How many copies did Age of Empires sell? — 2024 statistics

Age of Empires sales have surpassed 25 million copies.

(Source: VG Chartz, Game Reactor)

• The game with the most sales is Age of Empires 2: HD Edition with 5.82 million sales.
• Age of Empires has 3 million sales.
• Age of Empires: The Age of Kings has 2 million sales.
• Age of Empires 3 has 2 million sales.
• The series has accumulated over $1 billion in revenue.

People will tell you that the Age of Empires series is massively popular, and the best way to prove that is to take a look at the total number of games sold as well as the revenue that the series has generated over the years. 25 million sales for an RTS genre is excellent and with Age of Empires 2 leading the charge, this series is going to stay around for the foreseeable future!

Microsoft expected to sell 430K copies of Age of Empires, but it actually sold over 3 million copies by 2000.

(Source: Ars Technica, Dot Esports)

• The Age of Empires series will celebrate its 25th birthday in an old German castle in the form of an esports tournament.
• The tournament is to be sponsored by Microsoft and Red Bull with prize pool of $550,000.
• The games that will be played at the tournament are Age of Empires: Definitive Edition, Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition, and Age of Empires 4.
• Age of Empires 4 winners will receive $300,000, $200,000 for Age of Empires 2, and $50,000 for Age of Empires.

The 25th anniversary of Age of Empires’ unexpected success was celebrated in true medieval fashion since the tournament will be held in an old German castle and features most of the iconic games in the series and some pretty enviable prize pools. There isn’t much more to say about this line of stats other than it’s a nice event that will do a lot of good for the series in general.

Age of Empires 4 had more than 70,000 concurrent players during its launch weekend.

(Source: VG247)

• This is two times more players than what Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition had during its launch weekend.
• It was in the top 20 games in that period.
• Its sales put it ahead of more popular games like New World and Back 4 Blood.

Although Age of Empires 4 is not as popular as its predecessor, Age of Empires 2, it still managed to rack up a decent player count during its release window, even rivaling some bigger titles like Back 4 Blood and New World. This is very good for the series because it means that there is a lot of hype surrounding the newer Age of Empires game and that the community is looking forward to playing them whenever they come out.

Keystones acquired Forgotten Empire for $32.5 million.

(Source: Game World Observer)

• Forgotten Empire is a development studio that produces remakes of the Age of Empires games.
• The decision was announced on June 8th, 2022.
• The deal dictated that Keystones would pay $15.75 million in cash and $3.75 million in shares.
• Should Forgotten Empire makes the expected sales stats, the remaining $13 million will be paid out.

Forgotten Empire was a massive part of the Age of Empires series because they produced remakes of some of the games that intended to portray them in a fresh, new light. We don’t know much about this acquisition, but we are certainly looking forward to seeing how the studio works out in the end!

Age of Empires 2 had its best year ever in 2020, peaking at over 50,000 concurrent players.

(Source: PC Gamer)

• The game is over 20 years old, but its player base has steadily been increasing over the years.
• It is one of the most-played RTS games on Steam.
• At one point, the game had over 50,000 concurrent players, placing it in the top 150 games based on concurrent player count.
• This is a massive achievement considering the game is over 20 years old.
• Age of Empires 2 had the biggest 1v1 prize pool in 2020, which started at $50,000.

Age of Empires 2 is definitely the most popular game in the series because it encompasses everything that makes Age of Empires good, and it is showing no signs of stopping. It had its best year in 2020, and we are sure that it is going to continue being relevant for years to come.

Age of Empires has featured over 50 civilizations throughout the series.

(Source: Ars Technica)

• Age of Empires has had a very rich development history over the last 20+ years.
• The idea for Age of Empires was on a whim and it was originally called Dawn of Man.
• It took 9 months for the first working prototype of the game to be developed.
• It was not a priority, but a side project for a small division of the company.

The only thing better than playing a world-famous game franchise is learning about everything the developers did to make the franchise a reality. Age of Empires started out as a humble passion project shared between about 50 members of the staff, and this is a fantastic example of ambition being the driving factor behind the success of an “empire”.

Even though Age of Empires 4 is the newest game, Age of Empires 3 is still more popular.

(Source: CBR)

• Although quite a few Age of Empires games were released, none of them were quite as popular as Age of Empires 2.
• The total player count for Age of Empires has dropped off gradually, but Age of Empires 2 still rakes in many players constantly.
• The reason for this situation is that Age of Empires 2 carries all of the core ideas of the series while Age of Empires 4 still has to create its own legacy.

We’ve mentioned this before, but we’ll say it again: Age of Empires 3 is the best and most popular game in the Age of Empires series, hands down. The player count for Age of Empires 4 has been decent, but it is still blown out of the water by Age of Empires 2, which is unusual, but expected.

The longest reported Age of Empires 2 match was 97 hours and ended in an stalemate.

(Source: Sports Keeda)

• An Age of Empires 1v1 match usually lasts 30-60 minutes.
• These two players spent 97 hours in the same game.
• Neither of them had the means of achieving victory, but each of them was too stubborn to quit.
• The match came to an end when one of the players experienced Internet failure and disconnected.

Now, this was a piece of news that we did not expect to see, but this match was legendary because the average Age of Empires 1v1 match lasts between 30 and 60 minutes, so having a match last 97 hours is unheard of. It’s a fantastic portrayal of the dedication that gamers will show when their pride is in question.

To sum up

And that would be all we have to say about the Age of Empires series and all of the glory it has acquired since the first game was released in 1997! As you can see, the series started out with humble beginnings, but it catered to a specific branch of the gaming community and presented it with a gameplay dynamic that is satisfying, fun, and thoroughly enjoyable. Because of these aspects of the series, each game release is hyped and people can’t wait to play them! We sincerely hope that you enjoy the presented content and that you are now ready for any new Age of Empires games that are set to come out in the future!