Funcom: The Price of a Bad Launch

by Mario Podeschi, August 22 2010

In a new MMORPG’s competition for subscribers, the launch functions as a grand opening where a player forms his initial opinions of the game. Though some games enjoy terrific launches, many serve to expose the weakest links in a game’s playability. Funcom Productions A/S carries the awkward distinction of having two of the worst launches in MMORPG history: Age of Conan and Anarchy Online. Both games flopped their first year, yet both games continue to be played and have even become popular. Yet, how much was lost, and how high is the price of a bad launch?

Even World of Warcraft suffered initially from a bad launch. Struggling under the weight of its own popularity, Blizzard was unable to provide nearly enough servers to account for all their new players. WoW’s success demonstrates that robust, popular games can still rise from bad launches.

In 2010, Age of Conan was ranked #10 on MMO subscriber populations, and Funcom’s recent release of “Rise of the Godslayer” has brought a new race, new zones, and new popularity to the two year-old franchise. Put simply, AoC is recovering quite nicely from its initial launch.

What a launch it was. The highly anticipated game promised a gritty sword and sorcery MMORPG set in a universally-recognized franchise with a strong fan-base. Trumpeted more than once as the game that would dethrone World of Warcraft, it quickly became the most widely purchased MMO of 2008.

Within months, half the servers were closed from lack of use. Thousands of subscribers left the game amid complaints of overly demanding system requirements, front-loaded content, and a general sense of incompleteness. As the game has aged, system requirements have become less of an issue, but many systems still capable of playing other MMORPGs still grind to a halt when trying to comprehend Age of Conan’s textures and lighting.

Moreoever, Conan was decimated by its incompleteness. While the opening chunk of the game featured voice actors, intricate settings, cool gear, and intricate architecture, the end-game content was sparse indeed. NPCs stopped speaking aloud, and high-level players were piled into the same adventure areas to compete over the little that had been provided. Naturally, this came as quite a shock to Warcraft expatriates, for whom end-game content was where they expected games to truly begin.

Funcom lost $23.3 million on the Age of Conan release. Though not enough to tank the company entirely, it certainly broke their stride. “Rise of the Godslayer” has been a step in the right direction, improving the end-game content drastically and cleaning up some of the technical problems, but many potential players remain unwilling to try the game that had so disappointed them.

Funcom’s other phoenix was Anarchy Online, released in 2001. This persistent world sought to corner the science fiction genre of MMORPGs through an Everquest-esque space opera with a focus on player customizations. From an unrestrictive skill system to customizable missions, players were offered a great deal of freedom to optimize their play experience.


The box was about the only thing that worked when Anarchy Online shipped

At launch, however, the game was unplayable. Many CD keys that came with the game simply didn’t work, and those that did were faced with a game that crashed at random. Funcom released a statement begging reviewers to give them a month to overhaul their system, but many reviewers trashed the game anyway, warning their readers against joining the 35,000 subscribers who had bought a game that, for the most part, did not work.

Despite the devastating launch, Funcom kept its head above the water and continue releasing patches and expansions for their game. The introduction of free-play accounts in 2004 bolstered their fan base considerably, replacing subscription fees with ad revenue and allowing the game to continue. The nine year-old game is still being played today, with Funcom releasing graphic updates and new content every few years to satisfy their players.

In the aftermath of both Anarchy Online and Age of Conan, Funcom confessed that the games were released earlier than they should have been. On the one hand, their position is understandable: deadlines and release dates are a business reality that do not always cooperate with the pace at which a game is being developed, and MMORPGs are an incredibly intricate medium for any designer. On the other hand, Age of Conan proved that Funcom hadn’t learned its lesson in 2001, and it paid a hefty price for its second legendary flop.