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Hold your breath for GC

1 comment By Rickard Olsson Filed in Misc Tagged with , , , , , , August 15th, 2008 @ 12:35 pm

At Games Convention in Leipzig a couple of days from now Funcom will present a lot of new stuff, both for press as well as consumers. New features, locations and content will be brought to the table together with tons of swag like trial accounts and limited edition game DVDs for some of the lucky visitors and Conan fans.

All of this will be presented by Funcom live on the stage and you can have a chat with the developers afterwards or in between. Plus you’ll also see a demonstration by Blue Orb Inc. on how to use a regular control pad for the game with their software.

And for press only, there will be an exclusive behind-closed-doors display of coming DirectX10 features.

Funcom’s Morten Larssen sums it up:

We are very pleased with the tremendously successful launch that we had, but this is where the real journey starts for Age of Conan. In the months ahead we will be putting a lot of effort into expanding and improving on the game, and we look forward to using the Games Convention to unveil some of the locations, content and features we have in the pipeline.

Interesting, to say the least. You’ll find them in Hall 5 at stand B10. If you’re in Germany, that is.

Blizzard Boss: Age of Conan Stole World of Warcraft Subscribers

0 comments By Thord Daniel Hedengren Filed in Misc Tagged with , , , , August 4th, 2008 @ 3:06 am

Blizzard, makers of World of Warcraft, president Mike Morhaime, said the following to Edge in a conference call the other day:

Age of Conan released with some initial success a couple of months ago, and we did see some of our players leave to try the game. However, we’ve seen about 40 percent of those players return to World of Warcraft.

He then goes on talking about how huge World of Warcraft is, their service and such.

However, the key is this: 60 percent of the players coming to Age of Conan from World of Warcraft stays. Since this is from the Blizzard head honcho himself, and no Funcom PR machine, I’d say those a pretty reliable figures.

World of Warcraft is still the dominating MMORPG however, with 10.9 million subscribers. Funcom reported 700,000 a month after launch.

Age of Conan Goes Russian

0 comments By Thord Daniel Hedengren Filed in Misc Tagged with , , , August 4th, 2008 @ 3:00 am

Funcom and Russian game company 1C Games have signed an agreement to bring a localized version of Age of Conan to Russia in Q4.

According to the agreement 1C will fully localize voice and text and operate local customer service, communities, websites and in-game support for Age of Conan in Russian, while Funcom takes care of back-end technology, server infrastructure and continuous development of the game. A dedicated Russian realm is to be created, giving the Russian community an opportunity to stay together and communicate with each other in their native language.

Read the press release for more, but beware of the PR hype machine, it’s a nasty beast hiding in texts like this…

Is Funcom Going Bankrupt from Age of Conan?

1 comment By Thord Daniel Hedengren Filed in Misc Tagged with , , , , August 4th, 2008 @ 2:53 am

The short answer is no, they are not. However, WoW Riot is claiming it is, trying to tell us that Funcom is desperate, that they dropped the ball on Age of Conan, and whatnot. The news is also reported by Rawcool, who shared the link in a comment to a previous post here on Living Hyboria.

While I’m certainly interesting to know how Age of Conan really fares, and I am wondering about the attachment rate, I believe the whole presumption of the story reported to be wrong. The stock decline, which we’ve covered previously, is what is backing up the whole “Funcom goes bankrupt” argument, but that decline is really the result of a temporary high after the games release, and the impressive sales. All in all, the Funcom stock more or less doubled what it was traded for, and then it went back to normal. This isn’t all that uncommon with games companies having a small portfolio, them being very dependent on a few key titles.

Funcom Stock Plummets

2 comments By Thord Daniel Hedengren Filed in Ravings Tagged with , , July 28th, 2008 @ 10:02 am

It appears that Funcom investors show lack of faith when it comes to the stickyness of Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. The stock, traded on the Oslo Stock Exchange (Funcom is a Norwegian company), reached an equivalent of $54 on launch day (May 20 this year, people), is now at $24, Massively reports. I think this is the key though:

On the flip side, it should be noted that the price of Funcom stock had been fairly steady, around $25, for several months prior to March of this year. A sharp increase in price coincided with the release of X-Play pre-order statistics for AoC about two months before boxes hit the shelves. That was followed by a distinct downturn just a few weeks after the game’s drop date and the slide has continued since, returning it back to familiar price territory just this past week.

In other words, no need to fret, especially if the game keeps its players around, as I’m sure it will. After all, I’m still here aren’t I?

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