Funcom, whats going on ?

[Rathothis]

I am sorry but I still can't imagine that any company would buy AoC. The game is just too old and broken with a too low population and it's almost forgotten nowdays. Since end of 2011 (It went F2P in June or July and the F2P trailer was made or articles about the new model of the game in PC gaming Forums were created) not even a bit of advertisement was done for AoC, they released it on Steam but the site is totally outdated, the reviews there were talking about the 3 classes that are free for F2P players and all the old restrictions for them. In my opionion every logical thinking company would rather buy the Conan license to create a new game to start completely from beginning.

Note that AoC has been consistently undervalued by Funcom:

In 2013, AoC's book value was only USD 247k, but FC noted in their annual report that "the impairment test performed at the end of the year demonstrated that the recoverable amount of the cash-generating unit Age of Conan exceeds its carrying amount by USD 2,000 thousands".

In their 2014 annual report, FC noted that "The performance of the game remained stable in 2014 and the impairment test performed at the end of the year demonstrated that the recoverable amount of the cash-generating unit Age of Conan exceeds its carrying amount by USD 944 thousand."

So clearly there is some limited upside potential for a company willing to invest into the game, even without major new development or marketing. The real question is how much a potential buyer would have to invest to build on that potential. Red Thread Games probably would find it easier than others to take over AoC, but I doubt they would want to bother

[SamHam]

I'd say when the time comes we wouldn't mind the source code going open.

[Melekaiah]

I'd say when the time comes we wouldn't mind the source code going open.

This.. but it will never happen.

ALthough THAT would be a nice kickstarter honestly.
kickstarter to make age of conan open source.

[doggy81]

AoC is still a gem for lots of companies, if they are willing to invest in it ofcource and besides I don't think that Norwegian government will let them go down.

This is what I hope because of the new Schwarzenegger movie in 2016. But : http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...mid-debt-talks

It doesnt look good at the moment. They are losing money every year and dont bring any new product on the market. Okay Lego, but it is bullsh*t..... They earn money from TSW and AoC but every day player are leaving this games forever. Funcom needs a miracle to stay alive in the next 12 months.

[Mustaine]

... but every day player are leaving this games forever. Funcom needs a miracle to stay alive in the next 12 months.

Every day new players come when old ones leave. And the vets keep the lights on with their 12-month subs ~ over and over again. Until those players leave; AoC will stay ... even if it is just one server and no.progression to T6.

: ]

.

[Slith]

Funcom needs a miracle to stay alive in the next 12 months.

I have seen this comment back in 2008 and 2009 and 2010...

you get the idea.

Funcom has the license for AOC paid for till 2019, they can put this game on life support and run it for next to nothing in terms of costs. it ain't going anywere till 2019 for sure. Quality and population is anoter thing

[Bibik]

I have seen this comment back in 2008 and 2009 and 2010...

you get the idea.

Funcom has the license for AOC paid for till 2019, they can put this game on life support and run it for next to nothing in terms of costs. it ain't going anywere till 2019 for sure. Quality and population is anoter thing

Game is already close to maintenance mode for years, and it's unacceptable to pay a sub for this. The already-thin population will continue to slowly decrease despite all the efforts of Cirithgorgor to give the game QoL and system update it lacked at the beginning ( achievement, LFG system and so on). But how do we enjoy thoses late-additions when there not enough people to play with ? Game will be up and servers will be maintained, i don't doubt about that, but it will be just an empty shell.

[Mustaine]

But how do we enjoy thoses late-additions when there not enough people to play with ? Game will be up and servers will be maintained, i don't doubt about that, but it will be just an empty shell.

Considering there are 3 or 4 LOCKED World Boss instances at any given time during this week; I'd say the population is fine. Because you can't find friends to play with ~ doesn't mean the games on life-support. Try playing something like Age of Wushu and then talk to me about low pop.

[Bibik]

It's wb week, though. It can't really be an indicator of the general state of the game. Seasonnal events and rotating special weeks always been more populated for a reason : they aren't always up.
And yes, maybe Age of Wushu is worst in terms of pop, but come on... you can always find worst and think it isn't so bad here.
The fact you push me to compare with Age of Wushu tells much how low we rate AoC in the Mmo market. Perfect contender in the category "owait, this mmo still running ?"

I stand with my point : AoC is a sub-based game w.cash shop+paid extensions, almost in maintenance mode. You can only wish that the player hemorragy is slower than expected.

[slackjoint]

If someone says MMO I think of a game with maybe a few hundred thousand players (several servers etc) .
Well AoC has only 1 proper server left on the whole world and I'd be surprised if it even hit the 5k player mark .
So yeah , in my opinion AoC is forgotten and almost dead .

Just look in YouTube , every uploader can be highly happy if 100 people see their Conan vids.
Every crappy Korean game which's main content are extra size bouncy boobs has more clicks and probably more players too.
I still don't know what community managers have to do , obviously it is NOT managing the community (at least not AoC community)
It also seems it is NOT their job to post videos , update news or any teasers on platforms like Facebook or Instagram which are used by millions of people.
It seems all they got to do is posting "server maintenance info"
My favorite entry was when tomium posted in aoc forums that the TSW servers will be down.

To be fair , when they did a 1hour stream 1 year ago it was fun , so here is a thumb (Y)