GamesIndustry.biz is reporting that Funcom has just received $262,000 to develop a new extreme sports MMOG. The project is currently in the earliest planning stages, with the real work to commence in early 2010.

Funcom's Erling Ellingsen confirmed to GamesIndsutry.biz that the report was indeed true, and offered some additional info, stating that the MMOG would be a free-to-play social MMO primarily focused around snowboarding.

Read more over at GamesIndustry.biz

Hopefully this means that TSW will be released by then!! 

So Funcom is now going into the shovelware MMO market?

That sounds pretty terrible. I won't be playing this.

good news for Funcom, for me personaly I can't really understand why investors give a sports project to Funcom, as a investor I would give such a project at gamedevelopers with experiance with sports and in this case snowboarding.
 

A extreme Sports MMO could be fun to play, but just don't see why Funcom needs to take this project, of course it could be that other sport game developers where not  intrested.

Snowboarding, that will be popular with the pre teens and that is about it.  Maybe they should do some market research first.

Oh man there is ONLY one way this can work,and that is P2P.If they have any thoughts on making it cash shop,it will get nothing but negativity from me.I love the idea of sports games decked out as a MMO,but i also realize,when you see numbers like 250k,that is a lot of money and someone is expecting a return on that investment.

There has been a few recent inductees to the sports MMO genre and they seem to be doing decently well,but they are all cash shop oriented,meaning spend to win.Sports games usually have simpler mechanics than RPG's ,there is no variance in the program code it is either a hit or a goal no in between code.Then these games through the use of cash shop items ,do nothing but enhance the probabilities in your game,so you ALWAYS have a higher chance to  win.It doe not take long for players to figure out the mechanics in sports games,what works and what does not,at that defining moment in the game,it is ALL about the cash shop.

Originally posted by Wizardry

Oh man there is ONLY one way this can work,and that is P2P.If they have any thoughts on making it cash shop,it will get nothing but negativity from me.I love the idea of sports games decked out as a MMO,but i also realize,when you see numbers like 250k,that is a lot of money and someone is expecting a return on that investment.

There has been a few recent inductees to the sports MMO genre and they seem to be doing decently well,but they are all cash shop oriented,meaning spend to win.Sports games usually have simpler mechanics than RPG's ,there is no variance in the program code it is either a hit or a goal no in between code.Then these games through the use of cash shop items ,do nothing but enhance the probabilities in your game,so you ALWAYS have a higher chance to  win.It doe not take long for players to figure out the mechanics in sports games,what works and what does not,at that defining moment in the game,it is ALL about the cash shop.

It is F2P. Which model they will use is unknown. Cash shop is always a maybe with F2P.

Sounds like Funcom is trying to pin down that "worst MMO idea ever" nomination.  They have my vote!

This game will be EXTREME TO THE MAX YO!!

Sounds like a terrible idea! I can see this working for the Wii using their Wii fit maybe, but otherwise, I agree.. just another failed MMO.

Originally posted by Dyrtt

Sounds like Funcom is trying to pin down that "worst MMO idea ever" nomination.  They have my vote!

 YIKES!!!!

(AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH fires plungers at funcom building)