Originally posted by DIIImaster

WoW lacked end game content at the beginning.  But it made up for it in other ways:

1.  Better itemization

2.  Better PvP balance

3.  Better crafting

4.  More things to do (factions, meaningful marketplace trading, etc.)

And then they started expanding the end game content.  At a rate much faster than AoC is doing.  

 

Shamans would like to speak with you.

Originally posted by Agricola1

Originally posted by nihce

 July, August, September - only wombie land will not suffer bad in these 3 months -these 3 months are the worst months in the year for mmo games. I think the worst decision Craig made was to do winbacks in the middle of summer - that is almost like  Gaute's moves. 

 

In my experience win back programs never work anyway, the trouble is that you never get a second chance to make a first impression. Once you've blown it you're usually stuck with it until the game goes F2P or shuts down, it's just a fact of life.

In gaming that is so true.  QFT!

Originally posted by eureka105

Wow. It's not looking too good for Funcom. If I had any of their stocks, now would be the time to SELL , SELL, SELL!!!! :)

Just look at what happened to their stock during the last 5 days uk.finance.yahoo.com/charts

well i bought in december, try expanding the graph back to then. :P 

Now, as I said initially, the news yesterday wasnt too good. However money has no memory and Funcom has many cards up their sleves that might change things for the positive. Also they will be going on for a looong time with all that cash. 

Originally posted by DIIImaster

WoW lacked end game content at the beginning.  But it made up for it in other ways:

1.  Better itemization

2.  Better PvP balance

3.  Better crafting

4.  More things to do (factions, meaningful marketplace trading, etc.)

And then they started expanding the end game content.  At a rate much faster than AoC is doing.  

 

QFT! People seem to forget that the main problem with AoC was not and is not the lack of endgame, but that it was launched in a beta state where there was missing MID-GAME content, not just endgame. Slow and retarded development are two things that's been killing AoC from the start. No, gamers today will not be satisfied just because it took Funcom one year to fix the client. Blame us for being too demanding.

Someone said it's all about the hype and the crowd following the lights like moths? No, it is not just that. It's also about quality and development and Funcom doesn't deliver that.

Originally posted by Krewel

Originally posted by DIIImaster

WoW lacked end game content at the beginning.  But it made up for it in other ways:

1.  Better itemization

2.  Better PvP balance

3.  Better crafting

4.  More things to do (factions, meaningful marketplace trading, etc.)

And then they started expanding the end game content.  At a rate much faster than AoC is doing.  

 

 

QFT! People seem to forget that the main problem with AoC was not and is not the lack of endgame, but that it was launched in a beta state where there was missing MID-GAME content, not just endgame. Slow and retarded development are two things that's been killing AoC from the start. No, gamers today will not be satisfied just because it took Funcom one year to fix the client. Blame us for being too demanding.

Someone said it's all about the hype and the crowd following the lights like moths? No, it is not just that. It's also about quality and development and Funcom doesn't deliver that.

What will kill AOC in the end is Tortage.  Its that simple...

Why are Funcom not adding new starting zone ?  Cause 90% of the "game" was put on Tortage and they failed miserably in creating a MMO with any replayability value.  Still they spent over 10 gbs of voiceovers on it and probably around 10M USD.  Thats why I say the game is on minimum life support atm.  Going back and actually turning the game into a true MMO with other than linear single player storyline for thousands of ppl...  They can't afford that.  - and they know it.

Funcom KNOW they can't save this one - hell.. the entire world knows you can't save a MMO that starts where every character hits the beach talking to the same old guy....  Its not MMO material !!  ANd they can't change that.

Originally posted by finaticd 

Here is some things most people didn't factor in to the revenue:

...

More money from Asia, Funcom wont get a penny from subs there - In Q2 Funcom received the remaining amount of the minimum guaranteed royalty from Neowiz, a leading
Korean publisher that has obtained the right to sell
and operate Age of Conan for a five-year period in
Korea.

 ...

And why did you not factor in the context of this "the minimum guaranteed royalty"?

Funcom has far fewer than 90-100k, closer to 50-70k.

Funcom didn't do a cash flow statement this quarter, so this quarter they mis reported revenue. without a cash flow statement Fucnom can borrow money and report it at revenue - known as "window dressing". Which Funcom has been guilty of many times.

Thank God I took accounting 101.
 

----------

Basically Funcom is from Norway so they could care less about false advertising or decieving the shareholders and they window dressed IMO once again as they have done before. If it was an amarican company they would need to show cash flows which is an 3 month history instead of the income statement which is just a snapshot of 1 day.

An investment banker calculated the population to be 70k  last quarter and now it is down 20%............wowriot.gameriot.com/blogs/Epidemic-Obesity/Age-of-Conan-Desperate-for-Subscribers

Sad thing is if Funcom fixed the game they may have been able to grow after trials.

Originally posted by finaticd

Funcom has far fewer than 90-100k, closer to 50-70k.

Funcom didn't do a cash flow statement this quarter, so this quarter they mis reported revenue. without a cash flow statement Fucnom can borrow money and report it at revenue - known as "window dressing". Which Funcom has been guilty of many times.

Thank God I took accounting 101.
 

----------

 

Basically Funcom is from Norway so they could care less about false advertising or decieving the shareholders and they window dressed IMO once again as they have done before. If it was an amarican company they would need to show cash flows which is an 3 month history instead of the income statement which is just a snapshot of 1 day.

An investment banker calculated the population to be 70k  last quarter and now it is down 20%............wowriot.gameriot.com/blogs/Epidemic-Obesity/Age-of-Conan-Desperate-for-Subscribers

Sad thing is if Funcom fixed the game they may have been able to grow after trials.

I don't think you took any course at accounting tbh...

blog.accountingcoach.com/window-dressing/

Here is what window dressing is and Funcom has done it before.  The only way to see if they are inflating revenue is by checking the cash flow statement, which they stopped posting.

I'm not sure if anyone doing those statements at Funcom has taken accounting as there have been million dollar mistakes before and then after a coverup scandal they fire the last CFO and declare a 34 million loss on AoC. 

Originally posted by Orphes

Originally posted by finaticd

Funcom has far fewer than 90-100k, closer to 50-70k.

Funcom didn't do a cash flow statement this quarter, so this quarter they mis reported revenue. without a cash flow statement Fucnom can borrow money and report it at revenue - known as "window dressing". Which Funcom has been guilty of many times.

Thank God I took accounting 101.
 

----------

 

Basically Funcom is from Norway so they could care less about false advertising or decieving the shareholders and they window dressed IMO once again as they have done before. If it was an amarican company they would need to show cash flows which is an 3 month history instead of the income statement which is just a snapshot of 1 day.

An investment banker calculated the population to be 70k  last quarter and now it is down 20%............wowriot.gameriot.com/blogs/Epidemic-Obesity/Age-of-Conan-Desperate-for-Subscribers

Sad thing is if Funcom fixed the game they may have been able to grow after trials.

 

I don't think you took any course at accounting tbh...

I'm sure he has a doctorate in accounting, law and medicine from here..

http://www.affordabledegrees.com/OEFront/online_registration.aspx

Did anyone remember to (-expenses) from revenue? It's not like every cent they pull in is profit. No business works that way.

Don't evaluate a company based on revenue, do it based on net income: total revenue - expenses - cost to sell (although in this case, CTS would probably be insignificant because that normally relates to a physical product, and I doubt box sales count for much anymore in AoC's case. They do however have to pay digital download sites to host their file as long as it's being hosted, so that has to be taken into account too.)

Originally posted by Ghostmind

Did anyone remember to (-expenses) from revenue? It's not like every cent they pull in is profit. No business works that way.

Don't evaluate a company based on revenue, do it based on net income: total revenue - expenses - cost to sell (although in this case, CTS would probably be insignificant because that normally relates to a physical product, and I doubt box sales count for much anymore in AoC's case. They do however have to pay digital download sites to host their file as long as it's being hosted, so that has to be taken into account too.)

 

You can find the Q2 report (which does include a cash flow statement) here:

http://www.newsweb.no/newsweb/search.do?messageId=244087

EBITDA $748'

Segment EBITDA $3.65m

Originally posted by finaticd

blog.accountingcoach.com/window-dressing/

Here is what window dressing is and Funcom has done it before.  The only way to see if they are inflating revenue is by checking the cash flow statement, which they stopped posting.

I'm not sure if anyone doing those statements at Funcom has taken accounting as there have been million dollar mistakes before and then after a coverup scandal they fire the last CFO and declare a 34 million loss on AoC. 

Kind of moot is it not, as they have a cashflow statement. If you, whom have taken an accounting 101 course, have eyes for this and do notice this things I can not understand the reason to why you missed the actuall cashflow statement.

Sorry to say but I think your 101 course came from wikipedia. You found this flashy word, window-dressing, and tried to apply it the best you could at the first oppertunity you got.

Did you plan this from the last quarter report?

Originally posted by nihce

You cannot meassure a game trend with Xfire (lets let asside that it is broken) because the number right now is beyond 1k and it is statistically impossible to have any certain results. Oh and not to mention that it is not random. 

Actually you CAN measure a trend with XFire. You can't measure accurate numbers, but trends you can.

Just look at AoC the last few weeks. It was around 4 to 6k, then the free trial period hit and it spiked up considerably, and now, with the trial period over, it's gone steadily down again and it's currently 4k hours per day. Is that all the people who play AoC? No not at all, but it certainly shows that the free trial was a big deal (effectively doubling player hours measured) and it also shows that few (if any) of the people who had the trial (and used xfire) stayed on after the free period ended.

That is what's called a trend.

So when the US and Europe fail them, they go for the Noodles! Haha!

Only one problem! They need a super computer to play! And most of them are poor and can only play games like WoW and Lineage 2 etc...

I bet the next expansion (if there will be after this one) are going to be somewhere close to a Russian theme! Hahaha!

Originally posted by Binko

So when the US and Europe fail them, they go for the Noodles! Haha!

Only one problem! They need a super computer to play! And most of them are poor and can only play games like WoW and Lineage 2 etc...

I bet the next expansion (if there will be after this one) are going to be somewhere close to a Russian theme! Hahaha!

Internet Cafes in Asia have very good equipment and most gamers in mailand China rely on them. The income of gamers in Korea, Japan and Taiwan tend to be fairly high.  It's a very different market don't make assumptions.

I can't believe anyone thinks Age of Conan is quality.

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Originally posted by Frobner

 

Minimum life support means:
-they are hiring Asian coders cause of cheap labor

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It's absolutely normal for MMO companies to outsource art production to China. This is just common sense. MMOs are all about the in-game content, and for this you need art assets. If you have X dollars, would you rather spend it hiring expensive artists locally or get a lot more Chinese artists of the same quality? More artists means more assets, which means more variety in content.

So I would like to know where you read Funcom is hiring Chinese coders. I pretty much assumed it was artists, because that's a normal thing to do and exactly what you would expect.

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- merging servers to reduce cost

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Players were the ones asking for server merges, in order to have more people to play with. It's pretty natural in today's MMO market for subscribers to drop off after launch, if nothing else due to the rapid pace of technology which means we're basically down to 6 months to 1 year gap in MMO generations from a tech standpoint. WoW is an anomaly which stands as a testament to Blizzard's project management.

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- Charging for an "expansion" that all other MMOs today are offering as a content patch.

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This is pretty trollish for someone who claims to be a "poster."