Guys they don’t give forever support to Win7
@Opt1mvs said:
The problem here is that very few people will migrate from Win 7 to Win 10 just to play one game, as sticking with 7 up to this moment is probably a decision that has deep reasons behind it (particularly considering that free W10 offer and so on).
Under these circumstances and given the large market share of Win 7, making the game playable just on Win 10 seems very shortsighted.
The people will change their mind if AoE2DE, AoE3DE, AoE4 are all Win10 exclusive.
If MS really bring AoEDE back to old OS, they are truly shortsighted.
Besides win7 is getting old. I would rather to see the devs take all their efforts to make sure the game perfectly stable on only one platform.
The reason is it is easier to make and test a game for only one platform instead of multiple operating systems.
100% of the sales goes to windows instead of around 30% of the sales going to steam. They can always release the game later on other platforms. They also need to get the game out in time for xmas season and having to do quality control on multiple platforms might delay the release of the game.
It’s a ■■■■■■ move but at least every windows 7 license owner can still upgrade to 10 for free using their 7 key, so at least there’s that…
@Kuoting said:
The people will change their mind if AoE2DE, AoE3DE, AoE4 are all Win10 exclusive.
If MS really bring AoEDE back to old OS, they are truly shortsighted.
Besides win7 is getting old. I would rather to see the devs take all their efforts to make sure the game perfectly stable on only one platform.
I don’t think you understood my argument: people who didn’t already migrated from 7 to 10 did this for reasons that are way beyond a game or a group of similar games. Maybe a tiny fraction will be such diehard fans of the original AoE that they are going to upgrade for it, but the rest will stick with 7 for as long as possible.
My point here is that in March 2017 Win 7 GAINED market share over Win 10 https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3005602/windows-7-market-share-rises-at-the-expense-of-windows-10 , do you really believe that such a trend is going to be affected by a game? As of August 2018 Win 7 had 48% market share vs some 28% for Win 10 Operating system market share . I understand of course that Microsoft wants to do everything to push for their last OS, but honestly I don’t believe that in October after the realease of AoE DE we’re going to see much different market share figures. While of course the sales of the game will be severelly diminished by this platform restriction.
MS have stopped supporting win7 and they provided free upgrades to win10 so I have no idea why common users need to stick with old systems… Win10 with XP shell is just fine to me.
And exclusivity is very common in the game market. Xbox One fails because it lacks exclusive games. It seems MS finally start to learn from the mistakes.
No one in his right mind would start debating on a web forum why some people prefer this OS and not that OS. What matters here are the cold hard facts like the market share: 48% for Win 7 vs 28% for Win 10. This roughly means that out of 10 computer users out there 3 decided to take the free W10 offer while 5 decided not to take it ( with other 2 using other OS irrelevant for this discussion).
Under these circumstances, to hope that a game will determine a relevant number of people to move on from 7 to 10 is delusional. Maybe if the 20$ price included a free Win 10 license as well 
(at least that would have probably brought some Xp users onboard W10)
@Opt1mvs said:
@Kuoting said:
The people will change their mind if AoE2DE, AoE3DE, AoE4 are all Win10 exclusive.
If MS really bring AoEDE back to old OS, they are truly shortsighted.
Besides win7 is getting old. I would rather to see the devs take all their efforts to make sure the game perfectly stable on only one platform.
I don’t think you understood my argument: people who didn’t already migrated from 7 to 10 did this for reasons that are way beyond a game or a group of similar games. Maybe a tiny fraction will be such diehard fans of the original AoE that they are going to upgrade for it, but the rest will stick with 7 for as long as possible.
My point here is that in March 2017 Win 7 GAINED market share over Win 10 https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3005602/windows-7-market-share-rises-at-the-expense-of-windows-10 , do you really believe that such a trend is going to be affected by a game? As of August 2018 Win 7 had 48% market share vs some 28% for Win 10 Operating system market share . I understand of course that Microsoft wants to do everything to push for their last OS, but honestly I don’t believe that in October after the realease of AoE DE we’re going to see much different market share figures. While of course the sales of the game will be severelly diminished by this platform restriction.
Though, i already talked about that in another thread but the market share stat you give are probably worldwide. Because in EU and NA, Win10 have a higher market share.
And then we’re not even talking about gamers userbase which we maybe are more keen to upgrade our system (for example, steam show 51.59 of W10 users vs 38.48 of W7 users).
The problem here is that the Age franchise doesn’t exactly target the average gamer which changes the video card once a year to be able to play the last FPS titles. So those stats on Steam are pretty irrelevant, I’d rather have a look at what OS are using the people playing AOE/AOK/AoM/AOE3 on voobly, gameranger and so on.
@Opt1mvs said:
The problem here is that the Age franchise doesn’t exactly target the average gamer which changes the video card once a year to be able to play the last FPS titles. So those stats on Steam are pretty irrelevant, I’d rather have a look at what OS are using the people playing AOE/AOK/AoM/AOE3 on voobly, gameranger and so on.
This is irrelevant any PC that can run Win7 can run Win10. (well Almost, must be compatible 64bit, where W7 had a 32bit version, but mustn’t be a problem for alot of peoples)
Even my own pc is 5 years old, if you want to know.
We understand your arguments, @Opt1mvs, but we don’t support them. MS has made a strategic decision, yes, at it comes with a cost, yes. So what?
You want to stick with an outdated OS that is 8 years old and want to have all the new stuff. You won’t get it. And that’s a good message. People should be encouraged to move to more secure and reliable platforms. Beside that Win10 is faster (I did benchmark tests on my machine).
BTW, https://theverge.com/2017/5/19/15665488/wannacry-windows-7-version-xp-patched-victim-statistics
You don’t really get it, I registered on the insider program with a PC capable of running the game (which of course includes the OS), so this kind of ad hominem arguments are as silly as it gets.
My interest in this matter is very simple: I liked very much the original AoE game and I’d rather see this DE edition getting enough following so it can have a good player base for quite a few years. However with the game stuck on W10 only this simply isn’t going to happen, the sales will not be big enough (I’m not talking here about casual players who will buy the game because it’s cheap, give it a few tries then say meh and foget about it). Go on Steam and check out how many people are online in AoM EE before attempting to argue.
As I said, limiting the game to Windows 10 is a strategic decision and I support it. It comes with a cost, yes.
I just checked the latest Steam stats, most popular OS is Windows 10 x64 with more than 50%, Windows 7 with 35%, see store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey
I really hope this game comes out on steam. I can see it being a windows exclusive, but its nice having all my PC games in one easily accessible library. I have all the other AoE games in my steam library.
I don’t really care if any game comes out on Steam… I like Steam, but really it doesn’t bother me where I buy a game from or which app I have to load my game via, as long as the launcher is effective of course. I don’t care about achievement points or any of that ■■■■ either.
The OS exclusitivity is something that bothers me. I am staying with win7 until I purchase a new PC next year. I prefer Win7 and for one game I don’t really want to upgrade to a new OS I am not particularly fond of. I may still just bite the bullet though and move to Win10…
Abandonware…
Only Windows 10 ?
Too bad they lose money trying to force us to switch to Windows 10 and its great spies ! :s
It can, there’s a post on the Reddit sub about this but it’s quite a convoluted process. It won’t be supported though so you’d do so at your own risk.
Doesn’t work on 10 either.
Every single other game I want to play on PC is Windows 8 compatible. But not this one. So that’s one game copy MS is never going to sell. By the time I have to upgrade, I doubt this game will be on the top of my list. Nostalgia is not worth paying $20 plus over $100 for a copy of Windows 10. Not all of us are the type of gamers who can drop hundreds of dollars on our systems every time a new game comes out. Stupid, stupid decision by MS.