Funcom – Page 10 – MMO Fallout

The Secret World Teases Event Leading To Tokyo

Funcom has released the latest Game Director letter for The Secret World, detailing the upcoming updates of Issue #7 and #8. Coming in the next few weeks, Issue #7 deals with a new threat facing our Secret World co-conspirators: The Filth. The event is set to take place over the course of several events, spawning from the Tokyo district and moving to other areas of the world. The event will begin after the release of Issue #7 and after the first anniversary event for The Secret World.

Over the coming months as we ramp up towards Tokyo, players will be fighting to contain, and drive back the filth which is tainting the world tree. With every patch, this event will move to a new phase until eventually, if players have done enough, they will gain access to Tokyo itself.

Issue #8 deals with players proving their worth by completing training situations with the Council of Venice in order to be certified to enter Tokyo. Only the bravest and most capable will be able to take on the threat that awaits and the Council must be sure you are able to stay alive long enough to make some headway. Scenarios are repeatable and pit the user in a variety of random situations to test their adaptability.

We’ve heard this word random thrown around before, so let me provide a concrete example: Imagine a Scenario in Kingsmouth Church, where the player has been tasked with helping a group of survivors get through the night (12hrs). Every hour or so (in game time 5 minutes), huge numbers of zombies spawn around the church and move to attack the survivors. The player has multiple options to defend against these waves, including traps and tricks they find lying around. Where the random element comes into play is the chance of something else occurring on the waves: Special bosses spawning, survivors panicking and fleeing the church, an infected survivor turning and attacking the others, a helicopter dropping additional supplies or lightning striking randomly in the spaces around the church.

Sounds fun. This comes alongside an augmentation system allowing players to customize their powers toward specific uses. You can read the entire letter at the link below.

(Source: The Secret World)

Funcom’s Q1 2013 Finances

Funcom has released their Q1 2013 financial details and the news is…good? Revenues have almost tripled compared to the same time last year thanks to the launch of The Secret World last year, which along with Age of Conan now make up the bulk of Funcom’s revenue. As many of you know, Funcom consolidated its live teams to the hub in Durham, North Carolina. Moving forward, the focus is on the developer’s currently operational games as well as a small number of titles currently in development.

As per the above, the company expects the positive effect from the restructuring to materialize in full in the second half of the year. However, significant cost savings were realized in 1Q13 and the operating costs decreased by 1,197 TUSD compared to the previous quarter and by 2,232 TUSD compared to 1Q12.

The Secret World enjoyed its first full quarter under the new buy to play system, increasing player numbers and retention along with the launch of Issue #6: The Last Train To Cairo. Issue #7 releases this summer. Anarchy Online experienced a server merger which increased activity and players on the remaining servers. Funcom continues to work on the major engine upgrade to Anarchy Online. The Lego Minifigures MMO is on schedule for release and is currently in development for the PC in both client and browser form, as well as tablets.

One of Funcom’s lesser known titles, Fashion Week Live, was sold to 505 Games in Q1 2013. Funcom’s Montreal studio is currently working on bringing the Dreamworld technology to tablets, opening new opportunities for the developer. Funcom expects more cost reductions and lower revenues in the second quarter.

(Source: Funcom Finances)

Funcom's Q1 2013 Finances

As per the above, the company expects the positive effect from the restructuring to materialize in full in the second half of the year. However, significant cost savings were realized in 1Q13 and the operating costs decreased by 1,197 TUSD compared to the previous quarter and by 2,232 TUSD compared to 1Q12.

(Source: Funcom Finances)

Age of Conan Still Veering Toward New Server Tech

What’s that? A Crom joke? You aren’t the boss of me, mom! As we mentioned way back in the long ago days of July 2012, Age of Conan is still on track for a server merger that will mimic that of The Secret World’s single-server technology. That said, it’s been a while and not a whole lot of information has been released about how exactly Funcom plans on merging the services down to just one hub. In this month’s Game Director Letter, those secrets have been spilled all over our nice new carpeting, so let’s dive and and see what Funcom has stored in its coal hole.

The server transition for Age of Conan will take place in three phases. Phase one will see the movement of the physical servers to one physical location, setting the stage for phase two. Secondly, servers that share the same ruleset will be merged, including US and EU servers being merged together. After phase two, players will be left with one mega server for both PvE and PvP. Finally in phase three, cross server network layers will be implemented, allowing players on the PvE and PvP rulesets, although segregated, to queue for the same instances.

You can read the entire letter, including notes about upcoming changes to the tradeskill system and more. The team hopes to get the server mergers underway during May.

(Source: Age of Conan)

The Secret World 50% Off On Origin

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Good news, gamers. You can now pick up The Secret World through EA’s Origin store for 50% off, or $14.99 USD. The purchase gives access to the full Secret World experience minus the DLC expansions and the items available in the cash shop. Otherwise, The Secret World is completely subscription free (ignore the outdated notice at the bottom of the origin page). The offer does not include all countries, so if you see the game at its standard price, you probably aren’t included in it.

You do not need to download Origin in order to play The Secret World. Simply log in or create a Funcom account and apply your key, then download the client from the Secret World website.

(Source: Origin)

Funcom Q4 2012 Report

Letter from the editor: In performing the regular sweep of unused drafts (and there are plenty of them) on the MMO Fallout database, I realized that this report for Funcom’s Q4 finances never published. The article was scheduled to publish on March 1st, the same day that Funcom published their own finances, but for some reason unknown to myself, it was never automatically published. That said, it was my responsibility to ensure that the article was published, and in that regard I apologize.

Funcom has released their Q4 financial documents for 2012, and there is quite a bit to behold. In the fourth quarter, The Secret World saw its transformation into a buy to play game, increasing sales by 30% overall and quadrupling in-game activity. Revenue in the fourth quarter came to $7.7 million USD, a quarterly loss from previous quarter’s $10.9 million while still a major increase over the fourth quarter of 2011. Funcom’s major source of revenue continues to be The Secret World and Age of Conan, and while player numbers in The Secret World skyrocketed, numbers in Age of Conan and Anarchy Online have been fairly stable.

A positive cash flow has allowed Funcom to repay borrowings amounting to $7 million USD, and continue the restructuring of the developer which began in 2012. Funcom expects to finalize the restructuring by the end of April.

Q4 2012 saw the discontinuation of service for Bloodline Champions in Russia. Work on Funcom’s upcoming LEGO Minifigures MMO is going well, with all milestones reached and the game on schedule for release in the first half of 2014. The Oslo based team is working on bosses and encounters, as well as work on backend systems and a tablet version of Minifigures. Funcom’s Montreal Studio is also working on mobile and tablet games, small projects with development times of 1-24 months. The Secret World has become one of the best selling titles on Steam since its transition to buy to play.

Funcom Bigwigs Weigh In On Relocation

With the recent layoffs Funcom’s Montreal/Raleigh offices and closure of Funcom’s Beijing office, everyone is asking: What does this mean for Age of Conan? Or The Secret World? Or Anarchy Online? Or that Lego Minifigure MMO? Or that kid’s game you probably never heard of? Each of the game’s directors have written their own letters to the community this morning, giving some insight into how things will be changing down the road ahead.

Craig Morrison stepped up on the Age of Conan website to discuss future content. There’s no point in sugar coating it, as Morrison says, and development will be affected by the layoffs and consolidation of the development teams. Development on Dragonspine content, as well as the trade-skill revamp and more are still in progress with most of the content still on track for release this year. Over at The Secret World, Joel Bylos discussed similarly that development will hit some turbulence due to the consolidation of the development teams into one studio, and the loss of employees unwilling to relocate as part of the restructuring. He goes on to say that The Secret World still has a strong development team, and that Issue #6 is on track to launch at the end of February, containing new content set in Egypt as well as improvements to the game’s PvP, among other additions.

Overall, the message is pretty similar: Expect some bumps in the road for the near future, after which Funcom hopes to get everything ironed out and resume normal operations. It appears that, while they may take more time, pretty much all of the content that was in development for Funcom’s MMOs prior to the shift are still on their way, even if they take a bit longer than hoped for.

The Secret World Opens Up Account-Wide Unlocks

Cash shops can be a major pain in the rear, especially if you’re the type of player who would take Bioware up on their 350 character slot limit. Buying multiple copies of the same piece of cosmetic clothing or vanity pet can get pretty expensive when you’re looking at three, four, or more alternate characters. As a measure of good customer service, many MMOs allow for cosmetic unlocks to be available account-wide, enticing users who might otherwise be dissuaded by the threat of high-costs to open up their wallet.

Starting today in The Secret World, it will be possible to unlock pets account-wide for the cost of 25% over the base cost of the pet. So for instance if a single pet cost 200 Funcom points (not a real estimate), the cost to unlock account-wide would be 250 Funcom points. If you already own the pet as of the transition, you will simply have to pay the 25% extra cost in order to unlock them account-wide. Additionally, Funcom will be rolling out the veteran reward system soon. Players who purchase a subscription will receive relevant points at the start of the period, including multi-month subscribers as well as Grand Masters (lifetime accounts). Funcom is planning on adding in a large variety of items, although the total list has not been fleshed out.

(Source: Funcom)

[Community] Must We Threaten To Sue Over Everything?

As you all know, The Secret World went Buy-to-Play, dropping the required subscription in return for giving subscribers more perks and allowing the unwashed masses to play (and presumably spend some cash in the cash shop) by simply picking up the box copy. Like any other town with a bridge to live under, there is a subsection of players who are apparently licensed, practicing, ambulance chasing lawyers, and naturally someone brought up the idea of suing Funcom over the transition. The claim is that the terms of the subscription/lifetime account have been changed without prior knowledge, and that somehow Funcom has diminished the value of the deal without offering a refund.

If you take a look at The Secret World pre-transition, you’ll find two tiers:

Subscriber:

Access to The Secret World for that month.
Cash shop points based on multi-month packages.

Grand Master (lifetime):

Access to The Secret World forever.
1 additional character slot.
Set of XP potions.
Set of Talismans.
10% discount to cash shop.
Snakeskin Jacket.

Following the transition to buy to play, the following benefits were added to accounts:

Subscriber:

Mayan time accelerator (reusable bonus xp item)
$10 worth of bonus points (cash shop)
Item-of-the-month gift
10% discount to everything in the store.

Grand Master:

20% discount to cash shop.
Everything subscribers receive above.

Additionally, Funcom instituted a “price guarantee” to subscribers and grand masters ensuring that they will be able to receive any DLC for free by marking down the price to match the monthly bonus point stipend. For example, if a piece of DLC is released that costs $20, the price will be marked down to $10 for subscribers and grand masters. In the shortest sense: There isn’t anything in the new plan that subscribers or grand masters no longer have access to in the new plan. In fact, the benefits (even over the new buy to play tier) have only increased.

I suppose it all comes down to whether or not you see the addition of another tier (buy to play) as removing a benefit from subscribers/grand masters. Perhaps it would have been better from a PR perspective for Funcom to allow players to request refunds for multi-month packages that still had time left rather than to force the players into adopting the new system. Like it or not, there are still a good deal of players who remain loyal to subscription-only games and would not touch a buy-to-play/free-to-play game with a ten foot pole, let alone spend money on it.

Heading forward, however, the MMO community should always know that when a company states that they have no intention of going free to play, they actually mean “at this time.” With the market of MMOs very heavily favoring optional subscriptions rather than mandatory subscriptions, such a transition isn’t as much a possibility as it is an inevitability with the only question being how far post-launch does the game move over? There are obvious exceptions to the rule, strong titles like Eve Online and World of Warcraft who see a better environment in subscriptions, or games like Warhammer Online that simply don’t have the funds to make the transition.

Regardless, you won’t find any legal expert who will agree that Funcom has done anything worthy of legal action, even if some customers aren’t entirely happy with the transition.

70,000 Copies of The Secret World Sold Since Buy To Play

Alright, so first the bad news. Funcom has released a brand new press release where they discuss that the company will be undergoing some continued restructuring. Costs will be reduced through the closure and consolidation of offices to create a more unified organization. The goal is to use Funcom’s new streamlined technology to better serve their existing MMOs (Secret World, Anarchy Online, Age of Conan) as well as focusing on upcoming, smaller yet high quality titles including the Lego minifigure MMO. The good news, however, is that The Secret World’s transition to buy to play was a completely unsurprising success. Since December, over seventy thousand new units of The Secret World have been sold. As new players come into the game and old players return, activity levels in game have jumped 400%.

“We are building the basis of a very sustainable business. With a restructured organization, we will have a joint team of the best-of-the-best working together to expand our existing online worlds and to create new, exciting and memorable online experiences such as our upcoming ‘LEGO Minifigures’ game.”
-Ole Schreiner, CEO of Funcom

More details will be available in the future, once the process is complete.

(Source: Funcom)

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