Funcom CEO interview

[burmese]

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-03-12-funcom

and a snippet:

"It surprises me to find that all of Funcom's games, from the 13-year old Anarchy Online to The Secret World, are all running at a steady profit. That's not to say they've all necessarily recouped their costs, but they're at least getting there."

[cins]

"But we're in a very positive situation where our biggest creditor is also our biggest owner. He's been with us since 1997. He owns something like 21 per cent of the shares. He has more shares than anyone else, the next biggest is about 1.52 per cent. So in general we had to update the market, as we had so many free-floating shares, and keep a good relationship with our biggest creditor..."
I knew FC must've had a sugardaddy to have survived for so long. And I doubt a guy who's stuck with them for all these years would abandon it anytime soon so the main message I'm getting is that FC is unlikely to kick the bucket (unless something bad happens to this fairy godfather).

Or maybe I'm making random **** up about things I don't have a clue about, that's also possible.

[xiulo88]

"We think that revenues will still decline until the launch of LEGO, that's our prediction. Now we've done all the restructuring, operating costs will be stable. Revenue in existing games will slowly decline over time, that's the long term trend. It will have bumps, but we don't expect anything major to happen. The strategy is to maximise the revenue we can get and minimise cost. That's the strategy we're using for our online portfolio and we hope to be as innovative as possible with our new projects."

In others words, don't expect that any of your money goes into AoC. They'll use our subs to do new minigames and other shits.

[Halfdead]

Strategy has always been to get a big cash grab and then disappear. Did it with AOC, did it with TSW and that flopped, and same thing will happen with this Lego game.

AOC wouldn't have been as bad as it is now if they bothered to do this game correct at beta/launch, focus on pvp and pve the entire time with regular updates or yearly expansions and listened to customers. Too bad this is a broken record.

[xiulo88]

Strategy has always been to get a big cash grab and then disappear. Did it with AOC, did it with TSW and that flopped, and same thing will happen with this Lego game.

AOC wouldn't have been as bad as it is now if they bothered to do this game correct at beta/launch, focus on pvp and pve the entire time with regular updates or yearly expansions and listened to customers. Too bad this is a broken record.

Yes, I know but I'm shocked to see that CEO of the company says it. It seems he leaves all the people who try to lie to /encourage us every month in the ****. I suppose is more worried about the shareholder than the few stupid costumers we still playing his games.

[Kurt2013]

This should be obvious, if you played more than a few months. Sadly it is not a funcom only disease. Still, as a shareholder i would be angry about short sighted policy and risky ventures...and if this policy would be so successfull, funcom would not be where they are now.
Shareholders are not customers, customers are If they are happy and buying things with good conscience, there would be no need to lie to the shareholders or venture off to greener grass everytime they become obvious.
And if the CEO is surprised that the MMOs did so well, he obviously does not care or not know his own products. All are solid games, from a steady niche product to more popular franchise (conan) which could be gems and are still doing good, despite funcoms management, because at the core, they are simply good products without much competition in their strong fields.

[Derek-Drake]

Strategy has always been to get a big cash grab and then disappear. Did it with AOC, did it with TSW and that flopped, and same thing will happen with this Lego game.

I think you're allowing Funcom's past record cloud your judgement on the LEGO game. I believe that the LEGO game will be their most profitable game and will become their highest source of revenue for many years.

The LEGO video game franchise has sold over 50 million boxes of various LEGO games. Even the LucasArts owned Star Wars franchise isn't in that category. Added up, they have only sold 38 million boxes of all of their titles combined. Amusingly, that also includes box copies of LEGO: Star Wars.

Simply put, Funcom has a gold mine on their hands with the LEGO MMO. This is the biggest potential source of revenue they've ever tapped into, and hopefully it will be a raging success and some of those funds will help revive AoC.

EDIT: 38 million

[bogus]

Simply put, Funcom has a gold mine on their hands with the LEGO MMO.

After huge businesses success of LEGO Universe I'd avoid making such statements.

[Derek-Drake]

After huge businesses success of LEGO Universe I'd avoid making such statements.

Lego Universe did not understand it's target audience in the least.

Their target audience was children and yet they launched the game with a $10 a month sub fee. When that proved financially untenable, they moved the game to "F2P".

However, the F2P was more of an FU to their player base than a real F2P. It was almost vindictive the amount of limitations on a free player, and with no microtransactions to fill in the gaps.

It was simply pay or don't pay and if you don't pay, then the game sucks.

So, I'm sorry, but not a good reason to believe the Funcom LEGO MMO will fail. In fact, if they understand their player base and play their cards right, it will become their most successful MMO in their lineup.

[barbaricwildcat2]

theres lego chima for anyone into lego mmos