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What's the story with EA and Funcom?
Nitth
Member UncommonPosts: 3,904
I happened to notice the EA splash screen in this video..
Are they going to just publish it? or Are they looking for a funcom merger?
More importantly, Will it be "an origin game"?
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
Comments
Yes, maybe, no.
I believe they are dealing with the box sales on North America, nothing more.
digital download is still handled by funcom.
digital download is still handled by funcom.
*Big sigh of relief*
Was not looking forward to having to use origin to play.
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
EA is publishing the game.
EA har two boardmembers in Funcoms board of directors. I´m thinking EA is about to bid on Funcom. If you search the web you will find some clues that support this....
Unless TSW gets 10M subs in 2 months of release, EA probably won't touch Funcom.
Funcom operating losses are fairly large and doesn't have that many IPs that are of high value.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
Funcom operating losses are fairly large and doesn't have that many IPs that are of high value.
Yeah but it would seem if EA could buy Funcom/TSW cheap, Use Market tactics like cash shops there's plenty of money making potential there right?
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
Funcom has around 250+ staff, it won't be cheap.
Despite the 'TSW' hype; it still is an unknown IP from a medium size company that only has one 'hit', 'The Longest Journey'.
Which they then screwed over in the sequel; Dreamfall.
I just can't see it.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
Well, The Longest Journey is probably the best adventure game ever made and Dreamfall isn't bad either. And yes EA is touching Funcom, TSW is big.
Not really, the share prices of Funcom is around 20 Norwegian currency which is about 3-4 dollars(?).
Think it is 1USD = 6 NWD
If EA is 'touching' or even 'looking at' Funcom then their share prices would be higher.
It might be 'big' in this community but not to anyone outside of the MMO space like the financial sector.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
EA Touching Funcom.
Did anyone else get the image in their mind where pope touches a choir boy in a wrong way.
If TSW goes Origin, I'm going to vote my wallet, against.
DAoC - 00-06 - And every now and then
WoW - Online since launch - and now back again.
EVE - Online since 07 - and still on, and on, and on..
WHO - Online 08-10
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Also played : Asherons Call, EverQuest, EQ2, Dungeons & Dragons, Cabal, Dark & Light, GW, GW2, LA2, Ryzom, Shaiya, SWG, Allods, Forsaken World, ArcheAge, Secret World, Darkfall, Rift, ESO, Tera.
whats wrong with origin btw? I keep reading comments about it but never used it and im curious. Isnt it something like steam?
He that lives upon Hope dies farting.
The elua requires you to sign off on..Allowing origin to collect information on your computer in or indirectly related to EA products, And can be out sourced to 3rd party corps.
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
It's EULA is pretty much on-par with most online services in terms of 'invasion of privacy' stuff.
Itunes, Facebook, Google apps etc.
Not saying whether it is good or bad, just that technically, most of us signed off most of our 'rights' away anyway. :P
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
The elua requires you to sign off on..Allowing origin to collect information on your computer in or indirectly related to EA products, And can be out sourced to 3rd party corps.
It's EULA is pretty much on-par with most online services in terms of 'invasion of privacy' stuff.
Itunes, Facebook, Google apps etc.
Not saying whether it is good or bad, just that technically, most of us signed off most of our 'rights' away anyway. :P
Yeah but as far as im aware, most don't sell your info to other corporations.
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
But you see here: http://www.funcom.com/corporate/directors and http://www.funcom.com/news/senior_gaming_executive_gerhard_florin_proposed_as_new_chairman_of_the_boar
They have 2 peope that had high positions in EA. I think TSW is bigger than you are giving credit for.
Umm.. FACEBOOK?! GOOGLE?!! don't sell your info? lolwut?
Ironically, the most invasive EULA is usually your security software.
Look up Norton's EULA and have a lawyer friend go over it. As far as I know, it is one of those 'this is THE EULA' example documents in some law schools.
To the poster above, what a 'higher up' does while employed by another company is none of that companies business.
Bobby Kotick; CEO of Activision-Blizzard has a seat at Coca-cola.
No I don't think either are interested in one's business. :P
Or look at Disney's board of directors, you'll see a lot of faces that are in the CEO/CFO/COO position at tech companies.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
It's only natural that the most evil publisher teams up with the most evil game developer.
One hit ?
Anarchy Online was quite a big hit, peaknig at 2 million subs at one point and was actualyl growing up until a few years ago.Sure it had a bad start but was sorted pretty quick and actualyl recovered very well..
Then they had Age of Conan another big hit for them, again bad start but all the main issues got sorted and now its one of the best PVE MMORPGs out there.
Now they are developing one of the better looking games to be released this year so yeah i think EA would be interested but i hoep they dont buy them LOL..
All that is well and good except Funcom has been operating at a loss for years now.
What's even worse is that unlike EA, it isn't due to some big acquisition. Which means the company had to either borrow or spend their cash reserves.
Looking at their numbers, the company just doesn't look like a good acquisition target.
If Funcom halves their staff and reduce operating costs... could be viable I think. But that's a tall order.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
This is so true. I am sick of young gamers that have no clue what they are talking about, commenting on AO, AoC and Funcom.
When it comes to AO, one has to consider the fact that it was one of the first MMOs EVER created!!!! When developing such a new type of gaming experience, of course there will be bugs. But it was sorted out later.
Same with AoC, biggest mmo ever, bugs at first because Eidos forces an early release. Funcom didnt want to release so soon, but the HUGE company Eidon, which had all the cash to publish, forced them. Today it is truly a great success at this point. A great Adventuring pve mmo.
Funcom isn´t a huge company that pushes out new games every year. Its a small company based in Norway. They connot afford huge games that take forever to construct. They used all the Age of Conan money to make TSW. Who can name another franchise that does exactly that? Noone....
The fact that they are so small compared to other devs that make games of the same statues, they deserve reconition and respect!
When I asked if anybody had heard any rumors about a bidding on Funcom, i wanted to know if anybody acctually heard something. It is totally pointless to argue over something else. It be Steam, Origin or whatever... Online distribution is where we are heading. if you do not understand this, you are either too young or too ueducated.
Now, that beeing said, Funcom tends to publish their own games online, and there has not been any mentioning of Origin support yet.
The Stockprice is, as someone mentioned, at NOK 20, ap. 4 dollars. Quite low as analysts are saying. App. 57 million shares total, so not that expencive for either Blizzard or EA to buy as a whole, and get their own new MMO rolling. The costs of dev. have already been taken care of the past five years, so its pretty much all about if TSW will be a hit.
750 000 have signed up for beta so far. Numbers released a while ago, so maybe more today.
I dont know...
Just wanted an educated point of view from you guys;)
Well, this is not accurate.
Cost of developement as burned the cashreserve from income from Aoc. They have very little debt. They moved almost half of the employees to Canada to get a kick back from the government on salaries, almost 30 %. They do not at this moment have any other expences than TSW, which is almost finished. The stockprice is more than half since Aoc release. And betasignups ++ show that they will atleast sell 1 million copies first year. They estimate 1,2 million sales. That will put the company at NOK 200, thats ten times today. Do the math yourself, and see. And, there sould be some articles from Carnegie analysts in english on this as well....
Still its a good mmo, but 2 million lol
Sorry was just going by what it said in the wiki page for it, not sure how accurate the wikipage for it is, but it had subs just belwo 500k before it went free to play then went crazy after. Maybe it was not 2 million concurrent subs but in total over its existance.
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Sales and subscriptions
Five days after the game's launch, public relations director Marit Lund announced that "35,000 registered accounts" had been created.[79][80] By 2002, the total number of subscriptions created since launch was stated as 150,000.[81] After the release of the Shadowlands and Alien Invasion expansion packs, total subscriptions had risen to 700,000 in late 2004.[41] Sales of the game, its expansion packs, and monthly customer subscriptions had generated US$28 million dollars by 2005.[82]
The "free play" program, started in 2004, has had the most significant effect on subscriptions to date. ”More than 400,000 new players" signed up for free subscriptions in the program's first ten months according to Funcom CEO Trond Arne Aas.[83] The next year, the number of free subscriptions created, independent of paid subscriptions, was stated as one million.[55] The income from the program—which had generated $1,000,000 by its second year—supplements revenue from paid accounts.[82][84]
Funcom attributed "higher than expected" company profits in 2006 to Lost Eden's release in December of that year.[84][85] Subscription revenue during this time was described as "steady" and "profitable". Subscription revenue remained "steady" for the next three years, until 2009 when they were described as "slowly declining".[86][87] It was stated that close to two million subscriptions, both free and paid, had been created by July 2008.[24]
*****
Again no idea how accurate that is but the generated $28 million by 2005 is quite a bit hit for an MMO back then.
I really hope not. If Funcom make deal with EA that would be a disaster. If that come to pass, we can say farewell to Funcom and The Secret World. Look what happend to Bioware and there games once it made pact with EA. SWTOR is a big let down, everything that made Dragon Age great in first part, they manage to destroy in Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 3 does not deserve to have the same name as original. It make me shiver from the possibiilty of that happening.