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"Age of Empire" was officially released on Christmas, and its sales once again broke the record of PC games.

Originally, including Jester and Mars Entertainment, it is expected that it would be a very good number to be able to sell three million units within a year.

But, obviously, they misjudged the enthusiasm of the players.

On the first day of its release, more than 800,000 sets were sold in North America. As a PC game, before, except for "Thor's Hammer", no such second game has ever been able to achieve such sales.

For example, it is like "Civilization" that touches Sid Mell on the altar.

This game with extremely rich connotations has been released for almost two years, and the accumulated sales have only exceeded one million just now.

Moreover, it will be released on the next day in Europe.

The sales volume of "Age of Empire" increased by 600,000. You should know that although Europe has a larger population than the United States, they have followed their previous experience in game consumption, which is just like the United States, but it is hard to believe that they actually burst into an unimaginable enthusiasm for purchasing in the game "Age of Empire".

Even in Europe, many media have reported on this grand occasion.

Because of the release of Mars Entertainment's "Age of Empires", traffic jams are caused in many places. Because Christmas is already busy, and with more people queuing up to buy in stores or game stores, traffic jams naturally occur.

At that time, a BBC reporter interviewed a young man in his twenties who had been queuing since Christmas Eve. The young man was a student from the University of Exeter. He took the train to London a day in advance and queued up specifically, hoping to buy "Age of Empire" as soon as possible.

"May I ask, sir, why are you here to buy this game?"

"I am a history student and I am very interested in ancient history. I was a fan of the "Civilization" series before. Later, I heard that this game was developed by the development team of "Civilization", and the chief producer is Jester Lee. You may not know that he is not playing the game. He is the best game designer in the world. In addition, the previous reports said that "Age of Empires" will be a real game that simulates the imperial battles in history, so I couldn't help but feel excited. I wanted to play it as soon as possible, so I came to queue up!"

Many people have reasons for this and that, but I have no exception. They are all attracted by the game "Age of Empires".

By the end of December, the total global sales of "Age of Empires" exceeded 3 million copies, close to the record of "Thor's Hammer" with a total sales of 4.4 million copies.

Jester was in South Korea at the time, and he learned about the news from South Korea.

However, there was no Korean version at the beginning, nor Japanese version, and the Japanese version would be delayed by one month.

Later, the Japanese version of "Age of Empires" was launched, and the final sales were not very good. It only sold less than 100,000 copies in a week. Of course, as a PC game, such sales are already very good in Japan.

When Jester returned to the United States and looked at sales records and statistics, the hot sales period of "Age of Empires" has passed, and the total sales volume has stopped above 3.5 million sets. The sales speed is now very slow. According to previous experience in game sales, the curves compared to the previous ones.

Generally speaking, it is certain that within two years, "Age of Empires" may exceed four million, but there is little hope to break the record of "Thor's Hammer".

Moreover, in the recent report on game progress, John Carmack's "Thor Hammer 2" has entered the accelerator, and the new 3D engine is very powerful. As soon as Jester came, he went to see Carmack's new engine, although it was much worse than later generations, even in the original history, when Carmack developed "Thor Hammer" in the mid-1990s.

After all, there are times gaps, after all, it is four to five years missing.

Many things that are no longer a problem in software, but still cannot be done in hardware.

But it is much better than the engine of "Doom" of the same era. In fact, in this world, when the first work of "Thor's Hammer", the engine was much better than the first first-person shooter in history, and Carmack's work "Assassination of Hitra", which is just slightly inferior to "Doom".

When it comes to the second work, the original "doom" is completely incomparable.

With enough time and the development team's funds, after all, after three revisions, Carmack's understanding of the 3D engine has reached a higher level and has produced a brand new 3D engine in this world, at least in two to three years, it is impossible for anyone to imitate it.

Originally, Jester wanted to continue the name of the Unreal series.

However, John Carmack made different opinions. He felt that this time the engine development was a rare experience and sublimation for him, just like a silkworm pupa that had peeled off his skin, so he wanted to change his name.

However, he lacks the talent for naming, and he is not very satisfied with it after thinking about it.

After hearing this, Jester naturally agreed.

He is naturally the best at naming a name. He doesn't need to choose it himself. He just needs to find a few better names from his memory and let the other party choose it.

"Hanshuang, look at the name."

Hanshuang is the name of an engine in Jester's memory. It was specially developed by EA for the battlefield and is very suitable for the development and production of FPS games.

Of course, this brand new engine from Carmack has nothing to do with the Frost Engine of EA decades later.

When Carmack heard the name of the new engine that Jester mentioned, he frowned and thought for a while. Although it was more profound than the meaning of Unreal Engine at the beginning, it was still a very good name. More importantly, the name his boss said casually was much better than what he had thought before.

Finally, Carmack nodded: "Okay, it's Hanshuang."

"By the way, when will the production of "Thor Hammer 2" be completed?" After the engine name was confirmed, Jester continued to ask about the game. Although Jester also participated in a small part of the design of "Thor Hammer 2", the first producer of this game was already John Carmack.

"Soon, when I was developing the engine, my team actually started to produce the modeling required in the game, so our programing is very fast, and it is almost done. It is possible to get the alpha version in April or May."

John Carmack said it with confidence.

"That's how I think. Do you know the question about the Battle.com's hypothesis before?" "Jester thought for a while, pondered and asked a question.

"I know, it seems to be prepared for the large-scale online operation of "Age of Empires"? But when I heard this plan, I felt that this thing was extremely suitable for the arena mode of "Thor Hammer". Think about it, you can fight with players in the whole of the United States! A Los Angeles-based mouth can fight with a New York gun god. Who is better than who is better? You don't have to brag on the forum, just do it just to have a game..."

When John Carmack heard this question from Jester, his eyes lit up, and he said excitedly. Obviously, he also saw the most important gameplay about "Thor Hammer" from Jester's battle network construction.

"hehe."

Jester was obviously excited to see the marginal sentence without comment, but just smiled: "You are thinking too much. Now the Battle Network is still being built. I guess it will be until June. The initial test plan was only about 2,000 to 3,000 places in "Age of Empires". As for "Thor Hammer",... I can only say that the first-person shooting game has much greater requirements for network conditions than the RTS game."

After pausing for a moment, Jester saw the disappointed expression on John Carmack's face, but he still said: "So, in a short period of time, at least one and a half years, I will not consider the idea of ​​adding "Thor Hammer" to the Battle.com."

"and……"

As he said that, Jester stood up and stretched.

"The construction and testing of the Battle Network will be a very long process. I didn't want to see anything that can make a profit from it at once, because I know that this is the direction of future games. In the future, it will definitely bring me countless profits."

As he said that, Jester re-depicted Carmack how powerful he would be when he expanded a battlenet into a game platform.

"John, you can imagine that, suppose, ten years, fifteen years, or even twenty years later, we will have such a platform, which is the largest and most technologically advanced gaming platform in the world, and that he will be able to provide such an opportunity to all companies willing to sell and play on this platform."

"On this platform, it's not just a game of our own company."
Chapter completed!