Funcom to Refocus After Secret World Sales Slump

Funcom would almost certainly have expected better for their clever, different MMO. In their most recent financial report they mention that 200,000 people bought The Secret World. That’s not enough, really. For comparison, it’s been reported that Guild Wars 2, out yesterday, already has a million players. Age of Conan had around 700,000.

So Funcom mentioned that the number of players for The Secret World is quite low. They also mention that they’ll be launching some initiatives to increase that number. We assume that will mean free-to-play, in some form – probably up to a certain level as with Star Wars: The Old Republic. Funcom blames, probably correctly, the release announcements for Guild Wars 2 and the World of Warcraft expansion Mists of Pandaria for a lack of uptake.

There has recently been a series of layoffs and restructuring at Funcom which is all part of an attempt to continue supporting live games while trying to make everything in the company financially viable.

What conclusion has the company drawn from this? Well, they’re going to switch to “more focused, systems-driven games that have a high degree of community and player interaction,” which sound like facebook and mobile to me but it’s hard to blame them when “these games require less time and development cost to bring to market.”

Source: Funcom financials (PDF)

5 Comments

  1. To bad if Norway’s biggest game company is gonna make facebook and mobile games.

    • We’ll never forgive them for allowing a-ha to break up.

  2. I’d like to see them try their hands at a single player RPG.

    • Don’t we have plenty already doing that?

      • Yes, but there’s plenty doing everything… except 3D platformers. We need more of those.

        RPGs seem to be their thing, and the diversity of the genre brings great opportunities.

        I won’t complain, as long as it’s not a social network game or a shooter.

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