We’d like to picture that Funcom is having a huge money fight in their offices, with the announcement that the company has posted the highest profit in their history. Thanks to the runaway success of Conan Exiles, Funcom this quarter boasted a profit of $6.1 million USD, with total revenue nearing $11 million.
For upcoming Funcom games, players will have to wait until June 26 to get their hands on Secret World Legends, the free to play reboot of The Secret World, and July 31 in order to get said game on Steam. In their investor report, Funcom blames this on a competitive market in May/June with expansions for Final Fantasy XIV and The Elder Scrolls Online hitting Steam, as well as the Steam launch of Black Desert Online. Meanwhile, Dreamfall Chapters was released on May 5. Both Funcom Oslo and Funcom North Carolina are working on upcoming titles, one of which is based on the Conan IP.
Funcom has announced that its science fiction MMO Anarchy Online is now available on Steam. The game is free to play and can be downloaded here.
“Anarchy Online is one of the longest living online games in the world and millions of players have made the planet of Rubi-ka their home,” said Funcom CEO Rui Casais. “Bringing the game to Steam is something we have wanted to do for a while and we hope this will bring in new players as well as inspire veterans to come back now that it is easier than ever to travel to Rubi-ka again.”
Anarchy Online originally launched in June 2001. Funcom recently stated in a quarterly report that active development on the title had ceased.
Funcom’s reboot of The Secret World, dubbed Secret World Legends, has been confirmed for a June 26 release date. The title is making the transition from buy-to-play fully fledged MMO to a free to play shared world experience with revamped combat, upgraded visuals, and more.
Secret World Legends plunges players into a shadowy war against the supernatural in an adventure that crosses our world with the realms of ancient myth and legend. As players traverse the globe unraveling complex investigations into the unknown, they’ll need to uncover clues and use their own wits as much as their characters’ abilities. A highly extensive and customizable arsenal of firearms, weapons, gear and otherworldly powers will give players the strength to battle the forces of darkness as they dig deeper into these vast and mysterious lands. Players can go at it alone and enjoy the over 100 hours of story at their own pace, or team up with others as they explore the world and unravel its mysteries.
Characters from the current The Secret World incarnation will not transfer over to the new game when it launches in June. For more information, check out the video below or head over to the official website.
While Kingdoms of Amalur may take the title of the game that Rhode Island paid for, The Secret World will go down as one of the few games to result in criminal convictions. We’ve been covering on and off the tribulations of Funcom’s former executives who have been under investigation since the launch of The Secret World in 2012 (yes it has been five years) and subsequent resignations. For those who have forgotten, then Funcom CEO Trond Aas resigned from his position and sold off a huge chunk of his stocks. Funcom’s offices were raided in 2014 over allegations of insider trading and last year Aas and a few other executives were arrested and charged with market manipulation and insider trading.
The men involved have been convicted and sentenced to serving between 85 days and 13 months in prison. It is important to note that Funcom itself has not been involved in the litigation for quite some time. The developer was fined in 2015 for irregularities and it appears that their involvement ends there.
Last month during an investor call, Funcom announced a relaunch of The Secret World, to take place in the first half of the year, with the goal of revamping combat, enhancing the new user experience, and overall making the game more appealing to a wider audience. While The Secret World is fortunate enough to carry a very loyal fanbase, the game never exactly performed to Funcom’s standards and has been criticized for floaty combat, among other issues.
Secret World Legends appears to have dropped the “MMO” part of the equation and is instead billing itself as a shared world RPG. What this means for players and how they interact in the world is yet to be seen, however The Secret World as an MMO has always been on the smaller side. You generally don’t see more than a few people walking around at any given time and perhaps a dozen or so at most in hub areas, so we’ll have to see exactly how this change in branding affects the gameplay.
Funcom is excited to announce that their acclaimed story-driven game The Secret World will be relaunched this spring as Secret World Legends, a shared-world action RPG with completely revamped combat, a newly designed progression system, and updated visuals. The game’s full collection of missions and mysteries will be free to play, with over 100 hours of mature storytelling and surprises.
To the dismay of veteran players who have put hundreds, if not thousands of hours into their characters, this is what we know: This is not an update of The Secret World with a new name and brand, but a completely new spinoff (a relaunch of the content with new mechanics, if you will). While the old version of The Secret World will still be available to play and you can link your account to gain benefits in Legends, your characters will not transfer over.
They’ll continue to live on the old TSW servers, so you’ll still be able to log in and play them. You will not be able to play them on the new Secret World Legends server though. It’s a new experience and fresh start for everyone.
At launch, Secret World Legends will contain the original eight zones, with expansions from Tokyo, Nightmare Dungeons, Raids, etc coming at a later date. While all content will be available for free, you’ll be able to buy Aurum as a premium currency to give yourself extra bonuses:
Aurum is used to purchase a variety of in-game items and services in Secret World Legends. This includes but is not limited to: additional weapon pages, extra inventory space, additional characters, exclusive vanity items, and much more!
While Funcom has promised that your characters on The Secret World are safe, early concerns about plans to quietly sunset the title are quickly popping up. The Secret World is no longer available for purchase on Steam, coinciding with the Steam forums being completely wiped.
In their latest quarterly report, Funcom has announced that there is no further significant work expected for both Anarchy Online and Age of Conan. Both games are presumably still profitable as they contributed a heavy portion of Funcom’s revenue this past quarter, however as far as development costs go it looks like the writing is on the wall for both titles to enter maintenance mode. The report doesn’t go into detail on what Funcom considers to be “significant work,” which may relegate both titles to bug fixes, server maintenance, and perhaps small chunks of content.
For gamers, the concept of depreciation is well known when it comes to live games and support from developers. It makes sense, as games age and with a few exceptions, they inevitably decrease in population, and thus revenue stream, and thus the ability to support themselves. Funcom has been referencing this for years in their quarterly reports, and it only seems inevitable that older titles like Anarchy Online (a 2001 release) will hit a point where simple cost of operations is higher than its income.
If you pay attention to the media, reboots are all the rage this season (this season itself being a reboot of a previous iteration of the universe). In their latest quarterly report, outside of congratulating Conan Exiles for hitting its 12 month sales target within a month, Funcom has a lot to say about its New World Order MMO, The Secret World. Funcom hopes to rekindle interest in the MMO by bringing in new players and ex-players alike, improving the combat system and new player experience.
The Secret World will be relaunched during the first half of 2017. The goal of the relaunch is to broaden the appeal of the game through:
Redesigned new player experience
Major improvements to gameplay including combat.
Introduction of new retention systems such as daily rewards.
Adjustments to the business model, including allowing access to the story content for free.
Relaunch activities for The Secret World are set to start in March with the relaunch to occur in the first half of the year. MMO Fallout will cover the details as they are revealed.
Conan Exiles launched on PC Early Access last week, selling 320,000 copies and recouping all of its investments. Rather than pack up and call the day a success, Funcom is pushing forward with continued content development. Budding content creators have access to the developer kit, allowing for the creation and distribution of mods, quality of life improvements, and total conversions on Steam Workshop.
“We are deeply humbled and very grateful for the initial success of Conan Exiles,” says Funcom CEO Rui Casais. “Funcom has gone through some challenging times in recent years and seeing the game we have poured so much time and effort into gain this amount of traction so quickly is very invigorating for everyone who works here. This is just the start of the Early Access adventure and we will do whatever it takes to make sure Conan Exiles turns into a fully-fledged game that has something to offer new and old fans of both Conan and survival games.”
Funcom will be present at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco to show off future content coming to Conan Exiles, and the studio will have presence at PAX East in Boston, Massachusetts.
Conan Exiles hits early access in just a week, January 31st for those of you keeping track on your calendars or late night on the 30th for those of you west coast gamers, and Funcom has pushed out a press release today detailing the when, the where, and the how. The time is 6 in the morning GMT, which means those of you in California will be able to get your hands on it at 9 the previous night before you go to bed. You’ll be able to pick up early access via the Conan Exiles early access by heading over to the game’s Steam store page.
“One of the really great things about working with Conan the Barbarian is that there is this huge pop cultural universe surrounding him,” says Funcom CEO Rui Casais. “Being able to team up with Dark Horse Comics, Modiphius, and other Conan creators has allowed us to build a special edition that speaks to both fans and those discovering Conan for the first time.”
Now for the goodies: The Barbarian edition of the game costs $60 (standard full release title) and includes digital Conan comic books, an exclusive digital Conan Exiles comic book, the “Coming of Conan” digital ebook, two digital soundtracks, a distinctly non-digital t-shirt, items in Age of Conan, and much more. The standard edition hits for $29.99.
Alternately, window shoppers and prospective buyers can check out the cinematic trailer below. Conan Exiles is coming to Xbox One early access this Spring.
The latest trailer for Conan Exiles has released, showcasing environmental destruction, combat, slavery, dismemberment, and a giant colossus punching a giant snake in the face. Developed by Funcom, Conan Exiles is set for launch on Steam Early Access in January 2017 and on Xbox Preview in Spring 2017, Conan Exiles is a survival sandbox game.
Check out MMO Fallout’s coverage as the game goes live in January.
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