Originally posted by JeroKane

Originally posted by elocke

This is easy, I can think of only one company that buys dying mmo's. SONY! Hahaha, I'm actually surprised they haven't bought Tabula Rasa yet, although it is never too late.

 

Dude,

NCSoft will NEVER EVER sell out Tabula Rasa. 

It's not only the game itself they would sell out. It's also their inhouse game engine they would hand over to the competition.

So never going to happen. 

Same with Age of Conan. Funcom is never going to give up their inhouse game engine, wich is used for all their games, incl. their upcoming The Secret World title.

So unless another Game company buys Funcom as whole, Age of Conan stays were it is.

Cheers

Situation is different with NCSoft and Funcom.

NCSoft has many sources of income and I don't see them going bankrupt any time soon. Funcom has only one real source of income - Age of Conan. If AoC fails, Funcom will fall.

You are saying that Funcom would never give up their inhouse game engine. You have to realize that if they are dying, they have to sell it. They have no choice, no matter how much it would suck.

Dude.

I live in the US..  one thing that many of us here have a hard time understanding is that Norway props up it's businesses.   Like how the US just bailed out some banks and GM/Chrysler.  That type of thing has always happened in most EU countries like Norway.  The Gov't is very active in supporting businesses and it's always one of those things that gets fought over whenever there is a trade agreement.  For instance, Boeing always is pissed because Airobus get's so much public money from it's gov't.   Before this latest bank/car thing in the US.. the US gov't had a much more 'hands off' approach to business.  If your business dies, it dies.  The US bailout of banks/autos is more in line with what most EU companies have always done (propped up companies that should rightfully be out of business).

In the last quarterly report, Funcom said it was able to make payments on it's long term debt.  That is the very definition of NOT going bankrupt.   A company doesn't go bankrupt because of a falling stock price, or because of low revenues... it goes bankrupt because it can't pay off it's debt.

That said.  Funcom brought in some new faces in December, and offered them a LOT of stock as payment.  The percentage of stock on the open market has gone way down because of this ( not total shared, but percentage of total shares).   It looks like these new people, along with 2-3 current insiders will be taking the company private soon.

Originally posted by PecanNuts69

Originally posted by JeroKane

Originally posted by elocke

This is easy, I can think of only one company that buys dying mmo's. SONY! Hahaha, I'm actually surprised they haven't bought Tabula Rasa yet, although it is never too late.

 

Dude,

NCSoft will NEVER EVER sell out Tabula Rasa. 

It's not only the game itself they would sell out. It's also their inhouse game engine they would hand over to the competition.

So never going to happen. 

Same with Age of Conan. Funcom is never going to give up their inhouse game engine, wich is used for all their games, incl. their upcoming The Secret World title.

So unless another Game company buys Funcom as whole, Age of Conan stays were it is.

Cheers

 

Situation is different with NCSoft and Funcom.

NCSoft has many sources of income and I don't see them going bankrupt any time soon. Funcom has only one real source of income - Age of Conan. If AoC fails, Funcom will fall.

You are saying that Funcom would never give up their inhouse game engine. You have to realize that if they are dying, they have to sell it. They have no choice, no matter how much it would suck.

Dude.

Their inhouse game engine is basically their foundation. Without it they don't exist.

The moment they sell the game and their engine will be the moment they close their doors.

While Anarchy Online isn't their main source of income right now and might not have the high subscription numbers. It still brings in money each month.

Next to that, they have also released Single player RPG's that has provided them with income. Like Dreamfall.

Cheers

Originally posted by JeroKane

Their inhouse game engine is basically their foundation. Without it they don't exist.

The moment they sell the game and their engine will be the moment they close their doors.

While Anarchy Online isn't their main source of income right now and might not have the high subscription numbers. It still brings in money each month.

Next to that, they have also released Single player RPG's that has provided them with income. Like Dreamfall.

Cheers

Um.. what?

So you are saying Funcom would choose bankrupcy over selling their bugged engine? Lol We are not talking about some super classified state secret here, we are talking about a game engine. Even if they gave the engine to everyone for free, AoC would still be here tomorrow.

Sure Funcom has some other forms of income but AoC is clearly their main source of income. Without the profit coming from AoC, Funcom would close doors pretty quick.

Originally posted by PecanNuts69

Originally posted by JeroKane

Their inhouse game engine is basically their foundation. Without it they don't exist.

The moment they sell the game and their engine will be the moment they close their doors.

While Anarchy Online isn't their main source of income right now and might not have the high subscription numbers. It still brings in money each month.

Next to that, they have also released Single player RPG's that has provided them with income. Like Dreamfall.

Cheers

 

Um.. what?

So you are saying Funcom would choose bankrupcy over selling their bugged engine? Lol We are not talking about some super classified state secret here, we are talking about a game engine. Even if they gave the engine to everyone for free, AoC would still be here tomorrow.

Sure Funcom has some other forms of income but AoC is clearly their main source of income. Without the profit coming from AoC, Funcom would close doors pretty quick.

Their inhouse game engine is not ready for licencing. Maybe one day they will get there. But not today.

Who would want to buy a PC only engine these days? While you got  much much better game engines with their toolkits, like Unreal Engine, Crytek Engine, etc... who happen to be multi-platform as well.

Hardly anyone makes games for a single platform these days anymore.

So Funcom is a long way from getting their engine where it needs to be.

Instead of putting all resources in there and have to face a much tougher competion, they better put their resources on wich they are already do now. Fixing Age of Conan and do better with their new MMO The Secret World.

Cheers

Originally posted by PecanNuts69

Originally posted by JeroKane

Their inhouse game engine is basically their foundation. Without it they don't exist.

The moment they sell the game and their engine will be the moment they close their doors.

While Anarchy Online isn't their main source of income right now and might not have the high subscription numbers. It still brings in money each month.

Next to that, they have also released Single player RPG's that has provided them with income. Like Dreamfall.

Cheers

 

Um.. what?

So you are saying Funcom would choose bankrupcy over selling their bugged engine? Lol We are not talking about some super classified state secret here, we are talking about a game engine. Even if they gave the engine to everyone for free, AoC would still be here tomorrow.

Sure Funcom has some other forms of income but AoC is clearly their main source of income. Without the profit coming from AoC, Funcom would close doors pretty quick.

There are plenty of instances where a developer 'took their engine to the grave'.   I think people underestimate the complexity of an 'engine'.   You really have to start out developing the engine knowing it will be used by 3rd parties in advance ( Unreal etc).   I don't think its very feasible to take an 'in house' engine and expect anyone else to be able to use it (or want it).

Originally posted by Alandora

There are plenty of instances where a developer 'took their engine to the grave'.   I think people underestimate the complexity of an 'engine'.   You really have to start out developing the engine knowing it will be used by 3rd parties in advance ( Unreal etc).   I don't think its very feasible to take an 'in house' engine and expect anyone else to be able to use it (or want it).

Give me an example, please.

Imo only situation where this would happen, would be a situation where the engine was so bad that nobody wanted to buy it. It's all business and in the business world people don't 'take their engines to the grave' just because of priciple or something.

If Funcom is going bankrupt and someone would pay cash money for their engine, they will sell it. Period.

Originally posted by rozenblade1

Originally posted by courtsdad

Originally posted by rozenblade1

They wont go bankrupt any time soon at least.  I say if things don't look up by this time next year, well, then that marks the end.

Many people are posting that AoC has upwards of 300,000 subs.  It's probably more like upwards of 200,000...250,000 at the most.  This isn't bad since I heard that they were at 90,000 at one point.

Haters wanna burry Funcom and AoC because it wasn't some MEGA success that a lot of people HOPED it was going to be.  They will always hate and always say AoC and Funcom are dead because AoC will never be this ultra successful MMO.  It will be a good MMO that never quite gets the respect it should because of Funcoms poor decision making from the start. 

AoC will probably top out at 500,000 subs at the most.  THAT IS IF Funcom keeps their promises and fixes what STILL NEEDS TO BE FIXED.

I enjoy the game, but it has a bad rep due to the many problems it had....but, I don't think Funcom will go bankrupt.....any time soon.

 

 

Where are you people getting these 300k-500k numbers? AFAIK they havent released any and if they did there is no way to verify. Given the number they started with, the number that left and the recent server merges are we to beleive that they have tripled paying customers since hitting an all time low?

 

If you actually read my post instead of just glancing and noticing some numbers you would have seen that I DID NOT SAY THERE ARE 300,000 or 500,000 subs, genius.
 

I said that there are PROBABLY something in the range of 200k-250k.....AND.......I said there most likely ARE NOT 300k-350k.

BUT......

I DID say that AoC's subs will PROBABLY top out at 500k....IN THE FUTURE....that is if Funcom can keep things going up....

READ BEFORE YOU RUN YOUR MOUTH!

Looking at your rant I see you say current numbers close to 300,000 and then you go on to say it would top out at 500,000 or so. You even caught that yourself saying 500, 000 and yet you tell someone to read before running their mouth. Now I am curious as well as to where you are getting these numbers. The person you responded to only asked where the 300-500 numbers came from.

LIGHTEN UP!  See everyone has a caps button :)

And for the record you also said people are reporting 300,000. What people?

Originally posted by Imjin

Originally posted by rozenblade1

Originally posted by courtsdad

Originally posted by rozenblade1

They wont go bankrupt any time soon at least.  I say if things don't look up by this time next year, well, then that marks the end.

Many people are posting that AoC has upwards of 300,000 subs.  It's probably more like upwards of 200,000...250,000 at the most.  This isn't bad since I heard that they were at 90,000 at one point.

Haters wanna burry Funcom and AoC because it wasn't some MEGA success that a lot of people HOPED it was going to be.  They will always hate and always say AoC and Funcom are dead because AoC will never be this ultra successful MMO.  It will be a good MMO that never quite gets the respect it should because of Funcoms poor decision making from the start. 

AoC will probably top out at 500,000 subs at the most.  THAT IS IF Funcom keeps their promises and fixes what STILL NEEDS TO BE FIXED.

I enjoy the game, but it has a bad rep due to the many problems it had....but, I don't think Funcom will go bankrupt.....any time soon.

 

 

Where are you people getting these 300k-500k numbers? AFAIK they havent released any and if they did there is no way to verify. Given the number they started with, the number that left and the recent server merges are we to beleive that they have tripled paying customers since hitting an all time low?

 

If you actually read my post instead of just glancing and noticing some numbers you would have seen that I DID NOT SAY THERE ARE 300,000 or 500,000 subs, genius.
 

I said that there are PROBABLY something in the range of 200k-250k.....AND.......I said there most likely ARE NOT 300k-350k.

BUT......

I DID say that AoC's subs will PROBABLY top out at 500k....IN THE FUTURE....that is if Funcom can keep things going up....

READ BEFORE YOU RUN YOUR MOUTH!

 

Looking at your rant I see you say current numbers close to 300,000 and then you go on to say it would top out at 500,000 or so. You even caught that yourself saying 500, 000 and yet you tell someone to read before running their mouth. Now I am curious as well as to where you are getting these numbers. The person you responded to only asked where the 300-500 numbers came from.

LIGHTEN UP!  See everyone has a caps button :)

And for the record you also said people are reporting 300,000. What people?

 

I'll admit, I overreacted...I'm just really used to dealing with people that go around and slam games on the forums....forgive me.
 

But, I did use words like PROBABLY, and MOST LIKELY, so nothing I said was concrete.

The numbers I gave were my theory pretty  much.  I never said that they were the number of subs. 

I assume there are probably 200k-250k subs currently, and I assume the max number of subs the game will ever get will be around 500k.

Now, I have read the posts of several players of AoC saying that the game has between 300k-350k subs.  I highly doubt that...but...I cannot say for sure. 

Now, I'm sorry if how I had written my original post wasn't clear, but I don't like when people just look at the numbers in the post instead of reading the words around the numbers...not saying you did that Imjin, but to me it seemed like Courtsdad did.

Like I said, I never said that my numbers were right.  It was my theoretical estimate...

Originally posted by rozenblade1

Originally posted by Imjin

Originally posted by rozenblade1

Originally posted by courtsdad

Originally posted by rozenblade1

They wont go bankrupt any time soon at least.  I say if things don't look up by this time next year, well, then that marks the end.

Many people are posting that AoC has upwards of 300,000 subs.  It's probably more like upwards of 200,000...250,000 at the most.  This isn't bad since I heard that they were at 90,000 at one point.

Haters wanna burry Funcom and AoC because it wasn't some MEGA success that a lot of people HOPED it was going to be.  They will always hate and always say AoC and Funcom are dead because AoC will never be this ultra successful MMO.  It will be a good MMO that never quite gets the respect it should because of Funcoms poor decision making from the start. 

AoC will probably top out at 500,000 subs at the most.  THAT IS IF Funcom keeps their promises and fixes what STILL NEEDS TO BE FIXED.

I enjoy the game, but it has a bad rep due to the many problems it had....but, I don't think Funcom will go bankrupt.....any time soon.

 

 

Where are you people getting these 300k-500k numbers? AFAIK they havent released any and if they did there is no way to verify. Given the number they started with, the number that left and the recent server merges are we to beleive that they have tripled paying customers since hitting an all time low?

 

If you actually read my post instead of just glancing and noticing some numbers you would have seen that I DID NOT SAY THERE ARE 300,000 or 500,000 subs, genius.
 

I said that there are PROBABLY something in the range of 200k-250k.....AND.......I said there most likely ARE NOT 300k-350k.

BUT......

I DID say that AoC's subs will PROBABLY top out at 500k....IN THE FUTURE....that is if Funcom can keep things going up....

READ BEFORE YOU RUN YOUR MOUTH!

 

Looking at your rant I see you say current numbers close to 300,000 and then you go on to say it would top out at 500,000 or so. You even caught that yourself saying 500, 000 and yet you tell someone to read before running their mouth. Now I am curious as well as to where you are getting these numbers. The person you responded to only asked where the 300-500 numbers came from.

LIGHTEN UP!  See everyone has a caps button :)

And for the record you also said people are reporting 300,000. What people?

 

I'll admit, I overreacted...I'm just really used to dealing with people that go around and slam games on the forums....forgive me.
 

But, I did use words like PROBABLY, and MOST LIKELY, so nothing I said was concrete.

The numbers I gave were my theory pretty  much.  I never said that they were the number of subs. 

I assume there are probably 200k-250k subs currently, and I assume the max number of subs the game will ever get will be around 500k.

Now, I have read the posts of several players of AoC saying that the game has between 300k-350k subs.  I highly doubt that...but...I cannot say for sure. 

Now, I'm sorry if how I had written my original post wasn't clear, but I don't like when people just look at the numbers in the post instead of reading the words around the numbers...not saying you did that Imjin, but to me it seemed like Courtsdad did.

Like I said, I never said that my numbers were right.  It was my theoretical estimate...

 

For a thread that start like this, "This is pure speculation...", your estimates are more than good enough.

Originally posted by BearShammy

Originally posted by rozenblade1

Originally posted by Imjin

Originally posted by rozenblade1

Originally posted by courtsdad

Originally posted by rozenblade1

They wont go bankrupt any time soon at least.  I say if things don't look up by this time next year, well, then that marks the end.

Many people are posting that AoC has upwards of 300,000 subs.  It's probably more like upwards of 200,000...250,000 at the most.  This isn't bad since I heard that they were at 90,000 at one point.

Haters wanna burry Funcom and AoC because it wasn't some MEGA success that a lot of people HOPED it was going to be.  They will always hate and always say AoC and Funcom are dead because AoC will never be this ultra successful MMO.  It will be a good MMO that never quite gets the respect it should because of Funcoms poor decision making from the start. 

AoC will probably top out at 500,000 subs at the most.  THAT IS IF Funcom keeps their promises and fixes what STILL NEEDS TO BE FIXED.

I enjoy the game, but it has a bad rep due to the many problems it had....but, I don't think Funcom will go bankrupt.....any time soon.

 

 

Where are you people getting these 300k-500k numbers? AFAIK they havent released any and if they did there is no way to verify. Given the number they started with, the number that left and the recent server merges are we to beleive that they have tripled paying customers since hitting an all time low?

 

If you actually read my post instead of just glancing and noticing some numbers you would have seen that I DID NOT SAY THERE ARE 300,000 or 500,000 subs, genius.
 

I said that there are PROBABLY something in the range of 200k-250k.....AND.......I said there most likely ARE NOT 300k-350k.

BUT......

I DID say that AoC's subs will PROBABLY top out at 500k....IN THE FUTURE....that is if Funcom can keep things going up....

READ BEFORE YOU RUN YOUR MOUTH!

 

Looking at your rant I see you say current numbers close to 300,000 and then you go on to say it would top out at 500,000 or so. You even caught that yourself saying 500, 000 and yet you tell someone to read before running their mouth. Now I am curious as well as to where you are getting these numbers. The person you responded to only asked where the 300-500 numbers came from.

LIGHTEN UP!  See everyone has a caps button :)

And for the record you also said people are reporting 300,000. What people?

 

I'll admit, I overreacted...I'm just really used to dealing with people that go around and slam games on the forums....forgive me.
 

But, I did use words like PROBABLY, and MOST LIKELY, so nothing I said was concrete.

The numbers I gave were my theory pretty  much.  I never said that they were the number of subs. 

I assume there are probably 200k-250k subs currently, and I assume the max number of subs the game will ever get will be around 500k.

Now, I have read the posts of several players of AoC saying that the game has between 300k-350k subs.  I highly doubt that...but...I cannot say for sure. 

Now, I'm sorry if how I had written my original post wasn't clear, but I don't like when people just look at the numbers in the post instead of reading the words around the numbers...not saying you did that Imjin, but to me it seemed like Courtsdad did.

Like I said, I never said that my numbers were right.  It was my theoretical estimate...

 

 

For a thread that start like this, "This is pure speculation...", your estimates are more than good enough.

Thank you!

I heard a rumor that some private investors are maybe about to buy Funcom.

It's just a rumor though..

SOE?  "Where games go to die?"