Free Age of Conan doubles revenue

By Robert Purchese Published 11 August, 2011

"Fourfold increase in players during July."

The switch to a hybrid free-to-play/subscription business model has been a success for MMO Age of Conan.

More than 300,000 "new players" have joined since Funcom relaunched the MMO as Age of Conan: Unchained on 1st July.

Since that date, Funcom has "more than doubled the revenue generated from the game" and activity levels of servers "are booming with a fourfold increase in players during July", according to Funcom CEO Arne Aas.

There has also been a "positive development in subscriber numbers" - i.e. gamers who opt for a Premium subscription and its numerous benefits.

Funcom noted that two million players have now experienced Age of Conan.

Age of Conan stands to benefit further from the impending cinematic launch of the Conan the Barbarian film. To coincide with its 18th August airing, Funcom will release a significant Savage Coast of Turan content pack for Age of Conan. This will portray events from the film 20 years later, and involve some of the faces seen in the film.

Free to play Age of Conan.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (13) Latest comment 10 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Scopeh #1 10 months ago

    So thats where all the WoW players are going.

  • Bullet_Tunnel #2 10 months ago

    can you get drunk and one-punch ko a camel?

  • rottingyoda #3 10 months ago

    Im really enjoying it. Its a pain not being able to message subscribed players directly without being on their friends list (making group formation a tiny bit more awkward) but other than, its great. Some of the vistas are incredable. Highly recommend.

    Between this and battlefield4free i've not had to spend a penny on a new hat

  • manveruppd #4 10 months ago

    You can't message subscribers?? That's a bit of a silly and arbitrary limitation! I wonder what the reasoning behind it is... Can subscribers message free players though? And I assume everyone can talk in local chat?

    What other limitations are there for free players? (Apart from what areas they can access - I already checked that on their website)

  • Nephirion #5 10 months ago

    I went back to find that nothing much has changed, saw no real performance games my hardware and the free 2 play model is very restrictive almost to the point that it pisses you off so much you subscribe, for me it made me quit ...

  • tulx #6 10 months ago

    "can you get drunk and one-punch ko a camel? "

    Actually you can - both. :D

    The restriction to message player is because of the gold spammers. They would make everyones life miserable.

  • manveruppd #7 10 months ago

    Ooh, I see, that makes more sense!

    Actually, since they moved to a fremium model they could have surely made a killing by selling gold themselves! Would've made a big dent in the gold scammers' market too!

    Any other restrictions apart from zones/instances/raids you can't do as a freeloader?

  • Anciegher #8 10 months ago

    I tried it, and immediately realised why I left last time. The game is too difficult.... :(

  • Lunatic4ever #9 10 months ago

    wish I had the time to play it :(

  • iokthemonkey #10 10 months ago

    I find the problem is that it's like FunCom are just trying to differentiate their game from other MMOs by doing stuff they don't do, simply on principle.

    Add to that the fact that they seem to want to punish you for playing, with overly difficult quests, ridiculously long travel times for quest turn-ins and isolated respawn points and there's only so long you can play before giving up. And unless you're fighting mobs of lower levels, you never feel powerful or heroic. A sense of danger and risk is good, sure, but when you arrive to do a quest, get set-upon by mobs that magically spawn out of nowhere when you approach or you pull a mob and another with no line-of-sight to him also runs over to attack you it just makes it feel like FunCom want to make your experience as unpleasant as possible.

    I guess I'm just too much of a carebear... /rollseyes.

  • Atropos #11 10 months ago

    I find I'm enjoying the hell out of the game nowadays - though I actually preferred it just before it turned freemium, since I'm a subscriber ;-)

    @iokthemonkey Good to see you at least gave it another chance, sorry you still don't like it. Respect your viewpoint, though you have to admit it's improved by miles since launch?

    oh, and inb4 $0 x 2 = $0
    Edited by Atropos at 11/08/11 @ 19:52

  • Gylfi #12 10 months ago

    I don't like PvE, it takes away freedom to explore and know how the world works as a whole.

    So no, i won't play this, even if it's GetPaid2Play

  • iokthemonkey #13 10 months ago

    @iokthemonkey Good to see you at least gave it another chance, sorry you still don't like it. Respect your viewpoint, though you have to admit it's improved by miles since launch?

    ----

    It is better than it was at launch, for sure. But it's still not to the quality that would warrant paying to play it. It just feels all the time you're playing as if the game is constantly trying to inconvenience you, rather than reward you.

    Thank the Gods the new LOTRO expansion is only a month or so away...