AOE: Immortal legend, but can it reach?

In Vietnam and China, AOE not only creates a trend at the internet shops but also gradually develops into an electronic sport, attracting millions of players and fans. However, the development of AOE has slowed down, if not reckless.

In fact, the audience watching AOE is increasingly decreasing. If 2019 – the year is considered to be the bloom of AOE Vietnam with the explosion of Facebook Gaming, the audience watching at the AOE Trung – Vietnam tournament is nearly 2 million people, with a record of 125,000 viewers directly on the Facebook platform, then up to the present time, the number of viewers directly or review the videos has also dropped significantly compared to the golden age.

Besides, statistics from Google also show that the demand for “AOE” and “empire” is dropping sharply. The peak of the keyword “AOE” in November 2011 and began to decrease so far. In the past, the period when AOE exploded on the Internet was the time when the AoE Gametv Lenovo Cup 2011 tournament was considered to be the first Vietnam -China tournament in the history of the AOE community – a tournament that aroused strong inspiration in fans, was the launcher to bring the AOE community to revive and advance to professionalism. But since then, the search chart “AOE” has tended to decrease, especially from 2020. The same trend has appeared with related keywords such as “sparrows in the sun” or “Hong Anh Aoe”, “Bibi Aoe”, … reflecting the change in the concern of the community.

Not only dropped the search amount, the attraction of AOE with big game and sports sites increasingly faded. Previously, social networks have reported on AOE very exciting, especially in the years of the AOE Vietnam – China. Therefore, the above figures have shown a very sad reality, did AOE no longer attract the audience as before?

Not stopping there, the current AoE community of Vietnam is currently facing a great challenge in building a sustainable development ecosystem. The income from AOE is so precarious causing many players to retire, switch to freelance or turn to other fields. Formerly the small white dragon, meomeo, tom, Viet BM, impermanent, My Dinh, … and the latest is the case of Vanelove, Nam sociu, Van Huong, Tong, … The number of players decreases also leads to the consequences: professional teams have to narrow the scale. In 2019, AOE Vietnam has up to 10 professional teams operating, each team has official members and 2-3 reserve players. By 2024, this number is only half, even some teams are only 4 members to compete.

While the number of professional players increasingly sparse, the AoE community struggled to find the next generation. The number of young people playing AoE is very small, the talents are really rarer. Over the years, the AOE community has only discovered and fostered a single promising face, Vu Ngoc Luan (nickname 2K1 Bac Ninh). Despite the talent search tournaments, the student tournament has been held, AOE Viet is still very “thirsty” for new factors and completely dependent on the 9X gamers. Is AOE's attraction too little compared to other games for the younger generation or for any other causes? If this situation is still going on, perhaps at some point in the near future, AOE will die?

The true cause of AOE is restrained?

Like many other video games, AOE is hard to avoid the rule of prosperity – inevitable of the times. The first cause of AOE recession is due to the fierce competition of the video game industry. The more and more new games appear with beautiful graphics, more modern and tasty gameplay (gameplay) has made many people abandon the AoE to find new experiences. On the other hand, AOE, although the gameplay is not too complicated, still requires high patience, accidentally becoming a barrier for many newcomers to access. Besides, also because the game has been released for a long time and has not received the update over the years, it is difficult to attract young people inherently many options in the diverse game market today.

However, the deepest cause, and at the same time, there is a direct influence on the regression of the empire community in Vietnam in general, the problems of professional AOE. The core lies in the word “income”.

Previously, the period from 2018 to 2020 was considered the golden stage of AOE gamers as well as the managing companies, due to its very high and stable income thanks to Facebook Gaming. However, after this period, the Facebook Gaming platform gradually decided; Starting to cut income, so far no longer pays the streamer. This is the reason why the host companies have difficulty, the income of AOE gamers is increasingly decreasing and life becomes precarious. Therefore, many professional AOE players have to retire or both play and have to do other jobs to have a more stable income.

Of course, in addition to Facebook Gaming, Vietnamese professional AOE still receives huge investments from sponsors and big brands. The evidence is that many tournaments are held every year, with funding for a prize up to several hundred million or billion dong. However, the sad thing is that the distribution of the aforementioned funding is extremely unreasonable. While the bonus for the champion or the towering runner -up, the other players did not receive many practical benefits, even some people were empty -handed after those tournaments. For example, at the AOE League tournament in 2024 with a total value of VND 500,000,000, the champion received more than 120,000,000 VND – that is, more than a fifth of the total prize. While nearly 30 other players attending the tournament have a very modest income, even some players attending the tournament have not received anything after the tournament. This is completely contrary to the law of development, because any tournament that wants to succeed needs the participation of players and teams. Therefore, whether they win the title or not, they still deserve the rights to be commensurate with their contributions.

Looking at League of Legends and other eSports subjects, fans see some differences. Obviously, all the players and teams participating in the professional tournament are given profits from the tournament, from which to be able to maintain and also the motivation to promote the overall development of the whole community. But this is something that over the years, Vietnamese professional AOE has not done.

The difference in the development strategy between AOE and the League of Legends also explained why since 2011, the search number “AOE” has decreased, because 2012 was the time when the League of Legends setting foot in Vietnam, opening a new chapter for home electronic sports. Meanwhile, the misleading directions of AOE leads to the decline of the whole community, the quality of the tournaments decreases and the excitement of fans is increasingly cool.

How to help AOE to reach?

Despite many disadvantages in a competitive game market, AOE is still a game that is rich in potential potential for development. Over the past 3 decades, this game has built a enthusiastic and passionate fan community. However, in order to find the glory for AOE, it is necessary to solve the core problem. That is: the income of all gamers.

One of the most effective sources of income and exploitation is from professional tournaments. Because, AOE tournaments are always the place to attract the attention of the whole community of thousands of fans and especially huge funding. If the managing companies can join forces together to organize methodical tournaments, with good scale, good quality, into a complete system of solving, thereby creating a strong spread effect in the community, then it is inevitable that it will maintain the funding source, while attracting new sponsors. That also means that the income of gamers participating in the tournament will be increasingly improved.

But as mentioned, although professional AOE tournaments make a very high profit, it is necessary to distribute reasonable revenue sources. Any gamer attending the tournament must receive a source of income commensurate with the ranking, with the contribution to the tournament. Avoid the situation of the player, the runner -up receives too many bonuses, while those who “make the background” for those titles are almost going to play “without”.

Of course, solving the above problem is not a simple thing, because for many years, Vietnamese professional AOE has been familiar with the old, backward path. Perhaps this reason has urged a potential unit like Thien Khoi Esports to find a different direction, more reasonable and more modern for the community. It is the proposal to apply the “image copyright” package or “copyright to broadcast” into professional AOE tournaments. In fact, it is not a big story, but it is the application of the “share” model of eSports tournaments (League of Legends) or football tournaments (Premier League, C1 Cup, …) to create adequate and sustainable income for all AOE gamers. Certainly Thien Khoi Esports understands that only when AOE gamers have a higher source of income, have a better life will they have the motivation to devote, create value to the community, and AOE attracts more young gamers to pursue this game, creating adjacent generations.

In short, AOE will forever be a strategy game monument. However, if AOE Vietnam cannot solve the core problem, it is not possible to help the investment sources and funding are reasonably distributed to all development, this game will be difficult to reach out. Even if not changed, the end will only be a symbol of the past, because no one lives forever with nostalgia.