I’ve posted this before, but why not again?

In 1997, I was the lead designer of Ensemble’s next cool IP - “Sorceress”, which was a magic-based real time strategy game. We’d moved quite a way along it. We had elves being produced from tree groves, wraiths created by transforming corpses, and so forth. It was rapidly becoming a whole game. But Age of Empires 2 was happening at the same time, and Ensemble Studios wasn’t that big.

So every week, the management would come to me and say something like, “We need Don to switch over to Age 2. That’s okay, right?” Well I’m a team player so sure take Don. But the hits kept coming. By January or February, ALL BUT TWO members of my team had been poached for Age 2. All I had left was me, a top programmer, and a top artist.

So I went to the company’s suits, and said, “There’s no way I can create an entire new RTS with three people. But I have a suggestion. When I was working on roleplaying games back at Chaosium, we found that each expansion sold something like 25%-35% as many copies as the original. If that holds true for RTS games, we could put together an expansion for Age of Empires on the cheap, taking only a few months, and a tiny team. If the expansion sold even 10% as well as Age, we’d make a mint.”

1/

The management agreed - unlike many company “suits” they were smart, game-savvy, and forward-thinking. I then presented my core idea for the expansion: “After the ancient times, Rome took over. Rome’s cool and pretty sexy. Let’s base the expansion on Rome. We’ll add Rome and three other civilizations, all enemies of Rome, like Carthage for example. We can also fix little balance problems that have come up since Age was published. Everyone will want the expansion for the new civs at a minimum.”

Now my bosses were pretty excited. When they presented the idea to MicroSoft, the morons in Redmond poured ice water.

“Our experience has shown that game expansions don’t sell.”

But Ensemble’s management already had fallen in love with Rise of Rome, and as I’d pointed out, it was a cheap experiment. So we went ahead without MicroSoft’s approval (at this time, they hadn’t yet bought Ensemble). Also, I think the goons at MicroSoft thought the expansion would just be a bunch of campaigns and scenarios. While scenarios would definitely be included, my vision was that it would contain something for everybody. New units, new technologies, AND new civs.

Even if you only ever wanted to play Hittites, say, you’d want Rise of Rome because it adds Slingers, Camel Riders, Fire Galleys, Scythe Chariots, Logistics, Martyrdom, Medicine, and the Tower Shield to your civ. The Tower Shield is particularly useful because Hittites rely heavily on archers.

And if you wanted to experiment with some of the new civs … well then, the world was your oyster.

2/

As far as I can tell in my research, this is one of the first, if not THE first time that a computer game expansion had more than just extra scenarios or levels, but actually changed fundamental gameplay. So I’m willing to take credit for changing the nature of expansions forever. Even if we do find someone who did it first, I’m willing to bet that Rise of Rome did it bigger and I hope better. So if you hate expansions, blame me. If you like them, you can buy me a diet Dr Pepper some day at a convention when we meet.

Anyway, Rise of Rome proved a gigantic hit. We sold a million copies - compared to the 3 million copies that Age of Empires sold, that’s pretty creditable. And since Rise of Rome cost only a tiny fraction as much as Age of Empires, it really made bank.

Plus it kept doing so. You see, Rise of Rome came out almost exactly a year after Age of Empires, and when it did, it BOOSTED Age of Empires sales. When people saw both games in the store, they naturally picked them both up.

Then, when the Gold Edition of Age of Empires was released, packaged with Rise of Rome, Microsoft got ANOTHER big boost in sales for both products. Rise of Rome was the gift that just kept on giving. It gave Microsoft three bites at the Age apple.

3/

For me the icing on the cake was, when Age of Empires II was almost finished, MicroSoft came to us all pompous and faux-wise, and said,

“We have learned that game expansions are really good, and we demand that you create one for Age of Empires II.”

My reaction was, “You learned? And who taught you? ME!” But if there’s one thing core to MicroSoft’s culture it’s a complete inability to be self-reflective. So they just stared blankly and repeated it.

That’s what led to The Conqeurors, but that’s another (also successful) story.

/end