I usually agree with your sentiments. However I fear that for some time now the mods have been watching your post progress. I think perhaps it was the wording of your post A New Time Low? I do not agree with your infraction given by the mods but I am not a mod.
I think they have been waiting perhaps for the right post to nail you with. Please take heart in that I and some others disagree with that decision as the post itself did not contain any swear words or grand insults. It was merely a post due to your unhappiness with the game that you actually wanted to love.
I have not yet played conan myself, I still have it in its box and I think if funcom can survive not WAR but WOTLK then maybe in two or three years time they may have sorted it out enough for me to bother unwrapping it.
While MMORPG.com rely on advertisements those advertisements would not exsist if the community flocked away from this website.
Im rarely watch this forum anymore due to warhammer coming out which I have played and tested. However this situation does surprise me.
Take a very good look at the mods actions, and the posts made here by the games defenders.......
It tells you all you need to know about the sites motives.
Self interest.Nothing more.They need each other and are willing to do away with any of you that they "think" harms that cash flow.
As it stands now, the forums are the ONLY part of this site that serves the mmo playerbase in any good measureable way.
All the rest of the site is just advertisintg disguised as fluff "reporting".
So dont expect an answer worth a damn from the fans , MMO devs,or their surrogates.Its a waste to even ask for one.When they clearly act in their own interests against yours the comsumer, call them on it for all to see,but dont bother to direct it to them.Its a waste of time.
Direct it to the place that needs to know, the MMO consumer.You can do more to help the industry , the consumer, and yourself by simply telling each other what you know, and ignoring the people who are "running" things
The industry (the dev teams and their surrogates) havent listened to people (their own customers at that) in circa a decade.They are NOT gonna start now.The industry is hurting.Their own incompetence is hurting them.They are worried.The apology posts, and "we need more or your money posts", etc... show this.
Help put them out of their misery, and ours.They will be replaced.They tell you the industry will die if they fail,buts its untrue.Theyve failed for circa 10 years.
What will occur after they are finally gone is that the money ,IPs, and time they waste, will go to others.
Threads like this turn into flamefest/bait because posters try to misrepresent information to suit their argument/grip about a game as the OP appears to be doing. Those types of threads should be locked for the crap they bring to MMO forums.
If you're not an expert in the financial field or have some solid background in dealing with finances and specifically stocks in this instance then you shouldn't try to offer supposed financial advice or so called warnings on a company based on your opinion on their stock performance to help your fellow gamers. Your intentions here are very transparent to say the least.
And for the record I no longer play AoC nor am I happy with Funcom overall (very unhappy is closer to my current position) but, I can pick out disgruntled crap when I read it.
One more thing look at QEC.OL march 2008, it hit rock bottom...If you open that forex chart and look at march 2008 you will see that is EXACTLY when the US dollar passed the swiss franc.
So why did Funcom stock hit $55.50 (an all time high) shortly after????????????????
Because they hype had everyone believing it was the next WoW killer. Then the wheels fell off, and the rest is history. Now, I can't buy 2 20oz Cokes for the price of a share of Funcom stock. By the end of next week, I won't be able to buy one 20oz Coke for the price of a share of Funcom stock. The bottom has fallen out of it completely. As soon as you see it go under 89 cents a share, it will turn into a strong sell and be heading for penny stock category.
Fear not fanbois, we are not trolls, let's take off your tin foil hat and learn what VAPORWARE is:
"Vaporware is a term used to describe a software or hardware product that is announced by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge after having well exceeded the period of development time that was initially claimed or would normally be expected for the development cycle of a similar product."
Funcom, Farlan, Dimension Games. and SoE (the dev teams and their surrogates) havent listened to people (their own customers at that) in circa a decade.They are NOT gonna start now.The industry is hurting.Their own incompetence is hurting them.They are worried.The apology posts, and "we need more or your money posts", etc... show this.
There, fixed that for you. Call a spade a spade. The industry isn't the root of the problem. Developers like Funcom, SoE, Farlan, Dimension Games, and a couple others are the problem.
The thread I started on funcom stock falling is locked now and I have gotten a mod warning. I would like someone in charge to comment on this. We are not allowed to discuss the stock prices of game companies anymore?
let me know if they lock up another thread like that so i can stop coming to mmorpg.
What makes mmorpg forums good is the freedom people have here to tlak about lot of stuff.
We all know how Funcom nazi forum policies are.. believe me.. Age of Conan crappy game and Funcom need mmorpg more than mmorpg needs them.
Every single mmo player uses mmorpg as a source from wehere to pick games and get info. The day FC decides to stop sponsoring morpg, FC is pretty much dead in the mo market.
But the day mmropg starts to ban people for telling things the advertising companies dont like.. its the day moorpg will start to die aswel.
Stock prices will never settle as long as company CEO is selling off his Funcom stock. This is the worst sign that company is in a bad way.
Again with the misinformation. The company he owns ( not funcom) sold 18.7% of it's stock in Funcom. Weeks ago. He won't be able to sell any more until after the third quarter reports come out. The 400k shares sold represent 0.76% of the total shares in Funcom. It indicates nothing except he needed some liquidity in his portfolio.
Come on.....................You have no idea why he would sell 20% of his stock when he did. If I was the CEO and i had faith in my company, there would be no way in hell I would be selling.
Lets say he knocked up his babysitter and he needed some hush money. (please dont take it seriously) That would be a reason to sell. Or he is buying a new house and needed some quick cash for a down payment. Thats another reason to sell. There are many reasons but to say he needed "some liquidity in his portfolio" is just guessing.
I think the more logical reason he sold almost 20% of his shares is because he sees the writing on the wall. Funcom is in huge trouble and he knows it. So he sells some of his options and puts a little money in his back pocket. Pretty smart if you ask me.
1. Funcom is not in good shape. They spent 50M to produce and launch AOC ( 22M they borrowed in February). They only made 20% of box sales, which is 8M dollars. The rest goes to retailers and distributers. So basically they paid 50M to generate 8M.
3. Funcom LOST 8M in the 2nd quarter, despite the sales they got from boxes. They also had about -15M in cashflow and currently only have enough cash for about 6 more months of operation.
4. Funcom currently has 32M cash assets, and is in debt about 30M. 23M of that is short term debt which has to be repayed in the next 2 years. Seeing how Funcom lost 8M in the second quarter, it makes it difficult to see where they are going to get that 23M from.
5. All the major stock indexs are down about 5% over the past 2 years. Funcom's stock is down 50% over the same period... and is down a whopping 80% since it's high in may. When stock markets have 'bad' days.. it's usually 2-3%.... Funcom has had about 10 days in the past month where it's stock has dropped more than 10% and it hasn't had two positive days in a row since June.
6. Even with 800k box sales and 400k subscribers in the 2nd quarter.. Funcom LOST 8M dollars. How much bigger will that loss be when they don't have 800k box sales.
Funcom wont exist in 12 months. I really think things have gone so far downhill in terms of their reputation, gaining a fraction of that back is going to be a tough, tough ask. Maybe they can get the game up to par and try to sell it too Sony....Sony can claim "Under New Management"....mind you Sony doesnt have the best rep either, but they do have money.
This thread is just full of bad information 1. Funcom is not in good shape. They spent 50M to produce and launch AOC ( 22M they borrowed in February). They only made 20% of box sales, which is 8M dollars. The rest goes to retailers and distributers. So basically they paid 50M to generate 8M. 3. Funcom LOST 8M in the 2nd quarter, despite the sales they got from boxes. They also had about -15M in cashflow and currently only have enough cash for about 6 more months of operation. 4. Funcom currently has 32M cash assets, and is in debt about 30M. 23M of that is short term debt which has to be repayed in the next 2 years. Seeing how Funcom lost 8M in the second quarter, it makes it difficult to see where they are going to get that 23M from. 5. All the major stock indexs are down about 5% over the past 2 years. Funcom's stock is down 50% over the same period... and is down a whopping 80% since it's high in may. When stock markets have 'bad' days.. it's usually 2-3%.... Funcom has had about 10 days in the past month where it's stock has dropped more than 10% and it hasn't had two positive days in a row since June. 6. Even with 800k box sales and 400k subscribers in the 2nd quarter.. Funcom LOST 8M dollars. How much bigger will that loss be when they don't have 800k box sales.
Don't forget, they're biggest stock loss was in one day. Hard to blame that on the rest of the market.
The thread I started on funcom stock falling is locked now and I have gotten a mod warning. I would like someone in charge to comment on this. We are not allowed to discuss the stock prices of game companies anymore?
Because it isn't intresting to read on a gaming forums, we have tons of stock exchange forums, spend your time their, oh wait many of you can't cause then you will meet people who actualy understand it and on gaming forums especialy those kids with their failcom avatar think it might make them look smart when talking stocks when most of them seem to be completly clueless about how it works. Sure some seem to have some knowhow about it, but far from a realistic sense of it. I do have plenty of stocks and ...wel never mind it's the internet, but overall I see no use to discus stocks on forums like this.
YOU may not be interested in discussing the stock performance here but that doesn't make it a violation of the terms of this forum.
As above, this is a GENERAL DISCUSSION of AoC. The Funcom stock value pertains to Funcom, who makes AoC and directly impacts the present and future of AoC.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean that the OP violated any terms of agreement on this forum.
Well said ,I agree 100 %
The falling stock price is a topic of interest to many and does in no way infringe on the terms of mmorpg.com.
To me this seems like an attempt to stop negative publicity towards Funcom ..which is impossible while there is a forum to have a general discussion about AOC
honestly I don't think anyone cares anymore. Other than the share holders. Crapping on this game is just one more pile of poop on a mountain of it. Funcom dug their grave, let em RIP
The thread I started on funcom stock falling is locked now and I have gotten a mod warning. I would like someone in charge to comment on this. We are not allowed to discuss the stock prices of game companies anymore?
Pretty much everything you see on this site is a paid advertisement. Why else would there be stories about EQ2, DDO and all the other games no one playes anymore.
Funcom wont exist in 12 months. I really think things have gone so far downhill in terms of their reputation, gaining a fraction of that back is going to be a tough, tough ask. Maybe they can get the game up to par and try to sell it too Sony....Sony can claim "Under New Management"....mind you Sony doesnt have the best rep either, but they do have money.
And it will al be their own fault. The ignored most of their beta testers and pushed out a half finished product that was full of bugs. You should have seen how bad the initial game interface was untill EVERYONE complained about it. It was obvious that whoever designed it (someone's wife IIRC) had never played a mmo (or quite possible ANY ) game before. Who the hell puts the strafe keys on Z and C? Oh, wait, I think they left those there in the release.... 0.o
EDIT: one of my favorite parts about the beta was that their bug report tool would usually crash the game.
This thread is just full of bad information 1. Funcom is not in good shape. They spent 50M to produce and launch AOC ( 22M they borrowed in February). They only made 20% of box sales, which is 8M dollars. The rest goes to retailers and distributers. So basically they paid 50M to generate 8M. 3. Funcom LOST 8M in the 2nd quarter, despite the sales they got from boxes. They also had about -15M in cashflow and currently only have enough cash for about 6 more months of operation. 4. Funcom currently has 32M cash assets, and is in debt about 30M. 23M of that is short term debt which has to be repayed in the next 2 years. Seeing how Funcom lost 8M in the second quarter, it makes it difficult to see where they are going to get that 23M from. 5. All the major stock indexs are down about 5% over the past 2 years. Funcom's stock is down 50% over the same period... and is down a whopping 80% since it's high in may. When stock markets have 'bad' days.. it's usually 2-3%.... Funcom has had about 10 days in the past month where it's stock has dropped more than 10% and it hasn't had two positive days in a row since June. 6. Even with 800k box sales and 400k subscribers in the 2nd quarter.. Funcom LOST 8M dollars. How much bigger will that loss be when they don't have 800k box sales.
I agree that they are not in a great condition, but they are not in as bad situation as you claim.
They have 21.8M in short term debt, but they have 32M cash to cover it, 18M trade debtors (so let's say 10% is written off, so it's ~16M). That short term debt isn't nearly as bad, as you made it look.
Also their operating expenses will be much lower than in Q2, which was 15m. It'll be more along the lines of 5M. Their revenues will be less but their expenses will be less also.
And it's clear that they plan to re-use the technology developed in AoC for other projects, so saying that 50M was invested just in AoC isn't accurate.
I wouldn't want to be in their shoes, but saying that they are going to be bankrupt is rushed.
And it's clear that they plan to re-use the technology developed in AoC for other projects, so saying that 50M was invested just in AoC isn't accurate.
Dear god, no! Isnt it enough that one game and the entire reputation of a company is ruined. They cant seriously think about re-using anything from AoC.
The thread I started on funcom stock falling is locked now and I have gotten a mod warning. I would like someone in charge to comment on this. We are not allowed to discuss the stock prices of game companies anymore?
So you decided to hang out here to look for attention by talking about a thread that got locked in which you were warned by a moderator.
That's real pertinent to AOC. Are you bored with Warhammer already or something?
I think you have to question the motives of those who post stock information especially if they don't care for the game or company at all. They turn into flame bait threads. Sure its good to know how a company is doing but 98% of current subscribers only care about whats going on in the game. When you have 15 stock thread posts in a few week spaces from that type of person mentioned above then you have to ask where can people talk about the game itself. As I said i question the motives of those who post stock info, we don't see it in any other game from people who don't play anymore. EA's 52 week low, NCsoft laying off staff and merging etc. The forums here I thought are not for a daily report of minute by minute stock concerns. These are not business forums.
EA and NCsoft didn't scam a couple hundred thousand people recently either, and with how Funcom played the secrecy game and put out boxes that advertised things not in the game then, or even now, people are going to take their revenge.
If you don't like it, that's just too damn bad really. Other companies will hopefully take notice of the war against funcom by ex-AoC players and see that as a reason to improve how they do their releases. The best thing for the MMO industry would be fore AoC to get destroyed by the players that were burned by Funcom's shady actions. If companies see that hyping a game and then trying to PR-spin the suck to keep people going is going to risk your company going under, maybe companies will keep in mind to never, EVER pull the shit funcom did.
Hell look at WHO, there was an announcement that some classes/areas weren't going to make it for launch, which pissed people off. However, not saying anything until after launch would've turned those pissed off (yet probably still going to buy the game) people in to war-bashers that will make sure to return the pain to EA/Mythic like people are doing to funcom for their shady actions and dishonesty.
A person in your position needs to accept the fact that funcom epically fucked up and are being taken to the toolshed because of it. Funcom's stocks being mentioned are valid because it's a good indication of the fight people are taking against funcom for AoC and that AoC was total hype and eyecandy so their stocks are suffering as any company's would due to such a failure.
Funny thing is...THEY STILL LOST MILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF BORROWED MONEY. You can sugarcoat it all you want but they are in big big trouble. Wait till Q3 when they say they only have 50k subs left and are in debt more then they were at Q2.
No part of that is true. AoC was revenue neutral. It paid for itself. Anything it earns from here on out is income.
Except Funcom has to pay AoC's staff, and server costs, advertising...etc.
And they aren't going to have another 800k box sales and years of hype to help them in Q3. I think Q3 is going to be extremely bleak for funcom regarding AoC and what they were looking to have from it.
I think you have to question the motives of those who post stock information especially if they don't care for the game or company at all. They turn into flame bait threads. Sure its good to know how a company is doing but 98% of current subscribers only care about whats going on in the game. When you have 15 stock thread posts in a few week spaces from that type of person mentioned above then you have to ask where can people talk about the game itself. As I said i question the motives of those who post stock info, we don't see it in any other game from people who don't play anymore. EA's 52 week low, NCsoft laying off staff and merging etc. The forums here I thought are not for a daily report of minute by minute stock concerns. These are not business forums.
EA and NCsoft didn't scam a couple hundred thousand people recently either, and with how Funcom played the secrecy game and put out boxes that advertised things not in the game then, or even now, people are going to take their revenge.
If you don't like it, that's just too damn bad really. Other companies will hopefully take notice of the war against funcom by ex-AoC players and see that as a reason to improve how they do their releases. The best thing for the MMO industry would be fore AoC to get destroyed by the players that were burned by Funcom's shady actions. If companies see that hyping a game and then trying to PR-spin the suck to keep people going is going to risk your company going under, maybe companies will keep in mind to never, EVER pull the shit funcom did.
Hell look at WHO, there was an announcement that some classes/areas weren't going to make it for launch, which pissed people off. However, not saying anything until after launch would've turned those pissed off (yet probably still going to buy the game) people in to war-bashers that will make sure to return the pain to EA/Mythic like people are doing to funcom for their shady actions and dishonesty.
A person in your position needs to accept the fact that funcom epically fucked up and are being taken to the toolshed because of it. Funcom's stocks being mentioned are valid because it's a good indication of the fight people are taking against funcom for AoC and that AoC was total hype and eyecandy so their stocks are suffering as any company's would due to such a failure.
The problem isn't the content it's the context it's presented in. If It's meant to be inflammatory to users not to deter investors, who looks to this site for their investment analysis anyway? It's causing more problems than it's helping anyone. You can attack funcom all you want, no one is going to stop you. However when you're breaching over into baiting territory, expect to be moderated. Telling people to live with it isn't helping anything, you're just on a path to more drama and hostility.
I could careless who likes or dislikes funcom, I only care about the quality of the discussion. Which in AOC's case is quite subpar. If you can even call it a discussion, it's more of a petty fued between two sides who simply can't except the other side feels differently. In reality both sides add to this nosensical argument about semantics and their own idea of what's in bounds and what's out.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I think you have to question the motives of those who post stock information especially if they don't care for the game or company at all. They turn into flame bait threads. Sure its good to know how a company is doing but 98% of current subscribers only care about whats going on in the game. When you have 15 stock thread posts in a few week spaces from that type of person mentioned above then you have to ask where can people talk about the game itself. As I said i question the motives of those who post stock info, we don't see it in any other game from people who don't play anymore. EA's 52 week low, NCsoft laying off staff and merging etc. The forums here I thought are not for a daily report of minute by minute stock concerns. These are not business forums.
EA and NCsoft didn't scam a couple hundred thousand people recently either, and with how Funcom played the secrecy game and put out boxes that advertised things not in the game then, or even now, people are going to take their revenge.
If you don't like it, that's just too damn bad really. Other companies will hopefully take notice of the war against funcom by ex-AoC players and see that as a reason to improve how they do their releases. The best thing for the MMO industry would be fore AoC to get destroyed by the players that were burned by Funcom's shady actions. If companies see that hyping a game and then trying to PR-spin the suck to keep people going is going to risk your company going under, maybe companies will keep in mind to never, EVER pull the shit funcom did.
Hell look at WHO, there was an announcement that some classes/areas weren't going to make it for launch, which pissed people off. However, not saying anything until after launch would've turned those pissed off (yet probably still going to buy the game) people in to war-bashers that will make sure to return the pain to EA/Mythic like people are doing to funcom for their shady actions and dishonesty.
A person in your position needs to accept the fact that funcom epically fucked up and are being taken to the toolshed because of it. Funcom's stocks being mentioned are valid because it's a good indication of the fight people are taking against funcom for AoC and that AoC was total hype and eyecandy so their stocks are suffering as any company's would due to such a failure.
The problem isn't the content it's the context it's presented in. If It's meant to be inflammatory to users not to deter investors, who looks to this site for their investment analysis anyway? It's causing more problems than it's helping anyone. You can attack funcom all you want, no one is going to stop you. However when you're breaching over into baiting territory, expect to be moderated. Telling people to live with it isn't helping anything, you're just on a path to more drama and hostility.
I could careless who likes or dislikes funcom, I only care about the quality of the discussion. Which in AOC's case is quite subpar. If you can even call it a discussion, it's more of a petty fued between two sides who simply can't except the other side feels differently. In reality both sides add to this nosensical argument about semantics and their own idea of what's in bounds and what's out.
Every game is going to have their haters. I dont care how good of a game you release there will be someone out there bashing it. What offsets those bashers are people who like to play a game which 99% of the time there are more of. The problem we have with AoC is that the game sucked so bad that the haters overwhelmingly outweigh the people (few people at that) that like it. So now you come to this site and its mostly "this game sucks", "stock is in the tank", "funcom will go bankrupt" etc etc. Who is to blame for this? Its not the mmo genre thats for sure....ITS FUNCOM. They are to blame for putting out such a horid game, their shady business practices and bad customer service.
There are only a few games that have had this much abuse on this site and they are:
This thread is just full of bad information 1. Funcom is not in good shape. They spent 50M to produce and launch AOC ( 22M they borrowed in February). They only made 20% of box sales, which is 8M dollars. The rest goes to retailers and distributers. So basically they paid 50M to generate 8M. 3. Funcom LOST 8M in the 2nd quarter, despite the sales they got from boxes. They also had about -15M in cashflow and currently only have enough cash for about 6 more months of operation. 4. Funcom currently has 32M cash assets, and is in debt about 30M. 23M of that is short term debt which has to be repayed in the next 2 years. Seeing how Funcom lost 8M in the second quarter, it makes it difficult to see where they are going to get that 23M from. 5. All the major stock indexs are down about 5% over the past 2 years. Funcom's stock is down 50% over the same period... and is down a whopping 80% since it's high in may. When stock markets have 'bad' days.. it's usually 2-3%.... Funcom has had about 10 days in the past month where it's stock has dropped more than 10% and it hasn't had two positive days in a row since June. 6. Even with 800k box sales and 400k subscribers in the 2nd quarter.. Funcom LOST 8M dollars. How much bigger will that loss be when they don't have 800k box sales.
I agree that they are not in a great condition, but they are not in as bad situation as you claim.
They have 21.8M in short term debt, but they have 32M cash to cover it, 18M trade debtors (so let's say 10% is written off, so it's ~16M). That short term debt isn't nearly as bad, as you made it look.
Also their operating expenses will be much lower than in Q2, which was 15m. It'll be more along the lines of 5M. Their revenues will be less but their expenses will be less also.
And it's clear that they plan to re-use the technology developed in AoC for other projects, so saying that 50M was invested just in AoC isn't accurate.
I wouldn't want to be in their shoes, but saying that they are going to be bankrupt is rushed.
Their expenses will definitely be less than in the 2Q.. but their revenues will be SIGNIFICANLY less.
Yes, on the surface you can say that they have 21.8M in short term debt, and 32M in cash to cover it.. but what that fails to address is that in the 2nd Quarter, they had 16M in negative cash flow. That means that 32M will be eaten up just paying operational costs for the next 6 months. Granted, the 16M negative cash flow is not likely to be repeated in the 3rd quarter, but it will still be a signifant portion of that 32M. My guess is at the end of the 3rd Quarter, they will still have that 22M in debt, but will only have 20M in cash assets ( in other words, they will have neg cash flow of 12M).
The question is.. which will come first.. Will Funcom run through that 32M in cash assets, or will that 22M in debt come due.
No matter what, the company is operating at a deficit and has significant short term debt. It has nothing going to happen in the next 6 months that is anything at all they can look forward to.
Mark my words, Funcom will be announcing the shutdown/sale of AOC or bankruptcy by the end of this year.
Maybe, in the end depends on the impact and staying power of wotlk and warhammer. Most players don't subscribe for more than 2 mmorpg's at the same time for large periods of time. And i'm being optimistic. most subs just to one game.
Even not being so negative about FC financial status and destiny, I wouldnt like to be in their position.
Originally posted by Hamrtime2 Every game is going to have their haters. I dont care how good of a game you release there will be someone out there bashing it. What offsets those bashers are people who like to play a game which 99% of the time there are more of. The problem we have with AoC is that the game sucked so bad that the haters overwhelmingly outweigh the people (few people at that) that like it. So now you come to this site and its mostly "this game sucks", "stock is in the tank", "funcom will go bankrupt" etc etc. Who is to blame for this? Its not the mmo genre thats for sure....ITS FUNCOM. They are to blame for putting out such a horid game, their shady business practices and bad customer service.
There are only a few games that have had this much abuse on this site and they are: Dark and Light Vanguard SWG NGE
Very true, yet there is a bit more unneeded hostility between posters here, than there were even over on the vet refuge. That's saying something man, it really is. I came here after SWG was completely destroyed, which basically turned me into a forum whore. I was there for vg:soh beta and launch, now I'm here for AOC, maybe I'm bad luck?
You're right though it is in the end Funcoms fault, no they're not controlling anyone's actions. However, they continually fuel the fire. Through both their silence and their overdrawn hype and arrogance. Like I originally said, I really don't care what side a poster is on. I try and treat them with the same respect, I wish to receive in return.
BTW did you play SWG ? Just curious, A jedi with same name was on my server in a guild called AXIS.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Comments
Dear failcom guy,
I usually agree with your sentiments. However I fear that for some time now the mods have been watching your post progress. I think perhaps it was the wording of your post A New Time Low? I do not agree with your infraction given by the mods but I am not a mod.
I think they have been waiting perhaps for the right post to nail you with. Please take heart in that I and some others disagree with that decision as the post itself did not contain any swear words or grand insults. It was merely a post due to your unhappiness with the game that you actually wanted to love.
I have not yet played conan myself, I still have it in its box and I think if funcom can survive not WAR but WOTLK then maybe in two or three years time they may have sorted it out enough for me to bother unwrapping it.
While MMORPG.com rely on advertisements those advertisements would not exsist if the community flocked away from this website.
Im rarely watch this forum anymore due to warhammer coming out which I have played and tested. However this situation does surprise me.
Wic
Take a very good look at the mods actions, and the posts made here by the games defenders.......
It tells you all you need to know about the sites motives.
Self interest.Nothing more.They need each other and are willing to do away with any of you that they "think" harms that cash flow.
As it stands now, the forums are the ONLY part of this site that serves the mmo playerbase in any good measureable way.
All the rest of the site is just advertisintg disguised as fluff "reporting".
So dont expect an answer worth a damn from the fans , MMO devs,or their surrogates.Its a waste to even ask for one.When they clearly act in their own interests against yours the comsumer, call them on it for all to see,but dont bother to direct it to them.Its a waste of time.
Direct it to the place that needs to know, the MMO consumer.You can do more to help the industry , the consumer, and yourself by simply telling each other what you know, and ignoring the people who are "running" things
The industry (the dev teams and their surrogates) havent listened to people (their own customers at that) in circa a decade.They are NOT gonna start now.The industry is hurting.Their own incompetence is hurting them.They are worried.The apology posts, and "we need more or your money posts", etc... show this.
Help put them out of their misery, and ours.They will be replaced.They tell you the industry will die if they fail,buts its untrue.Theyve failed for circa 10 years.
What will occur after they are finally gone is that the money ,IPs, and time they waste, will go to others.
The industry needs a rebirth. Help it get it.
Threads like this turn into flamefest/bait because posters try to misrepresent information to suit their argument/grip about a game as the OP appears to be doing. Those types of threads should be locked for the crap they bring to MMO forums.
If you're not an expert in the financial field or have some solid background in dealing with finances and specifically stocks in this instance then you shouldn't try to offer supposed financial advice or so called warnings on a company based on your opinion on their stock performance to help your fellow gamers. Your intentions here are very transparent to say the least.
And for the record I no longer play AoC nor am I happy with Funcom overall (very unhappy is closer to my current position) but, I can pick out disgruntled crap when I read it.
So why did Funcom stock hit $55.50 (an all time high) shortly after????????????????
Because they hype had everyone believing it was the next WoW killer. Then the wheels fell off, and the rest is history. Now, I can't buy 2 20oz Cokes for the price of a share of Funcom stock. By the end of next week, I won't be able to buy one 20oz Coke for the price of a share of Funcom stock. The bottom has fallen out of it completely. As soon as you see it go under 89 cents a share, it will turn into a strong sell and be heading for penny stock category.
Fear not fanbois, we are not trolls, let's take off your tin foil hat and learn what VAPORWARE is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporware
"Vaporware is a term used to describe a software or hardware product that is announced by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge after having well exceeded the period of development time that was initially claimed or would normally be expected for the development cycle of a similar product."
There, fixed that for you. Call a spade a spade. The industry isn't the root of the problem. Developers like Funcom, SoE, Farlan, Dimension Games, and a couple others are the problem.
Been talked about a lot on this forum, musta gotten a little outta hand.
"The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion." -Edmund Burke
Who will rise up for me against the evildoers? or who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity?"
(Psalm 94:16)
let me know if they lock up another thread like that so i can stop coming to mmorpg.
What makes mmorpg forums good is the freedom people have here to tlak about lot of stuff.
We all know how Funcom nazi forum policies are.. believe me.. Age of Conan crappy game and Funcom need mmorpg more than mmorpg needs them.
Every single mmo player uses mmorpg as a source from wehere to pick games and get info. The day FC decides to stop sponsoring morpg, FC is pretty much dead in the mo market.
But the day mmropg starts to ban people for telling things the advertising companies dont like.. its the day moorpg will start to die aswel.
Again with the misinformation. The company he owns ( not funcom) sold 18.7% of it's stock in Funcom. Weeks ago. He won't be able to sell any more until after the third quarter reports come out. The 400k shares sold represent 0.76% of the total shares in Funcom. It indicates nothing except he needed some liquidity in his portfolio.
Come on.....................You have no idea why he would sell 20% of his stock when he did. If I was the CEO and i had faith in my company, there would be no way in hell I would be selling.
Lets say he knocked up his babysitter and he needed some hush money. (please dont take it seriously) That would be a reason to sell. Or he is buying a new house and needed some quick cash for a down payment. Thats another reason to sell. There are many reasons but to say he needed "some liquidity in his portfolio" is just guessing.
I think the more logical reason he sold almost 20% of his shares is because he sees the writing on the wall. Funcom is in huge trouble and he knows it. So he sells some of his options and puts a little money in his back pocket. Pretty smart if you ask me.
This thread is just full of bad information
1. Funcom is not in good shape. They spent 50M to produce and launch AOC ( 22M they borrowed in February). They only made 20% of box sales, which is 8M dollars. The rest goes to retailers and distributers. So basically they paid 50M to generate 8M.
3. Funcom LOST 8M in the 2nd quarter, despite the sales they got from boxes. They also had about -15M in cashflow and currently only have enough cash for about 6 more months of operation.
4. Funcom currently has 32M cash assets, and is in debt about 30M. 23M of that is short term debt which has to be repayed in the next 2 years. Seeing how Funcom lost 8M in the second quarter, it makes it difficult to see where they are going to get that 23M from.
5. All the major stock indexs are down about 5% over the past 2 years. Funcom's stock is down 50% over the same period... and is down a whopping 80% since it's high in may. When stock markets have 'bad' days.. it's usually 2-3%.... Funcom has had about 10 days in the past month where it's stock has dropped more than 10% and it hasn't had two positive days in a row since June.
6. Even with 800k box sales and 400k subscribers in the 2nd quarter.. Funcom LOST 8M dollars. How much bigger will that loss be when they don't have 800k box sales.
Funcom wont exist in 12 months. I really think things have gone so far downhill in terms of their reputation, gaining a fraction of that back is going to be a tough, tough ask. Maybe they can get the game up to par and try to sell it too Sony....Sony can claim "Under New Management"....mind you Sony doesnt have the best rep either, but they do have money.
Don't forget, they're biggest stock loss was in one day. Hard to blame that on the rest of the market.
Because it isn't intresting to read on a gaming forums, we have tons of stock exchange forums, spend your time their, oh wait many of you can't cause then you will meet people who actualy understand it and on gaming forums especialy those kids with their failcom avatar think it might make them look smart when talking stocks when most of them seem to be completly clueless about how it works. Sure some seem to have some knowhow about it, but far from a realistic sense of it. I do have plenty of stocks and ...wel never mind it's the internet, but overall I see no use to discus stocks on forums like this.
YOU may not be interested in discussing the stock performance here but that doesn't make it a violation of the terms of this forum.
As above, this is a GENERAL DISCUSSION of AoC. The Funcom stock value pertains to Funcom, who makes AoC and directly impacts the present and future of AoC.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean that the OP violated any terms of agreement on this forum.
Well said ,I agree 100 %
The falling stock price is a topic of interest to many and does in no way infringe on the terms of mmorpg.com.
To me this seems like an attempt to stop negative publicity towards Funcom ..which is impossible while there is a forum to have a general discussion about AOC
"after the time of dice came the day of mice "
honestly I don't think anyone cares anymore. Other than the share holders. Crapping on this game is just one more pile of poop on a mountain of it. Funcom dug their grave, let em RIP
I miss DAoC
Pretty much everything you see on this site is a paid advertisement. Why else would there be stories about EQ2, DDO and all the other games no one playes anymore.
And it will al be their own fault. The ignored most of their beta testers and pushed out a half finished product that was full of bugs. You should have seen how bad the initial game interface was untill EVERYONE complained about it. It was obvious that whoever designed it (someone's wife IIRC) had never played a mmo (or quite possible ANY ) game before. Who the hell puts the strafe keys on Z and C? Oh, wait, I think they left those there in the release.... 0.o
EDIT: one of my favorite parts about the beta was that their bug report tool would usually crash the game.
I agree that they are not in a great condition, but they are not in as bad situation as you claim.
They have 21.8M in short term debt, but they have 32M cash to cover it, 18M trade debtors (so let's say 10% is written off, so it's ~16M). That short term debt isn't nearly as bad, as you made it look.
Also their operating expenses will be much lower than in Q2, which was 15m. It'll be more along the lines of 5M. Their revenues will be less but their expenses will be less also.
And it's clear that they plan to re-use the technology developed in AoC for other projects, so saying that 50M was invested just in AoC isn't accurate.
I wouldn't want to be in their shoes, but saying that they are going to be bankrupt is rushed.
Dear god, no! Isnt it enough that one game and the entire reputation of a company is ruined. They cant seriously think about re-using anything from AoC.
So you decided to hang out here to look for attention by talking about a thread that got locked in which you were warned by a moderator.
That's real pertinent to AOC. Are you bored with Warhammer already or something?
EA and NCsoft didn't scam a couple hundred thousand people recently either, and with how Funcom played the secrecy game and put out boxes that advertised things not in the game then, or even now, people are going to take their revenge.
If you don't like it, that's just too damn bad really. Other companies will hopefully take notice of the war against funcom by ex-AoC players and see that as a reason to improve how they do their releases. The best thing for the MMO industry would be fore AoC to get destroyed by the players that were burned by Funcom's shady actions. If companies see that hyping a game and then trying to PR-spin the suck to keep people going is going to risk your company going under, maybe companies will keep in mind to never, EVER pull the shit funcom did.
Hell look at WHO, there was an announcement that some classes/areas weren't going to make it for launch, which pissed people off. However, not saying anything until after launch would've turned those pissed off (yet probably still going to buy the game) people in to war-bashers that will make sure to return the pain to EA/Mythic like people are doing to funcom for their shady actions and dishonesty.
A person in your position needs to accept the fact that funcom epically fucked up and are being taken to the toolshed because of it. Funcom's stocks being mentioned are valid because it's a good indication of the fight people are taking against funcom for AoC and that AoC was total hype and eyecandy so their stocks are suffering as any company's would due to such a failure.
No part of that is true. AoC was revenue neutral. It paid for itself. Anything it earns from here on out is income.
Except Funcom has to pay AoC's staff, and server costs, advertising...etc.
And they aren't going to have another 800k box sales and years of hype to help them in Q3. I think Q3 is going to be extremely bleak for funcom regarding AoC and what they were looking to have from it.
EA and NCsoft didn't scam a couple hundred thousand people recently either, and with how Funcom played the secrecy game and put out boxes that advertised things not in the game then, or even now, people are going to take their revenge.
If you don't like it, that's just too damn bad really. Other companies will hopefully take notice of the war against funcom by ex-AoC players and see that as a reason to improve how they do their releases. The best thing for the MMO industry would be fore AoC to get destroyed by the players that were burned by Funcom's shady actions. If companies see that hyping a game and then trying to PR-spin the suck to keep people going is going to risk your company going under, maybe companies will keep in mind to never, EVER pull the shit funcom did.
Hell look at WHO, there was an announcement that some classes/areas weren't going to make it for launch, which pissed people off. However, not saying anything until after launch would've turned those pissed off (yet probably still going to buy the game) people in to war-bashers that will make sure to return the pain to EA/Mythic like people are doing to funcom for their shady actions and dishonesty.
A person in your position needs to accept the fact that funcom epically fucked up and are being taken to the toolshed because of it. Funcom's stocks being mentioned are valid because it's a good indication of the fight people are taking against funcom for AoC and that AoC was total hype and eyecandy so their stocks are suffering as any company's would due to such a failure.
The problem isn't the content it's the context it's presented in. If It's meant to be inflammatory to users not to deter investors, who looks to this site for their investment analysis anyway? It's causing more problems than it's helping anyone. You can attack funcom all you want, no one is going to stop you. However when you're breaching over into baiting territory, expect to be moderated. Telling people to live with it isn't helping anything, you're just on a path to more drama and hostility.
I could careless who likes or dislikes funcom, I only care about the quality of the discussion. Which in AOC's case is quite subpar. If you can even call it a discussion, it's more of a petty fued between two sides who simply can't except the other side feels differently. In reality both sides add to this nosensical argument about semantics and their own idea of what's in bounds and what's out.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
EA and NCsoft didn't scam a couple hundred thousand people recently either, and with how Funcom played the secrecy game and put out boxes that advertised things not in the game then, or even now, people are going to take their revenge.
If you don't like it, that's just too damn bad really. Other companies will hopefully take notice of the war against funcom by ex-AoC players and see that as a reason to improve how they do their releases. The best thing for the MMO industry would be fore AoC to get destroyed by the players that were burned by Funcom's shady actions. If companies see that hyping a game and then trying to PR-spin the suck to keep people going is going to risk your company going under, maybe companies will keep in mind to never, EVER pull the shit funcom did.
Hell look at WHO, there was an announcement that some classes/areas weren't going to make it for launch, which pissed people off. However, not saying anything until after launch would've turned those pissed off (yet probably still going to buy the game) people in to war-bashers that will make sure to return the pain to EA/Mythic like people are doing to funcom for their shady actions and dishonesty.
A person in your position needs to accept the fact that funcom epically fucked up and are being taken to the toolshed because of it. Funcom's stocks being mentioned are valid because it's a good indication of the fight people are taking against funcom for AoC and that AoC was total hype and eyecandy so their stocks are suffering as any company's would due to such a failure.
The problem isn't the content it's the context it's presented in. If It's meant to be inflammatory to users not to deter investors, who looks to this site for their investment analysis anyway? It's causing more problems than it's helping anyone. You can attack funcom all you want, no one is going to stop you. However when you're breaching over into baiting territory, expect to be moderated. Telling people to live with it isn't helping anything, you're just on a path to more drama and hostility.
I could careless who likes or dislikes funcom, I only care about the quality of the discussion. Which in AOC's case is quite subpar. If you can even call it a discussion, it's more of a petty fued between two sides who simply can't except the other side feels differently. In reality both sides add to this nosensical argument about semantics and their own idea of what's in bounds and what's out.
Every game is going to have their haters. I dont care how good of a game you release there will be someone out there bashing it. What offsets those bashers are people who like to play a game which 99% of the time there are more of. The problem we have with AoC is that the game sucked so bad that the haters overwhelmingly outweigh the people (few people at that) that like it. So now you come to this site and its mostly "this game sucks", "stock is in the tank", "funcom will go bankrupt" etc etc. Who is to blame for this? Its not the mmo genre thats for sure....ITS FUNCOM. They are to blame for putting out such a horid game, their shady business practices and bad customer service.
There are only a few games that have had this much abuse on this site and they are:
Dark and Light
Vanguard
SWG NGE
I agree that they are not in a great condition, but they are not in as bad situation as you claim.
They have 21.8M in short term debt, but they have 32M cash to cover it, 18M trade debtors (so let's say 10% is written off, so it's ~16M). That short term debt isn't nearly as bad, as you made it look.
Also their operating expenses will be much lower than in Q2, which was 15m. It'll be more along the lines of 5M. Their revenues will be less but their expenses will be less also.
And it's clear that they plan to re-use the technology developed in AoC for other projects, so saying that 50M was invested just in AoC isn't accurate.
I wouldn't want to be in their shoes, but saying that they are going to be bankrupt is rushed.
Their expenses will definitely be less than in the 2Q.. but their revenues will be SIGNIFICANLY less.
Yes, on the surface you can say that they have 21.8M in short term debt, and 32M in cash to cover it.. but what that fails to address is that in the 2nd Quarter, they had 16M in negative cash flow. That means that 32M will be eaten up just paying operational costs for the next 6 months. Granted, the 16M negative cash flow is not likely to be repeated in the 3rd quarter, but it will still be a signifant portion of that 32M. My guess is at the end of the 3rd Quarter, they will still have that 22M in debt, but will only have 20M in cash assets ( in other words, they will have neg cash flow of 12M).
The question is.. which will come first.. Will Funcom run through that 32M in cash assets, or will that 22M in debt come due.
No matter what, the company is operating at a deficit and has significant short term debt. It has nothing going to happen in the next 6 months that is anything at all they can look forward to.
Mark my words, Funcom will be announcing the shutdown/sale of AOC or bankruptcy by the end of this year.
Maybe, in the end depends on the impact and staying power of wotlk and warhammer. Most players don't subscribe for more than 2 mmorpg's at the same time for large periods of time. And i'm being optimistic. most subs just to one game.
Even not being so negative about FC financial status and destiny, I wouldnt like to be in their position.
Very true, yet there is a bit more unneeded hostility between posters here, than there were even over on the vet refuge. That's saying something man, it really is. I came here after SWG was completely destroyed, which basically turned me into a forum whore. I was there for vg:soh beta and launch, now I'm here for AOC, maybe I'm bad luck?
You're right though it is in the end Funcoms fault, no they're not controlling anyone's actions. However, they continually fuel the fire. Through both their silence and their overdrawn hype and arrogance. Like I originally said, I really don't care what side a poster is on. I try and treat them with the same respect, I wish to receive in return.
BTW did you play SWG ? Just curious, A jedi with same name was on my server in a guild called AXIS.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson