It has certainly not been a good few months for Funcom, and according to the company, the situation is expected to get worse. After September’s notice of layoffs of 20% of the company’s workforce, we received further news that the upcoming MMO, The Secret World, would also be delayed by at least several months. Age of Conan and Anarchy Online are allegedly unaffected by the downsizing.
Age of Conan, alongside several other titles, is in the middle of a furious campaign to gain long term subscribers to their title (Because, as I say time and time again, it’s all about retention rate), bringing in heavy discounts for multi-month packages, veteran rewards, and more. Age of Conan has an expansion pack in the works, while Anarchy Online has its major graphics upgrade.
More after the break…
In my last article, about Funcom developing yet another MMO, I briefly alluded that Funcom may not be handling their priorities correctly, and by the grace of news it didn’t take long for me to be proven right:
Funcom’s financial reports for quarter 3 of this year were released, and those of you with weak stomachs and a terminal case of Funcom Fanboyism may want to turn away from the screen. With a revenue drop of 68.5%, Funcom also reported last year an operating profit of $3.3 million, as opposed to today’s $9.6 million loss.
Despite Age of Conan gaining some subscribers during the re-evaluation campaign, the financial report also notes that
“the launch of two major competing MMO-games during Q3 led toa subsequent reduction in subscriber levels.”
The report goes on to throw a cheap shot at Funcom’s own title, that the expectations for Funcom’s The Secret World are much higher than those for Age of Conan at the same point in development, either a blessing for The Secret World or a damning for Age of Conan.
Funcom’s upcoming Free to Play MMO, Pets vs Monsters is set to go into limited beta in December. Funcom is also in the process of lowering costs by outsourcing their positions to lower cost countries (Such as the 50 employees in Beijing, China).
MMO Fallout 