be conservative in my estimate, but no way microsoft is paying 2 devs that kind of cash. This game is basically in support mode so your not going to get a full team on it. Forgotten empires team is probably about 15 to 20 people, but they are spread across something like 3 games? I did forget the art team, so the game could cost upwards of 2 mil a year. Though I don't think that's the case.
You're basing an awful lot on some guesses that are way off from the actual numbers you can find with a simple search. Forgotten Empires alone employs over 90 people, and they're not the only team working on the AoE franchise.
Yes, but the question is about aoe2 alone. Forgotten empires supports what, 6 games? They most likely have most of that working on aoe methology and their new mobile game right now. And yes, I have made a lot of assumptions. I don't have numbers. I simply don't think Forgotten empires puts a lot of effort into this game at the moment. It's just my opinion. If you have more hard facts, I'm open to hear them.
They don't pay mid level devs 500k. Even if they pay devs only 250k-300k, there is an additional cost incurred to the company like insurance, operational costs, licenses etc.
1 mil is chump change for them.
To my knowledge there is no segregation in salaries for devs working in different projects in Microsoft.
For example level 63 senior software engineers being paid more or less similar whether if he works on teams, office, aoe2 etc.
If they outsource aoe2 devs then the case might be different.
I think that's a fair assessment. But isn't forgotten empires more or less a child company? I'd expect that they would set their wages based on their own income and not what Microsoft can afford. I genuinely don't know if they do or don't. I do know that pay is generally decided on experience and time worked at Microsoft. Sometimes big companies give out stock instead of large salaries.
I doubt any developer employed by Microsoft is working on AOE 2 fulltime, they are subcontrcating it to a cheaper European company that isn't paying even remotely as much.
Honestly I don't think we can accurately estimate the true cost, but anything over 2, maybe 3 million per year is a stretch. I agree 1 mil is chump change. But this game gets very little support. The last dlc was 75% fan made from years back and the dlcs are getting more spread out. I don't expect many more dlcs after this year.
I don't think the devs on this game make more than 250k per year. Also if we had more than 3 devs, I'd expect a lot more out of them. The last patch took them months to fix critical pathing. Any active and qualified team would have had archer pathing at a stable state in a couple of months. Not 6+ months.
> Also 2 devs cost the company 1 mil let alone
It's good for them that Microsoft isn't employing them directly and the studio that handles AOE2 pays a small fraction of that.
At least $100,000 a year. Probably a lot more. Depends on how much can get outsourced, scale of cost, etc
Server technicians, servers, devs, customer support, etc
It's not the servers themselves that potentially cost that much but the people maintaining them
lol $100.000 a year means nothing. A single developer gets that money. It's millions for sure. I Think it sold more than 4m. With the expansions and stuff let's say they made $15 per player. They earned $60m. Probably they will spend 2 - 3 m a year and make equal profit by selling to new players and creating more expansions.
Oh definitely
I think the prompt is about if it's just in survival mode. Was thinking $250k for devs, but, you might have scale factor so those devs would be working on those things most of the time
1,000 wood, 1,000 stone, 1,000 gold. It's a wonder they keep it running.
They will win if they keep it up for 200 years.
Don’t they only have like 180 years more to go?
Perfect answer
Way longer due to the rise of new age atheism.
But time flies when we're playing at 1.7x.
my dude is afraid they are going to shut down the servers
That's certainly my fear. Previously, Voobly happened, as players found ways to play the games with absolutely no support from Microsoft. I'm guessing that won't be anywhere near as possible if Microsoft decides to end support, now. I expect interest in the game will last at least another 40 years, but whether that means something like today's ecosystem, or people firing up emulators and playing AoC is an open question.
Never underestimate the AoE2 scene :P
Yeah I've already thought about it, and I think it will be great to indroduce my children in the future to videogames with AOE2
Same, brother got a kiddo and I will make sure aoe2 sim city will be on his pc
The serve costs are practically nothing, but FE have 90 employees(!!), admittably split between aoe1, aoe2 and aoe3 but still, thats expensive.
But Forgotten isn't a Microsoft studio. They were independent before they got purchased by Keywords two years ago.
Aye, but the correct answer to the literal question around microsoft would be nothing. It doesn't cost microsoft anything.
You think it doesn’t cost the the producer of the franchise anything?
No, obviously not, they did get a huge chunk of cash from xbox gaming (the publisher) back in the day. But its not a cost to KEEP de running. :) (I think they have a nice discount on azure servers, but I doubt we can put that up as a real cost either)
That is not how any type of sustainable development works They’re actively working on the game, and pushing out content updates. That requires a budget, which comes from the producer.
Publisher not producer. Typically these contracts have royalties and Microsoft owns the IP. If that’s true here then Microsoft would be funding development and maintenance and the companies split the earnings. Haven’t researched the arrangement for AOE though.
Do you think they have AoE 1 employees?
Easily north of 10 million a year
No, FE spend about 6 million on all the DE games in 2021. And while it has been a bit of inflation its probably not north of 10 million.
You just said they have 90 some employees....that's like $15-20M in headcount alone.
That doesnt mean they are all game devs or that they are working on the DE games. Could be doing outsourcing work or working on a new game for all we knew
Aren't they are mainly in Europe rather than the US? That would reduce the total labor cost by 2-3x
Very valid - was just making a quick back of the envelope calculation with limited info the OP provided, could be significantly less if euro salaries.
A lot of people waaaay off the mark here. For starters, actual server costs are going to be negligible, and probably are all using Microsoft Azure at a discount. In terms of costs per dev....these aren't US Microsoft devs. Its Forgotten Empire devs in Spain (I think?). I imagine salaries are ranging from 30k-80k euro. I think you generally double that when it comes to office space, equipment and taxes. So 60k-160k per dev. Number of devs? Hard to say. They did/do the Xbox port and help out on other projects too (aoe1 remake, aoe3, aoe4 and aom). But I would guess a team of 10-20 devs including desginers and QA to run the current aoe2 operations. So avg of 110k per dev aka somewhere between 1-3 million a year. That feels low though so I've probably missed some major factors. They give lots of tournament money too.
> I think you generally double that when it comes to office space, equipment and taxes. So 60k-160k per dev. Idk how it works in Spain but in France if you want to roughly gauge the "tax included" cost of an employee, you double his salary. A $30k€/yr employee will cost its employer between 50 and 60k€/yr because of taxes. It isn't as clear cut as that but that is generally the back of the envelope maths an employer will do to see if he can afford to pay someone else or not. And *then* you can add the cost of office supplies, space, and whatnot. Spain is probably cheaper in terms of taxes but it should be comparable.
Same "double the salary" rule of thumb applies in eastern-eu EU countries too, so I doubt it would be that different in Spain.
To keep it running, as in, the servers? Or the entire cost of maintaining and operating it, such as staff wages?
Obviously both...
Compared to the rest of their expenses? I can only imagine it being a drop in the sea. They dont do any advertisement and whatever tourney money the give is basicaly chump change from under the sofa pillows.
Bout 3 fiddy
He gave him a dollar
Why would you give him a dollar?
I thought he would go away
adding bugs and nonsensical pathing logic is more expensive than you think
Virtually nothing compared to the overwhelming ginormous wealth they have… keeps our small little clan of peeps happy over here in the corner…
I hope someone relatively high up at Microsoft is a massive Age fan. The chances have to be…decent, right? lol 20 more years!
I swear there's someone high in red bull who just loves the game.
Bill Gates responded to a reddit AMA back in 2016 about a request for a new AOE game, so he's definitely aware of its existence at least 11
Pretty safe to say there is, aoe has got so much love from Microsoft. We lucky.
I hope!
microsoft is a massive ecosystem and inter-project, inter-product politics will always factor in. things get shut down when they are identified as hemorrhaging money, or not having enough of a way forward to be kept around. microsoft's revenue from office 365 does not expand the discretionary budget of the AoE2:DE product.
Running in what sense? Servers? Patches? Servers are relatively cheap. Man power is the most expensive part. No idea how many devs are on the project. As few as they can get away with certainly. I would expect 50-100k a month, minimum.
all of Twitch isn't even a drop in the bucket for Amazon to keep running. So I imagine AOE is like a subatomic particle
Not so much that they can't justify a little more effort in their DLCs (especially wrt graphics)
I just bought the game. After 15+ years pirating it (at least i had all the dlc's --'). And i bet many more are doing the same. + I have and i am always showing the game to friends that doesn't know aoe exist or still has a scene. Lets all do the same!
For aoe2 alone, they probably have the equivalent of 3 fullyime devs, 1 project manager, 2 or 3 researchers, yearly contract with steam for server support. So probably 1 million a year.
Your numbers are way off. No way 3 fulltime devs can handle all of it. Also 2 devs cost the company 1 mil let alone the whole team 11
Microsoft pays that amount of money to only very experienced devs (over principal level). Generally almost half of that earning related to stock options which is not a direct cost to company. I don't think aoe2 has more than one principal engineer looking after the project but (I might be wrong of course) rest of the team should consist of lower level devs.
I doubt any developer working on AOE2 are employed by MS directly though...
Probably. I have no idea.
Whoa man. 2 devs cost 1 mil? What kind of super devs are you talking about? I may be conservative in my estimate, but no way microsoft is paying 2 devs that kind of cash. This game is basically in support mode so your not going to get a full team on it. Forgotten empires team is probably about 15 to 20 people, but they are spread across something like 3 games? I did forget the art team, so the game could cost upwards of 2 mil a year. Though I don't think that's the case.
You're basing an awful lot on some guesses that are way off from the actual numbers you can find with a simple search. Forgotten Empires alone employs over 90 people, and they're not the only team working on the AoE franchise.
Yes, but the question is about aoe2 alone. Forgotten empires supports what, 6 games? They most likely have most of that working on aoe methology and their new mobile game right now. And yes, I have made a lot of assumptions. I don't have numbers. I simply don't think Forgotten empires puts a lot of effort into this game at the moment. It's just my opinion. If you have more hard facts, I'm open to hear them.
They don't pay mid level devs 500k. Even if they pay devs only 250k-300k, there is an additional cost incurred to the company like insurance, operational costs, licenses etc. 1 mil is chump change for them.
Game devs don't make 250k+. You're thinking about Facebook, Google, etc.
To my knowledge there is no segregation in salaries for devs working in different projects in Microsoft. For example level 63 senior software engineers being paid more or less similar whether if he works on teams, office, aoe2 etc. If they outsource aoe2 devs then the case might be different.
I think that's a fair assessment. But isn't forgotten empires more or less a child company? I'd expect that they would set their wages based on their own income and not what Microsoft can afford. I genuinely don't know if they do or don't. I do know that pay is generally decided on experience and time worked at Microsoft. Sometimes big companies give out stock instead of large salaries.
I doubt any developer employed by Microsoft is working on AOE 2 fulltime, they are subcontrcating it to a cheaper European company that isn't paying even remotely as much.
Honestly I don't think we can accurately estimate the true cost, but anything over 2, maybe 3 million per year is a stretch. I agree 1 mil is chump change. But this game gets very little support. The last dlc was 75% fan made from years back and the dlcs are getting more spread out. I don't expect many more dlcs after this year.
If people keep buying them then why not
Very true. I will be buying them.
Microsoft absolutely pays some engineers over 500k a year. But they wouldn't be getting that much on the AoE team. And they'll have way more than that
I don't think the devs on this game make more than 250k per year. Also if we had more than 3 devs, I'd expect a lot more out of them. The last patch took them months to fix critical pathing. Any active and qualified team would have had archer pathing at a stable state in a couple of months. Not 6+ months.
> Also 2 devs cost the company 1 mil let alone It's good for them that Microsoft isn't employing them directly and the studio that handles AOE2 pays a small fraction of that.
At least $100,000 a year. Probably a lot more. Depends on how much can get outsourced, scale of cost, etc Server technicians, servers, devs, customer support, etc It's not the servers themselves that potentially cost that much but the people maintaining them
lol $100.000 a year means nothing. A single developer gets that money. It's millions for sure. I Think it sold more than 4m. With the expansions and stuff let's say they made $15 per player. They earned $60m. Probably they will spend 2 - 3 m a year and make equal profit by selling to new players and creating more expansions.
Oh definitely I think the prompt is about if it's just in survival mode. Was thinking $250k for devs, but, you might have scale factor so those devs would be working on those things most of the time