Funcom says its recently released MMO Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures currently boasts over 415,000 customers.
The game launched on May 20, and Funcom said in a Friday earnings report that the game's launch was the "largest MMO launch since World of Warcraft."
Funcom categorizes a "customer" as players "who are either subscribers or are playing in the first 30 days included in the sale of the box."
The game sold-in (to retail and digitally) 1.2 million units, and sold through (customers who have entered game client key and billing info) 800,000 copies to customers.
Age of Conan drove fiscal Q2 operating revenues to $13 million (£7 million), around $1 million higher than previous guidance. Losses before interest and tax were $6 million.
Q3 revenue is expected to rise to the range of $16 million to $20 million. The prime revenue stream will be subscription revenues from Age of Conan, Funcom said.
The company stated, "To maximize the average longevity of subscription Funcom will continue to expand,improve and adjust the product, as well as address key issues in the game on a running basis."
Funcom added, "[The] average playtime per player has been lower than expected. Potential influencing factors may be the high average age of subscribers (29 years), aspects of the game, summer holidays, etc."
The developer is currently in talks with local publishers to launch Age of Conan in major Asian markets sometime in the second half of next year.
As for the long-awaited Xbox 360 version of the game, it's still "in the early development phase."
So about half the people who bought it quit in the first 3 months? That seems to be in line with reports of people quitting in droves.
I also don't see how a 360 version could ever work. The requirements to play this thing at passable quality are really steep, and with the size of the patches the hard drive space requirements are also pretty steep. Maybe if they can require an Elite 360 to play it or something, but its never going to work with Microsoft's pathetic 20GB drives.
Funcom is among us Norwegians regarded as a national pride. So you can imagine my bewilderment after the statement concerning its dutch localization. ; )
Funcom has an intriguing portfolio a captivating touch on the story line of their games (as in Dreamfall: The Longest Journey), so fiscal revenues exceeding the expected is good news. The success of Age of Conan would be a significant boost to the developer to deliver more quality games, especially to a more mature audience than those of Wow (considering the average age of the players in the Hyborian world of Conan).
I went back to playing WoW. Age of Conan's art style was a little too bland and lifeless for me.