Hey everyone. This is a difficult post to make, because much to our disappointment we’ll be closing the Escape studio at the end of September.
We knew it was a risky venture, but for all of us it’s been an amazing opportunity and we’re really proud of what we were able to achieve in just 9 months.
Unfortunately, as was likely from the start, it’s simply not sustainable for us to maintain the studio space. We’ve looked for many options to keep going but ultimately the money will run out and we won’t be able to afford to continue.
We really hope that the ECL LAN allowed us to redeem ourselves. It’s been my dream since 2011 to host a LAN finals like that and to finally see that come true was overwhelmingly emotional. To everyone who competed and everyone who came to watch, thank you for your kind words and thank you for making the event awesome.
The same can be said for AoE3, it was an honour to host the largest LAN event in the history of the game, with record breaking viewership and another amazing Age community behind it.
Escape is likely going to wind down too, after the studio shuts down we will do what we can to continue with the channel from home. However, I anticipate this will be a short-term thing as we seek employment elsewhere. Understandably what we tried to achieve was seen through a critical lens, the goal of being a trusted organiser who would be able to bring sponsors to the game and push the competitive side of the game forward was a challenge. In some respects we succeeded and in others we failed.
Thank you to everyone who has supported us and the project no matter how large or small . It means the world to know that the work has been appreciated and we can’t thank you enough.
In the end, we tried to make too big of a jump too quickly, trying to chase a vision of what AoE2 could become but in reality is a long way from being. I’m glad we were able to secure funding and bring over $100k in prizes to the players, but sadly this is the end for us.
I’d like to wish everyone all the best from the whole team here at Escape.
We knew it was a risky venture, but for all of us it’s been an amazing opportunity and we’re really proud of what we were able to achieve in just 9 months.
Unfortunately, as was likely from the start, it’s simply not sustainable for us to maintain the studio space. We’ve looked for many options to keep going but ultimately the money will run out and we won’t be able to afford to continue.
We really hope that the ECL LAN allowed us to redeem ourselves. It’s been my dream since 2011 to host a LAN finals like that and to finally see that come true was overwhelmingly emotional. To everyone who competed and everyone who came to watch, thank you for your kind words and thank you for making the event awesome.
The same can be said for AoE3, it was an honour to host the largest LAN event in the history of the game, with record breaking viewership and another amazing Age community behind it.
Escape is likely going to wind down too, after the studio shuts down we will do what we can to continue with the channel from home. However, I anticipate this will be a short-term thing as we seek employment elsewhere. Understandably what we tried to achieve was seen through a critical lens, the goal of being a trusted organiser who would be able to bring sponsors to the game and push the competitive side of the game forward was a challenge. In some respects we succeeded and in others we failed.
Thank you to everyone who has supported us and the project no matter how large or small . It means the world to know that the work has been appreciated and we can’t thank you enough.
In the end, we tried to make too big of a jump too quickly, trying to chase a vision of what AoE2 could become but in reality is a long way from being. I’m glad we were able to secure funding and bring over $100k in prizes to the players, but sadly this is the end for us.
I’d like to wish everyone all the best from the whole team here at Escape.