Launch 2006! NO: 2007! NO: 2008! …?
For the fourth time in two years, Funcom pushed back the release date for its highly anticipated MMOG, Age Of Conan. While the long term case represent significant upside to valuation, visibility regarding what is going on is low, and we will look for more clarification before recommending investors buy into the story ahead of the new release date. We change our recommendation to HOLD with a target of NOK 22. Track record of announcing delay every 5-6 months…
This doesn't look good...
So whats the problem with Funcom?
- They have lost a lot of talent. Of the team developing Age of Conan, only 10-20 have actually done previous game development.
- The management is lying to the press. Again from AGB Sundal Colliers August Alert on Funcom: In July 2006, Funcom delayed the Q4 ’06 launch of AoC due to a “crowded MMO launch window” before Christmas that year, but maintained that the game was in fact ready for launch as originally planned. Now, one year later, they push the launch from a very attractive Q4 ’07 into a possible head-to-head with its strongest competitor, Warhammer Online, because they want to make changes to how the game combat sequences are operated.
- The game is made for a small niche of gamers. But the compere the possible number of players with those of Blizzard's World of Warcraft.
- The games director, Gaute Godager, has a track record of making games with a high barrier of entry, and only playable for the most hard core of MMO-gamers.
Will there be a new delay?
Most certainly we will see another delay. Funcom has made it look like the game has been ready for release for a long time, and the delays are just strategic. Everybody knows this is bull. If you have developed a 40-60 million dollar game, you just don't wait a year of two for the right time to release it. When it is ready, you rush to get it out to get return on the investment.
So what about the beta?
A huge game like an MMORPG is need at least 3 month closed beta with thousands of users, and at leas 3 month of public beta to get the game tested and balanced. Funcom has not yet started the beta period. They have had a few hundred of players testing it, since the game is not feature complete, this is actually an alpha test, not a beta test.
All this make me conclude:
- The game has a lot development work to be done
- It is at least 9 month until it can be released (that makes earliest release summer 08)
- The game will have a total income for a life span of 3 years of 54 million us dollars
22 comments:
Uh dude, shut up. Go look at the site and all the press releases recently. March '08. The world is full of bull shit like yours and it's time people did something about it.
Looking foward to the game
Oh, wow. I saw a Google ad saying 'Funcom scam' and had to click this.
I firmly believe that delay was the last one and game is coming out like intended.
The game was actually already in closed beta since the date of your post.
I actually think one of the reasons for the latset push of the release was to improve the experience for the "noobs", to make the game more friendly to unexperienced players.
Also, this game has a huge potential of drawing players from WoW since the low complexity of WoW tends to bore people after a couple year of playing.
I too got here from a gmail ad, so you're probably only going to have comments from defensive gamers here =p
all I have to say is that I don't think it's a conspiracy to scam investors. in the video game industry, delays are essentially more common than on-time releases. high-profile games like this are expected to have long delays or they'll release a garbage game that will be forced to shut down its servers in a couple months when its subscribers see it isn't finished. Vanguard is the prime example of a MMO being released before it was ready. Tabula Rasa to a lesser extent, though I'm not sure how many of that game's players realize it's not ready yet, yet. =p
If English isn't your native language, you probably shouldn't try blogging in it.
If it is your native language, then you probably shouldn't blog, period.
Just like any MMORPG, Age of Conan suffered setbacks and had to delay release. Believe me, you didn't want them to ship this in '06. I don't even think they should ship this year.
The amount of BS in this post is amazing. a few hundred beta testers? They have at the very least 10,000 and this has been stated again and again.
Closed beta has been going on for way over 6 months, and where have you seen an MMO with 3 months of open beta? SWG was released with NO open beta at all, Tabula Rasa had a month of OB at MOST.
Most MMOs are released after a week to 1 month of OB. I doubt AoC will be much different.
LOL!!!They have over 15k beta testers as we speak. At the time of this article around 10,000 beta testers.
It's so funny that when a gaming company decides to actually wait to release a game to ensure it's success it gets people like you saying it will fail.
Then when a game is release early ( A.K.A Vanguard ) the same people will say oh my they should have delayed the game to make sure it was better. Either way you still like to run your mouth...
One thing I can ensure all the readers is that form what I hear the game is pretty darn good. From what I hear it runs great on a 3 year old system. From wha tI remember it run on med/high settings and the guys system is 3 years old..
Your probly the same guy who put out all the false beta information in November as well. LOL!! get a life...
SOOOO many facts are wrong. You really need to get your info straight before releasing it. Save yourself the humiliation
I must commend you on your talent to twist facts so they display a picture much different from the actual. Try using that talent in researching your topics.
Guess what moron, if you make tons of spelling errors in your information your information is no longer valid in 99% of peoples opinion so good luck on that. And another thing dude blizzard is scared of funcom at this moment in time they know they r guna lose tons of people when this game comes out cause atm not many like the warhammer series im one of them i think that stuffs just beyond nerdy...
you sir are a moron, please stop blogging and check your facts before you do blog. and btw, age of conan is up to a 500k member base already, so gg at your prediction.
What a bunch of lies and half-truths. I hope the money you got for posting this was worth loosing any credibility for your blog. But whats to expect from a blog that has only ONE post.. typical viral marketing.
But normally they at least try to be less obvious.
Mr. Blizzard/Warhammer whatever who paid this guy, if you read this.. i would get my money back...
Everytime I get a newsletter from funcom this crap shows up on the google ads.
Lovely.
Firstly, you can't spell for shit. Secondly, your grammar sucks balls. Thirdly, get your facts straight before posting utter nonsense.
Your grammar blows.
Ok, this is the most unintelligent attempt to start an inside scam rumor.
You obviously know nothing about game development nor do you know anything about the game you are attempting to ruin the reputation of.
Every MMO has pushed its release date. I attended the E3 convention while I was going to Otis and all 3 years I went Blizzard displayed World of Warcraft and ranted about how the release was going to be later that year and they ended up pushing the release date back.
MMO's are very hard to make. They are creating a large world with interactive elements all over every inch of the world. If the game is rushed you will end up having players playing a busted game. I worked for a game company that developed a platform PC game that had 25 levels, much smaller than an MMO and that game took forever to get completed. I couldn't imagine the hours of over time and stress testing a MMO has to undergo before the release.
If you researched more you would also know that how many games the development team has developed does not matter. What matters is who is running the team and showing them the ropes as well as where they got their training. It is difficult to be hired by a game company. It is very competitive and you have to submit demo reels of your work which is harshly judged by experienced people who work for the company. The rise of the game design major in college has also made it so that coming out of college a student has all of the skills necessary to create a game as well as someone who has experience in developing games. There were people I worked with in the game industry that got angry because students that came in as interns a month ago were making more many than they are working for the company way longer because the students come in knowing more about developing games than they did when they started working because when they started they had to learn by doing it on the job and they went to college for architecture...anyways point being anyone can develop a good game all they need to know is how to use and navigate the interface of the programs used in the company.
Age of Conan has been in beta for a long time now and the reason they aren't doing open beta is because when they announced they were accepting applications for beta they got over 100,000 applicants within the first week so they decided to keep it closed beta.
Funcom cannot make money from promises of an unreleased game there is no reason why they would lie and keep the game under development. The sooner they release the game the sooner they will see profits from the game so pushing the release back is a hard decision, but they are doing it because they want a game that will deliver the promises of raising the bar in MMO's that they have made and make sure that the game is working as smoothly as possible.
P.S.
If you want to try and sway people to believe your opinion try and make sure your grammar is good too because if I had no idea about Age of Conan, Funcom, or game development I would have disbelieved everything you said based on your poor grammar.
To call this "blog" a hack job is an insult to hack jobs the world over. Sure AOC has had its problems with development but I challenge you to name a MMO that has not. Also the game may even be pushed back again, which happens. Yet the jury is still out on how the game is and your article without any facts or really any coherent sense at all, does not sway me in any form.
Heh in hindsight I guess the blogger was spot on and all you Failcom FUNBOYS just got what you deserved, a crap game !
Is it a crap game? Or are you just saying that because your computer can't run the game? Because AoC is definitely a blast and a step above the others in gameplay.
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