Blocked, Ignored, Betrayed: The Shameful Treatment of AoE3 Fans

Today, when I once again opened Twitter to try and speak to the official Age of Empires account — to try and communicate, respectfully, about the desperate situation of Age of Empires III — I realized something shocking: I was blocked.
Yes. The World’s Edge — the very studio entrusted with managing this franchise — blocked me.

Why?
I can only assume it’s because I left too many comments mentioning Age of Empires III. Because I dared to speak for this community.
I don’t know if others in our community have had the same experience — but if you have, it wouldn’t surprise me.
Because this is how The World’s Edge treats us: with silence, with contempt, with disdain.
They lied to us.
They ignored us.
Now they silence us.

Maybe they even laugh at us behind the scenes.

I don’t know how long my account will last. I don’t know if I’ll be banned from the forums too. But honestly? I no longer care.
I paid for this game. I contributed to it.
I made mods for it.
When my work was stolen, they did nothing.
When I reported the thief, they didn’t lift a finger.
I was patient. I understood they were busy.
But when they abandoned the game,
when they declared it dead,
when they made no effort to fix bugs, balance gameplay, or give us even the tiniest updates,
when they shut down communication,
when they made a mockery of our loyalty — I had enough.

I call on all AoE3 players to stand up.

If you’re posting here, you can post anywhere.
Let them see us. Let them remember we are still here.

And if they continue to ignore us?
That’s on them.

From this day forward, I will never buy another piece of AoE content again — no more DLCs, no matter how tempting.
Because this is what they’ve shown us:
That Age of Empires II, IV, and Mythology get esports events, updates, trailers, developer support…
But AoE3?
Nothing.
Why?
Because the game looks too good? Because it threatens to outshine the others?

We are punished for the game’s excellence.

And now, The World’s Edge dares to silence us.
They’ve already refused to show AoE3 in any official spotlight.
Now they remove us entirely from the conversation.

Fine.

I will never buy anything from The World’s Edge again.
I will never support another Microsoft game if this is how they treat part of their loyal community.
I have a PS5. I don’t own an Xbox — and I never will.

Yes, I’m just one person.
But this is my line in the sand.
This is where my support ends.

They’ve gone too far.
They’ve silenced us because we speak the truth.
They’ve made it clear:
They hate this game.
They hate that we still care about it.

Well — now I know.
Now we all know.

And let’s talk about what this really means. I was blocked by the official Age of Empires account—not some private individual, not a community member, but the official representation of this legendary franchise. Why? Simply because I spoke up about Age of Empires III. Because I refused to stay silent. Because I dared to remind them that this game exists and has a living, breathing community behind it.

Let’s be clear: this isn’t just about one account being blocked. It’s about a studio silencing a community. It’s about a franchise trying to erase one of its own titles from public discourse. This is the official Age of Empires account—and yet we, the AoE3 players, are not allowed to mention our game? What does that tell us?

It tells us they are ashamed of AoE3.

It tells us they want to hide it.

It tells us that The World’s Edge is actively shaping the narrative to exclude us, to deny our legitimacy, to pretend we don’t exist.

And why? Because AoE3 is beautiful? Because it’s different? Because it threatens their narrow vision of what the franchise should be? Instead of celebrating its diversity, they suppress it. Instead of engaging with its community, they wall it off.

This is not just censorship. This is cowardice.

This is prejudice against a community that has done nothing but love and support a game they abandoned.

They do not want to hear us—because our presence is a reminder of their failure.

But we will not be erased.

We will not be silent.

The more they try to shut us down, the louder we’ll become.

Let them keep blocking us.

Let them keep silencing every voice that dares to speak for Age of Empires III.

Let them try to erase every single one of us.

Do they really think they can block us all?

Every time they block one of us, they extinguish one more light in their community.

Every time they silence a player, they create another person who sees through their lies.

Another person who resents The World’s Edge.

Another person who begins to question this entire franchise.

Another person who might walk away from Xbox, from Microsoft, from everything they touch—because this is how they treat loyalty, how they treat passion, how they treat their own players.

They are not just hurting us.

They are hurting themselves.

They are turning their own franchise into a joke—through arrogance, cowardice, and ignorance.

We may not have famous YouTubers.

We may not have major influencers.

But we have something else: dignity.

And that’s why we will keep speaking.

Because in the face of lies, betrayal, and humiliation, we still choose to defend the game we love.

And if they succeed in silencing every last one of us—if one day no one can mention Age of Empires III without being blocked—I will still stand by what I believe.

Age of Empires III is a great game.

They are fools.

They are the ones who killed it with their own hands.

And they will be remembered, at least by us, on the wall of shame.

23 Likes

These were done by the same people who said they’re sorry and they understand. Ha.

You know what we still have our ignorant happy folks from “the other game” asking “hey they just cut support of a game like every other studio does. Why are you overreacting?”

Because you need to get deeply involved with the game, its social media, its community managers, before you realize how disgusting and hypocritical they are. You need to have deep knowledge about how they have treated this game, then basic knowledge about how every other studio treats their games (ones that they don’t hate) before you realize something is very wrong here.

That’s why they are smart and cunning. They made efforts to alienate players, make sure they don’t communicate let alone sympathize, so that everything just looks like normal business to outsiders, but filled with disdain, disrespect and deception deep underneath the surface. The more emotionally attached you are to the game, the more you closely follow every trace of news and activity (who forced us to do so, btw?), the more you ask and plead them to show basic respect, the more they will disgust you.

Edit: guess what they’ll do next? They will merge those posts or delete them and even punish you for “spamming”, following the “community rules” (ones they only use at their convenience).

7 Likes

Honestly, I don’t really care how they treat me anymore.
I still have many friends in the Chinese AoE3 community, and we continue to enjoy the game together.
I’m also a modder myself—I’m still working on mods, and I still love this game.

In the past, the reason I joined this forum, or at least the most important reason, was to engage with the developers—to communicate directly and offer suggestions for improvement.
But now, the official support is gone. Or to be more accurate, they’ve already declared the game dead.
So this forum no longer holds the same meaning for me as it once did. That’s why I’m not really bothered by what they do to me.

I’ve already seen other true lovers of AoE3—those who really cared—get banned for voicing their concerns.
I don’t know if the same thing will happen to me.
I personally believe I haven’t broken any rules, but if they decide to do it anyway, well, there’s nothing I can do.

5 Likes

If there is anything WE is good at, that is gaslighting.

They have infinite tolerance towards attacks on “one of their products” then silence you for arguing back.

They send random voluntary or “voluntary” folks to hint you your anger is unjustified.

They try every effort to please the other players while bullying you hard, so if you rage, complain, or just groan —— you are the bad guy that ruins the mood of the “majority”.

Even if WE had a massive layoff, those people will be the last to stay. That’s with every big corporate right now.

I have no doubt a few people (or even more) in WE are harnessing the support of the “majority” of their players for their personal grudges. They must be laughing hard behind the screens. All we can do is waiting for them to mess up.

6 Likes

SI AOE3 les ennuient vraiment, pourquoi ne pas confier au moins ce jeu à un autre studio ? Il ont peur des persécutions? peur que nous préférons ce jeu à tout autres de la franchise ? Tant pis, je n’en ai cure de leurs excuses, même AOM qui a un public moins important continue à être mis a jour et des dlc sortiront certainement dans le futur, je suis juste blasé pour l’un de mes RTS préféré avec la licence C&C et les Warlords Battlecry

imagine banning someone who plays the game you developed because they have passion for your own game. like the incompetence of these people continues to astound me. I’m sorry that happened to you, it just further more confirms everything we thing about WE.

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Count me in. Unless they restart development of AoE3

3 Likes

Same here. Never again, until and unless they take back their “never again.”

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When one of the forum members found the accounts of the WE owners, - his post also quickly deleted!

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Unfortunately since I was temporarily banned I have been playing this game less, the game not having more civilization or fixes with patches and decreasing the players there is no reason to play more, I don’t understand why they don’t invest in more marketing in this game the countless ways they monetize with skins of units, explorers, maps, unique natives, civilizations. Even if you don’t agree I would prefer it to keep the game alive and high

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I can’t see the message about AOE3. On Twitter, are you also blacklisted by the official account?

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Yes, but it is what it is… :man_shrugging: