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Year in Review: The Age Insider Program in 2019 

We hope you’ll agree with us when we say it has been an awesome year for the Age Insider Program, and it’s all thanks to you! We are tremendously honored by and grateful for your excitement and appetite for Age titles. We can’t wait to share even more content and opportunities with our Insiders in 2020!

Before we send our scouts out to explore what’s next, we would like to reflect on what we’ve accomplished together since the program relaunched six months ago:

  • We have grown our Age Insider community to more than 99,000 strong since June 2019. Whether you were part of the Age Insider Program prior to its reboot this past summer or only recently joined us, we can’t wait to continue the journey with you.
  • A whole host of Age fans joined us for the Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition closed beta—spending time with the game as well as its community, developers, and us—ahead of an awesome launch in November. You can brush up on Age II: DE closed beta stats in last month’s newsletter!
  • Many of you were invited to hop into Age of Empires: Definitive Edition on the Microsoft Store in July and August as we took cross-network play for a spin ahead of the title’s release on Steam.

Not only have you provided excellent feedback on our Age of Empires titles, but you’ve also helped guide the direction of the Age Insider Program! Some of you may have wondered about the purpose of the “How can we improve?” email sent earlier this month.  While it’s true that we most typically send out surveys related to pre-release titles and updates,  we also want to take the time to gauge how we’re doing when it comes to building out the program—and that’s where your responses to our program health surveys come in!

If you had the chance to complete the survey, that’s excellent; if not, there’s no need to fret—we’ll send out others in the future! We would ask that you keep an eye out for these surveys, as they are a great opportunity to help us understand what you’re looking for as an Age Insider.

In the meantime, we’ll be sitting with the feedback you’ve given us—both during our betas and after—and charting a path forward. While we’re doing that, we ask that you take some time between now and 2020 to visit your Insider Profile and make any necessary updates to your communication preferences, preferred titles, play styles, and more. By sharing this information with us, we’ll  start the new year with a better understanding of the types of Insider-related betas, previews and events you would like to take part in. It shouldn’t take long, and it’s a big help to us!


“Every time you update your profile, a Town Center gets its first Villager.”

Thank you to all our Age Insiders for making this year a huge success. We can’t wait to see how much we’ll grow in 2020!

Become an Age Insider!

Insiders unlock access to exclusive news, updates, and opportunities to provide feedback about future releases. Here are some of the perks:

  • Access to private forums where you can interact with Age developers
  • The chance to join exclusive beta opportunities through Steam and the Windows Store
  • Channels to provide feedback and inspire quality changes in your favorite Age titles