Age of Conan nets 415,000 subscribers

By Robert Purchese Published 18 August, 2008

And Funcom has more MMOs to come.

Funcom has told us that Age of Conan has 415,000 subscribers and enjoyed "one of the largest PC launches in this decade."

Over 800,000 copies have been sold, according to Q2 financial papers, and most of the people playing are educated males around 29 years old, thank you for asking.

The focus for the game going forward is largely on PvP and high-end content - as well as adding new areas to explore, new guild and gameplay additions, plus new armour, raid gear and items.

Demos are planned at some point, apparently, which we presume means free trials of some sort. Regional expansion is another part of the plan.

As are new games, both casual and larger-scale MMOs. Funcom has Java-based and web-based online worlds in development, and one appears to be piratical with ships that fly. Shiny.

Both have been spurred on by the success of games such as RuneScape and MapleStory, and are due out sometime next year.

The Secret World, on the other hand, is the fully-fledged MMO being worked on by a team of around 40 people. This we heard about in May 2007; a science-fiction world within a world, set in real-life locations such as London where portals to a hidden world lie in wait.

Like Harry Potter then, only less with the wands and more with the zombies, as the first screenshots seem to imply. We were told a while ago that Ragnar Tørnquist, the man behind The Longest Journey and Dreamfall was at the helm of the project, which still carries no release date.

The Secret World is in development for PC and Xbox 360, and you can take a look at the first screenshots right now. We expect PC is the lead platform in a similar way to Age of Conan, which is still due an Xbox 360 release at some point in the future.

The competition marked out by Funcom was Warhammer Online and World of Warcraft expansion The Wrath of the Lich King, both expected by the Age of Conan developer later this year.

Funcom also pointed to the BioWare "Star Wars MMO", which EA confirmed as an online Knights of the Old Republic game in July. Funcom thinks this will be out in 2010/2011.

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.

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

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Comments (29) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Sir_TimAlot #1 4 years ago

    more like 414,999 cos i cancelled my subscription about 4 hours ago, not played in ages :(

  • Erinan #2 4 years ago

    It's worth mentioning that there were 415,000 suscribers on the 30th of June (end of Q2). Two months have gone by since. Out of 800,000 boxes sold (including 700,000 at launch, meaning that they haven't sold that many since),that's a pretty poor retention then, to say the least.
    Edited by 1 at 18/08/08 @ 15:33

  • Kremlik Verified Co-Founder, Crash To Desktop #3 4 years ago

    well in 'old school' MMOing terms - thats great for funcom, but TBH working on new MMOs when they really need to focus sorting out the two they already have (three if you include AoC360) instead of streaching their already small dev team thin as with a lot of upcomming MMOs already having content AoC currently lacks, only the loyal will stay.

  • LetsGo #4 4 years ago

    Ouch, is that all?

    I give it 10 more months.

  • mingster #5 4 years ago

    Its no 'maple story'.

  • Benno #6 4 years ago

    Thats quite a lot of people to be honest.

  • ciril #7 4 years ago

    It is a lot of subscriptions, congrats Funcom.

  • michaelius #8 4 years ago

    Hehe so less than half people bothered to buy subscribtion after shelling cash for game ?

    I'd say that's rather tragic result.

    And funcom is already making new games to screw customer with instead of focusing on moving first one from beta stage :)

  • QPRHOOPS81 #9 4 years ago

    i know two people that bought it and deleted it within a weekend. Apparently its really bad and full of game breaking bugs.

  • Apologie #10 4 years ago

    AOC:HA had some potential, graphically is the best MMO i've ever seen, but gameplay wise (and let's face it, that's all that matters), just give me WoW.

  • Gurgeh #11 4 years ago

    "Apparently the data is from June 30th. There is an actual investor report and not just the linked public 'presentation'.

    Some key highlights are 'worst quarterly loss' in Funcom's history. Apparently the investors aren't buying into the 415k current subs either since the stock dropped 20% today to reach an all-time low of $16 a share. "

    @FoH

  • ciril #12 4 years ago

    It's funny how over years gamers are doing everything but playing the games themselves :p.

    Stop analyzing stocks, subscription rates and phases of the moon and play a game you like instead of spreading the miserable mood :).

  • makememoo #13 4 years ago

    i cancelled 2 days ago. been away from it for about 2 months and the old town area for 40ish levelling is still unplayable with memory leaks so gave up. id be surprised if they could still claim to have 300k active subs at this moment in time.

    it is a crying shame though because it's almost a really great game.

  • Gaol #14 4 years ago

    EG continue to put a positive spin on this train wreck of a 'game'. Dozens of positive news articles and the most innacurate review in EG's history... with many weeks of AoC advertising banners everywhere. Draw your own conclusions.

    Why not get some of the cynicism displayed in most PS3 reviews and apply it here.. your headline could be 'Funcom loses more than half AoC subs by month 2', and point out in the main article that losing them this quickly it'll be on life support within 6 months.

    Man, I love a rant on a Monday :op
    Edited by 1 at 18/08/08 @ 16:50

  • anomagnus #15 4 years ago

    @ letsgo

    did you think that statement out

    415,000 subscribers, paying roughly 10 euros per month (factoring in vat reduction and exchange rates)

    for a starts that 4,150,000 euro per month

    or 49,800,000 euros per year

    Yea, i can see why 50 million euros per year is bad.......

    I might also add, i see hundreds of posts, i'll stick with wow. Christ, if thats the height of your MMO expereince, i pity you. Quite frankly, the only real advantage that wow has, it a generation of first time MMO'ers who know no better, and as soon as something comes along thats different from it, they shit seven bricks, panic, and run from it.

    The game is doing something right of it has around 400,000 players. Contrary to most of the nay sayers on this forum, MMO's don't just die.

    Look at Vanguard, the usual muppet nan sayers were out 'this game is dead, i give it ten months'. Yea, well done mate, your infinite knowledge is really insightful, pity you're full of shit. Vanguard's still hanging around.

    Same as planetside, everquest 2, Anarchy Online, Everquest 1, guild wars, etc, etc.
    Edited by 1 at 18/08/08 @ 17:18

  • Gaol #16 4 years ago

    Vanguard is only still around because SoE bought it cheap and put it on life support with a skeleton staff. By rights it should be dead, but it suits them to have it around for All Access subs.

    The other games you mentioned all deserved their success to varying degrees. AoC does not. Its worth neither your time, nor your money. The naysayers here aren't motivated to post by loyalty to WoW, that's just your rationalization of contrary opinions; most people have played it to death long ago.

    No, the primary motive is that AoC is absolute utter garbage on just about every level, and a huge disappointment to many mmorpg fans.

    (Read my reader review to find out why :p)
    Edited by 1 at 18/08/08 @ 17:50

  • Orange #17 4 years ago

    I'm another of those who bought it then cancelled, one of a hell of a lot of people. My guild and server was decimated by people dropping out after the first month or two. When WAR comes out that will cost them even more subscribers, then WoW expansion.

    They'll be lucky to have 200k by the end of the year. Enough to keep going low key, but a real missed opportunity given the potential of the game world and Conanverse.

  • BlastAttack #18 4 years ago

    Guess I'll make an mopomopo game when I need those hype dollars ;)

  • actionfitz #19 4 years ago

    " Apologie
    18-Aug-08 15:53:39

    AOC:HA had some potential, graphically is the best MMO i've ever seen, but gameplay wise (and let's face it, that's all that matters), just give me WoW. "


    you said it.
    /signed

  • ctrl-k #20 4 years ago

    I can't believe the naivety of a lot of kids today. If any of you think there is...

    A. anything at all that you can extrapolate from these figures about how the future will look, for AoC, funcom, or anything else for that matter
    B. any correlation between your personal opinion - or that of two nonspecified friends - and the world of macroeconomics

    ...you need to go back to school. Start by reading this. http://en .wikipedia.org/wiki/Association...
    Edited by 1 at 19/08/08 @ 08:33

  • anomagnus #21 4 years ago

    Gaol,

    I didnt actually defend AoC. What i said was, no one can say, either way, if an MMO is going to fail or not.

    I've stated that it must be doing something right to hold on to 400,000 gamers. If it were a console title, 400,000 sales would put you at number one.

    I'm also highly, HIGHLY dubious of anyone that claims they can get teh most out of any MMO in less than 3 months, ESPECIALLY when its in start up

    Quite frankly, WoW was shambolic when it started, and only, ONLY got away with its bullshit at the time, because no one expected anything better from the MMO market. Now, its set a standard, and rose tinted glasses are in effect, and people imagine that WoW set the bar during launch, and if nothing can match it, its shit and it will fail.

    Now, you have your view of AoC, thats grand. But clearly other people don't agree with you. If an MMO can hold on to majority of 300,000 to 400,000 subscribers during the most difficult part of its life span, and continues to support and patch, the odds are that its subscriber base will grow.

    Regardless of anything, 50 million per year is nothing to be sniffed at.

  • MaxiSleep #22 4 years ago

    A. anything at all that you can extrapolate from these figures about how the future will look, for AoC, funcom, or anything else for that matter

    800000-(Churn+Unsold Boxes)= 415,000

    How is it hard to extrapolate from that?

  • Gaol #23 4 years ago

    @anomagnis

    The 50 million is an extrapolation from the end of June, when by all accounts the decline has continued unabated in recent months; so the actual turnover will be considerably less from subscriptions. Box sales will of course add to it.

    You are also bringing up turnover alone - businesses are measured by profit, not by gross revenue.

    The only trend we can be sure of is that subscriptions are in freefall. AoC might well find its level. Personally I hope that it fails so spectacularly that developers will think twice before releasing another mmorpg in such an unfinished and broken state. Unfortunately, the game received such ill deserved positive press, and the mmorpg market is so short on good products, that it wouldn't surprise me if they recouped a lot of their development costs in box sales alone.

    Hence the cycle of piss poor unfinished mmorpg launches continues.

  • hiddenranbir #24 4 years ago

    Sigh, more focus on PvP and end game. That's the area if any they have to defeat if they want to revolutionise MMOs.

    It should just be about the journey and that journey shouldn't ever end.

  • makememoo #25 4 years ago

    50 million euros isnt bad a year.

    until you look at it this way. I tried to set up a 99.999% uptime email system for a company recently. Just email. That was going to come in £10s of thousands setup and ongoing costs.

    game server farms are a lot more brutal on every aspect of hardware, bandwidth, locations, and importantly staff who are also on call for 24/7 support. Once the development team take their cut for fulltime development and you've paid for your 99.9%+ uptime server farms and staff and then you have to start recouping the up front development cost of 10s of millions then it starts not looking so great.

  • Fusey #26 4 years ago

    Funcom are masters at bending the truth in their press releases ;-)

  • Vepr #27 4 years ago

    The real problem could come from the fact that gamers older than 25 will remember what Funcom did with AoC and be very wary of buying anything from them in the future. I am also interested to see what the numbers are after all the three month subs run out. This game looked like it had a lot of potential but it seems so unfinished like they released it a good year or two before they should have.
    Edited by 1 at 20/08/08 @ 02:16

  • anomagnus #28 4 years ago

    @ goal,

    Yes, 50 million is turnover, not profit, and it is extrapolated.

    However, do i believe their costs for the year cannot be covered by 50,000,000 euro, PLUS money on the shipped retail box? No, i do not.

    Your theory that the subscriptions are in free fall is conjecture as well, and far more tenuous than mine, since you are basing it on forum posts, likely to be the LEAST accurate indicator of all. Unless of course, you have access to the funcom stats?

    How many times have you seen posts in an MMO saying 'i quit', yet there they are, a month later, still there, and three months later, still there.





  • Gaol #29 4 years ago

    It's not just forum posts, though. Every single person from the inter-game guild I belong to quit within 2 months; even Vanguard fared better than that. Virtually everyone on EG seemed to quit, even those that thought it was 'OK'. I'm amazed anybody still subscribes.

    Are you a subscriber? Why defend the indefensible? The game is a turd.