Age of Conan

Originally posted by Icedanno

Ok, maybe I phrased this poorly.  It's easy to see by reading the forums why so many people are unhappy and dissapointed with AoC.

However, and this is a big However, they still have a LOT of subscribers and they sold a LOT of boxes.  Knowing this, I guess my real question was:

***  Why is FC stock tanking so bad? ***

 

(Really, does anyone really know?  Did something happen at FC?)

I'm not big with stocks or anything but i've always thought the only thing that could cause stocks to plummet that much that fast are investor's selling all their shares which causes a mass price drop. Judging by Funcom's website and the limited number of games listed on it they were HEAVILLY relying on AoC to be a big hit and provide income for years to come.

Originally posted by Icedanno

Ok, maybe I phrased this poorly.  It's easy to see by reading the forums why so many people are unhappy and dissapointed with AoC.

However, and this is a big However, they still have a LOT of subscribers and they sold a LOT of boxes.  Knowing this, I guess my real question was:

***  Why is FC stock tanking so bad? ***

 

(Really, does anyone really know?  Did something happen at FC?)

Investors in a company want the company to make a profit.

In the 2nd quarter.   Funcom sold 800,000 boxes and had 400,000 customer..   YET THEY STILL LOST MONEY.  They lost 8 million dollars while they were selling those boxes.   Now the fact is.. AFTER the 2nd quarter (when AOC launched).  They clearly have not sold that many boxes again.. and they clearly lost a ton of subscribers... so the question is..  If they lost money when they did sell boxes and did have subscribers.. how much more money are they going to lose this quarter without those box sales or subscribers?

Then the other side of the investor outlook is the future.   Remember, Funcom paid about 50 million to make the game, most of that they borrowed.  So they are hugely in debt, and on top of that, they are losing money just by being in business (so there is no hope they will be repaying that debt any time soon).  The fact is, that money MUST be repayed soon, or the debtors will force Funcom into bankruptcy.

Honestly, I think you are confusing 'sales' with 'profits'.    Selling 800,000 boxes and bringing in 8 million in sales is a great thing.. unless it cost you 50million to do it.

Ford could sell their cars for $100 and sell a trillion of them, but would that make the company profitable?  no way.  It is basically what is happening to funcom.  They are selling boxes, but it cost them much more to produce those boxes.

I agree Azrile.  What people often don't realize is how much money Funcom spent to sell those boxes. 

If a small company with no advertising budget and through word of mouth using their own servers had 415,000 customers...sure, it would be a smashing success.

However, Funcom spent 10s of millions of dollars advertising Age of Conan.  Magazines, conventions, heck the local computer store near my house had AoC plastered on all of its LCD screens.  That type of advertisement is PROHIBITIVELY expensive.

The only justification for it is the promise of many long-time subscribers to eventually cover the costs and to turn a profit.

They got the many.  Selling 800-850k boxes is top notch.  But they werent able to KEEP them.  And because of that, Funcom wont have the money to fund its other projects.  Because of that Funcom wont be able to support its massive advertising budget for AoC, 4 other MMO projects, and pay 300+ employees.

In case you haven't noticed, employees are expensive. 

Oh this one is quite easy;

It's because 799,000 of those boxes are now in the bin.

Stock has droped again to now 9$ a share not looking good.

Originally posted by Elsabolts

Stock has droped again to now 9$ a share not looking good.

AoC from release until now. It makes me want to go skiing.

Logged in yesterday at around 5pm est, not a sole anywhere in level 40 zones. Did a search only 2 people near my level were on.In 15 minutes there wasn't a single comment in ooc, definitely not looking good. This was on Deathwhisper btw which is supposed to be one of the more populated PVP servers.

Logged into testlive afterward, same scenario except a search brought up 0 players. The two people who were chatting in OOC must have been 70+ .

Originally posted by Malickie

Logged in yesterday at around 5pm est, not a sole anywhere in level 40 zones. Did a search only 2 people near my level were on.In 15 minutes there wasn't a single comment in ooc, definitely not looking good. This was on Deathwhisper btw which is supposed to be one of the more populated PVP servers.

Logged into testlive afterward, same scenario except a search brought up 0 players. The two people who were chatting in OOC must have been 70+ .

Ouch.

Originally posted by Deto123

Originally posted by Malickie

Logged in yesterday at around 5pm est, not a sole anywhere in level 40 zones. Did a search only 2 people near my level were on.In 15 minutes there wasn't a single comment in ooc, definitely not looking good. This was on Deathwhisper btw which is supposed to be one of the more populated PVP servers.

Logged into testlive afterward, same scenario except a search brought up 0 players. The two people who were chatting in OOC must have been 70+ .

 

Ouch.

Oh stupid me, I forgot to add; I went through each hub in the process of wandering around. NOT a single person to be found.