Age of Conan developer's stock drops by half

by Alexander Sliwinski { Jul 28th 2008 at 7:30PM }

Funcom, developers of supposed MMORPG-hit Age of Conan, has seen its stock drop 55% over the last couple weeks. The stock has gone from $54 to $24 (as of last Friday) per share as speculation continues about how successful AoC actually is.

Massively notes that there's no way of knowing how many players actually stayed beyond the free 30-day trial and Funcom's done some phenomenal PR spin on the topic; however, we do know that the game has had strong sales at retail. The $54 price may have been a bubble, though, since $24 is what the company had been trading at earlier this year. If the price drops down further, then it looks like investors don't like what they're hearing about the game and are losing confidence in the company.

[Via Massively]

Tags: age-of-conan, age-of-conan-hyborian-adventures, funcom, stock

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Lavat @ Jul 28th 2008 7:37PM

Somehow I felt this was predictable. I never felt that the game would hold strong after its shock of sales when the game released.

vildyr @ Jul 29th 2008 6:40AM

Compared to the level before the launch of Age of Conan the Funcom stock has still gone up. It has dropped to a more normal level since the launch, yes, but that was expected by investors.

You'd need a ground breaking product like the ipod to increase your stock value by 60% and stay there.

I'm wondering how a bloguser on a place called wow-riot (who has done another bogus AoC article) by the way, ended up being the source of this. When you could've googled the Funcom stock and gotten the full picture instead.

But I guess joystiq is worthless as a news source.

anypti @ Jul 29th 2008 8:24AM

Its Norwegian Crowns, not USD ^^ Big difference.

Arno @ Jul 28th 2008 7:38PM

Well the game does look like complete ass.

Red Leader @ Jul 29th 2008 1:01PM

Blame Yahtzee to be honest.

SantaDuJuan @ Jul 28th 2008 7:53PM

So does this mean I sell it or I buy more!?

JonRemedy @ Jul 28th 2008 8:19PM

I think it's supposed to be NOK, not USD

JonRemedy @ Jul 28th 2008 8:19PM

I think it's supposed to be NOK, not USD

john @ Jul 28th 2008 8:22PM

Hint to investors TAKE ALL YOUR MONEY OUT AND RUN! Fast as you can.

Ass Masterson @ Jul 28th 2008 8:24PM

Makes me wish I knew how to play the stock market. You know some suited jackass just doubled his money and is snort-laughing around a big cigar while his chauffeur drives him to the bank.

John McPoop (PSN:johnnynumber5) @ Jul 28th 2008 10:52PM

nice ... throw in some hookers, a fur coat, aviator shades, cocaine and alcohol for a more appropriate visual ... And the guy looks like Joe Peschi

Eothein @ Jul 28th 2008 8:32PM

Yahtzee's affect on the games industry has just been confirmed....

SeanC @ Jul 28th 2008 8:39PM

Meh, if you look at funcoms stock over time, their average is sitting at $25, so they're no worse off then they were before.

GenBanks @ Jul 28th 2008 8:44PM

A bit of a sensationalist headline I think... The stocks have only gone down to what they were just before the Age of Conan launch. They went up because of the news stories about preorders selling out. Nothing more. This doesn't have any relation to the long-term success of the game, which I really think it will enjoy. (I've been playing since launch and loving it - finding it really difficult to go back to WoW now).

Psyclerk @ Jul 28th 2008 9:06PM

I was one of those that cancelled my AoC sub(though I stayed on for a second month). The game had promise, but it also had too many bugs. Less than a month after launch, you had:

-Many players already hitting the level cap, speeding through what little end-game content was available

-Loot was only for show, as stats on gear actually modifying your character stats HAD NOT BEEN IMPLEMENTED YET

-Auction/mail system that only half worked; search was broken for many categories and any items pulled from auction by the seller could not be sold to NPC vendors

-Rogue classes that specialized in stealth yet had no actual stealth abilities (not to mention the Hide skill had massive penalties that made it a novelty rather than a dependable gameplay mechanic)

-Instanced zones which ensured that you'd see next to no one in towns; run out to a quest area for your level, however, and you'd have nightmares/flashbacks of EverCamp

-Worst crafting/gathering system in any game ever made in history

It also didn't help that FunCom devs have little communication with players. It took them over a month before they realized they should put up a test server to get player feedback BEFORE pushing out major changes.

Right after launch, many of the early players expected a huge dropoff within the first couple of months. That should give you an idea of the "true success".

4MyFriends @ Jul 28th 2008 10:21PM

Sounds like another nail in the "WoW Killer!" coffin. After WarHammer launches and fails(the major cuts do not help morale much, I used to be excited about the game until...) what else is left to challenge Warcraft's monopoly on the genre?

Lex @ Jul 28th 2008 9:18PM

Until Funcom releases stats on how many people are still playing I doubt that it's stock price would be greatly effected by Age of Conan.

BananaBoat @ Jul 28th 2008 9:37PM

I don't play MMORPG's anymore (I've stated why in the past, I'll spare ye) but Conan seemed like it would be a failure from the start. A game based on...Conan?! The same Conan with Arnold Schwarzenegger (close enough spelling)? Before it got announced and I googled, I had no idea that there was actually a Conan lore. I doubt many people did, and so it seemed as if it would have a hard time combating something like...say...Lord of the Rings Online, with it's massive lore base, or WoW with it's massive customer base. It seemed like AOC was doing well though...so I'm a bit perplexed as to why the stock took such a nose dive. The only conclusion I can come up with is that someone, somewhere must have gotten word of a player exodus from the game, and figured that the company was going to come crashing down at any moment. I don't play it, so obviously I can't comment on whether there is any validity to that or not.

Hopefully AOC survives, because it seems like one of the only MMO's out there right now that has a decent combat system (my definition of "decent" is anything the player actually controls, unlike WoW and it's epic math battles of failure)

Psyclerk @ Jul 29th 2008 12:09AM

"I had no idea that there was actually a Conan lore."

Yeah, it's not like there were a ton of stories written about him. Or that his creator, Robert E. Howard, is credited with starting the whole "swords and sorcercy" genre of fantasy (Conan stories were being published years before Tolkien came up with the idea of LOTR). Or that they made a movie about his (Howard's) life. Or that other authors (Robert Jordan, Harry Turtledove) wrote Conan books. Or that there were a couple of 20+ year comic book series based on the character. They just pulled a couple of Conan movies out of thin air as a vehicle for Arnold.

Seriously?

BananaBoat @ Jul 29th 2008 1:24AM

Believe it or not, I didn't spend my childhood reading niche fantasy novels by a guy I've never heard of. Don't get me wrong, he could be the greatest writer that has, or ever will, live, but the amount of people that have heard of him can probably be counted off on one hand. Not to mention that the conan movies are the only insight into the conan character that most people have ever had.

Your argument is like running up to someone leaving a showing of The Return of the King at the local Cinema, and then proceeding to ask them what they thought of The Children of Hurin. The chances of them ever having heard of that book, much less read it, are pretty non-existant, unless they are die hard fans.

So while you might think the lore is enough to stand on it's own in a market that is increasingly dominated by casual gamers that could care less about lore in the first place, and really only care about big name franchises, it can't. Then again, all I said was that my initial thought was "Really? Conan from the movie conan?" not "Zomg conan is teh lame and is based off crappy terminator movie"

Then again, I sympathize with your argument because every time I try to tell people that there is a long and meticulously crafted lore behind Gundam, they spew out the equivalent of "Silly man, Gundam is violent Japanese robot porn for perverts!" or, at best, "Lol, I watched Gundam when I was young, but that's for kids!". Meh.

LaughingTarget @ Jul 29th 2008 3:05PM

Lore doesn't amount to anything if it isn't actually used in the game/book/TV show. Sure, games like Halo and the above Age of Conan and shows like Gundam may have all kinds of lore, but none of it is present during the course of what the consumer actually sees.

Like the EverQuest lore. Sure, there was a ton of backstory, but none of it ever made itself evident while playing the game. There were all kinds of cool wars, but all of that happened in the past. The player only gets to experience the mundane "rebuilding" period. All the cool stuff happened BEFORE you get to enjoy the world, which is now barren and lifeless.

I see a lore-built world as a huge crutch that negatively impacts the final product. It gives whoever is making the product an excuse not to put forth their best effort in creating a solid story that the player gets to enjoy, not alluding to it in some lame backstory flashback element or old soldiers in a tavern talking about how today sucks and how back in the day the world was exciting.

Shagittarius @ Jul 28th 2008 10:08PM

I really liked this game after a week of playing. After that it went downhill. They released a game that was less than half way finished and then rather than racing to add content they decided they would balance the unfinished class (many skills didnt even work as the classes were set up already).

Now they announce the extra content is comming in an "expansion". A laod of crap, stay far away from this game. Funcom is working hard to snuff out all the fun and charge you as much as they can for the privelidge of being butt raped.

Ihavepants @ Jul 28th 2008 10:47PM

Of the 30 or so people I know who bought this game at launch, none of them still play it.

Orc @ Jul 28th 2008 11:38PM

All my friends who played left the game as well.

John McPoop (PSN:johnnynumber5) @ Jul 28th 2008 10:53PM

It should get another nice bump after the 360 version releases

juju187 @ Jul 29th 2008 12:20AM

this is on my wish list for a console MMO.

metroidprimegmr @ Jul 28th 2008 11:02PM

Dreamfall Chapters, dammit! GIMME MY DREAMFALL CHAPTERS!!!

joshmcx @ Jul 28th 2008 11:43PM

Yes, PLEASE! Put AoC on the back burner and give me more Longest Journey!

anduz @ Jul 29th 2008 6:34AM

Since when did 13 year old wow fanboys become valuable news sources? Maybe you should've done yourself a fucking favor and checked out the real Funcom stock before?

Of coruse you can make a stock seem like it dropped to half, but in fact it simply went back to it's normal level. Which is exactly what was expected by investors...

Nossy @ Jul 29th 2008 9:59AM

The game looked promising and played "ok." The interface was too awkward, not very intuitive. It would've worked if the developers knew how to implement all the ideas they had. The features and concept of the game is very appealing, but Funcom did not deliver them in a "playable" and "enjoyable" way. Instead players were left with a buggy game, lots of downtime, and lots of loading screen (that sometimes never resume).

I stopped playing after the first week - what a waste of money. When is Lich King coming out?

Ray Hayes @ Jul 29th 2008 11:45AM

Wow...
I cannot believe this WoWriot site was cited as the source for this mess.
I for one am not satisfied with AoC, but I am now unsatisfied with the reporting prowess of Joystiq.

In the words of the great Gordon Ramsay...

Removal of RSS feed....DONE!