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Funcom doubles profits and quadruples playerbase by going F2P.
CalmOceans
Member UncommonPosts: 2,437
http://www.funcom.com/news/over_300000_players_join_age_of_conan_unchained_in_first_month
“The launch of the hybrid business model has been very successful so far,” says Funcom CEO Trond Arne Aas. “The activity levels on the servers are booming with a fourfold increase in players during July, we more than doubled the revenue generated from the game, and we have experienced a positive development in subscriber numbers. This definitely gives us great hope for the game’s future.”
Comments
yep player brings player its that simple!and competitive nature of human take care of the rest!
oh boy, oh boy....
...watch this F2P (WITH SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED FOR COMPETITIVE PLAY+CASH SHOP) modle take of.......sigh.
I played the game up to aprox level 60, on two different characters, and I simply don't like it. I'm not an end game player, so a game has to be fun for me during the journey, and this one just wasn't. I can't even bring myself to play it for free. But ultimately, I am happy that they are seeing some success with this new model... as the more revenue they bring in, the better off "The Secret World" will be, and that's one I am looking forward to
That business model has been huge in Asia for years. It's only a new development in the Western markets.
The real question is how the numbers look 3 months down the road. It's not surprising that a lot of new and former players would check out a game when it goes FtP. But like all MMOs, that says nothing about their ability to retrain the customers.
Well I've played the game for more than 2 years now, and it has been the same BS since I started...Random internetguy shows up and predicts game to fail, die and burn... Come on, I think it has been proved that FunCom has a plan for their AoC baby. They patch in a steady flow of new content/projects, add ex packs, and just in general keep upgarding the game engine and system itself... Constantly making the game better and better and better.. At the same time the playerbase (at least the potential base of players that have been subscribed at one point) just keeps growing. I have hard times believing that AoC will have a rougher development than what it had the first year. I believe things will just get rosier and rosier with every patch and Conan film that is launched (Conan the Barbarian is btw just the first of many films). Funcom is playing with the big boys now, after getting LionsGate and EA on their Friend list. I believe AoC is here to stay for at least another 10 years... And hopefully we have all found something better to do with our lives than playing MMOs before AoC is shut down
The Ultimate Breakdown
People are going to find every reason to hate.Simple put everybody buried AOC declared it dead called it a failure after it lose most of its 800,000 subs.In 1 month AOC match the numbers of EVE online subs which everybody consider success.
AoC has done what no other mmo done got a second chance at real success,if the Conan movie is good then Aoc will get more customers.You can be mad at AoC but it has correct many issue that made players leave after the launch plus AoC was one of the more pretty mmo so it had a level future proofing.Aoc can come back go figure
Why would the numbers for AoC drop hugely? It is not a P2P game an more it will keep many players for free.It is ok that many of you don't like free to play but at least be happy for a good game make it make after being mismanged from the start.It is nice to see AoC having a little rebirth it brought many good things to the table mature content,Great combat system,amazing graphics,Great IP that does not have elves and Orcs.
Is AoC cash shop flawed? Maybe.Did AoC screw up at the start?Yes.Will the numbers go down?Yes every mmo release(or this case rereleased) has honeymoon period then the numbers drop the market has to many mmo for it not the drop even the might WoW is feeling it.I am cheering for AoC to have success again and it cool see AoC go from PvP centric pay to play game to PVE centric hybrid sub/free to play game it is clear the game released too early and had the wrong focus and marketing strategy.It is shame the got it wrong at the start AoC could have change the market some but good to see a game get a second chance.
Ask Vanguard and Tabla Rasa fans if they wish their devs where smart enough to go free to play and give great concepts a chance at surving.
so wait.. 4 fold
300k to 150k
150k to 75k
75k to 38k
Basically what we have been saying all along.. AOC has been surviving for the past year with less than 50k subscribers. And they have added 250k f2p accounts. Just for reference, DDO added 1M f2p acccounts when it changed to a f2p game.
I really don´t think ´jumping´ to 300k is that exciting, considering many of them probably just logged into old accounts. The movie-tie in sounds cool, but they need the movie to advertise the game, not the other way around. Congrats, everyone who plays the game will go see the movie, but it is doubtful anyone new will be made aware of the game because of the movie.
So much for those posters who kept saying 200k+ subscribers for the past year. A four-fold increase would have put it near 1M players now, not 300k.
Oh dear.
AoC got 300 000 new players. Thats what have been published.
At the same time it have had an 4 fold increase meaning that x + 300 000 = 4 * x (If x is the original number of subs)
This again means 300 000 = 3 x, which again equates to x = 100 000...
So no, you are wrong in multiple ways. AoC number of subs (last week when the message got published, it's probably even larger now) was/is 400 000... And the number of subs before Freemium came around start of July was 100 000.
What is worth to notice though is that the number of subs quadrupled, while the revenue only doubled. This mean that the game now in average (for the entire AoC population) is 50% cheaper.
The Ultimate Breakdown
oh dear.
The release says it has a 4 FOLD increase in players. Fold means doubled. If they said 4x´s the number of players, that would be 4xs the number of players. Fold is double.
37.5k doubled is 75k doubled is 150k doubled is 300k. 37.5 to 300k is a 4 fold increase in players. They specifically used the word ´fold´.
Also, here we go with the Funcom marketing.... the number of ´subscribers´ did not quadruple... . Read it again.
“The activity levels on the servers are booming with a fourfold increase in players during July, we more than doubled the revenue generated from the game, and we have experienced a positive development in subscriber numbers.
fourfold increase is NOT subscribers.. it is PLAYERS.... which includes freebies... but again, keep up the funcom marketing. Notice he didn´t say they have grown subscribers.. instead it is a ´positive development´.. which problem means a decrease in the rate of unsubscribers. If there had been an increase in subscribers, he would have said it.
Ironically, xfire numbers from July exactly indicated the 4 fold increase in activity and many people linked to it... which is now down to about 1 fold (double the number as when AOC was in the 90s).
Doubling the revenues from the game is impressive though, and a good sign. I think if the devs concentrate on adding adventure packs similar to DDO they will do well. I think if they add more pay2win pvp gear, players won´t keep buying and will quit. pay2win pvp gear was a huge mistake, especially when it comes at the same time as a new pvp server.
As to comment to your other post. It is almost laughable that you are talking about the success of AOC. Be real.. It sold a lot of boxes, pissed off a lot of people.. lost subscribers at a huge rate...floundered for a few years at very low subscriber numbers, and now is free2play. It launched free2play at one-third the number of ´players´ as DDO did. There is nothing successful about anything AOC has done except manage to stay online. Funcom has lost money continuously since it was launched, they wrote off 25M in losses for the game already, and the company continues to lose money every quarter.
Well, if nothing else should this and the movie finally raise my buddies Paradox entertainment stocks (the own Conan).
Good for you AoC. But I wonder how many games that can continue doing this, there are a limit on how many MMO players there are out there and someone must loose those players since we just can't play more than 2 or so MMOs at the same time without time travel.
How do you double revenues on a FREE game? You can't. Therefore, calling AoC or any so-called such marketed game a "f2p" game is just an out and out lie. Players may go up but if they are not BUYING from the store or converting to subscription, Funcom's profits will eventually go down. So much for that so-called "free to play" terminology.
Let's party like it is 1863!
Well, that the theory. A large amount of people try the game but about 20-30% generate about 80% of the revenue. Perfect World did a great video article on this. Not sure where to find it anymore but it really outlined how the FTP model works and why it generates so much more revenue for some games than a pure sub based game.
If the game has had anything near 300.000 players i doubt it would have gone F2P in first place. Also, i guess Funcom wouldn't have continually reported quarterly losses with 300k players. They would have announced breaking the 1mio players mark if they'd made it to 300k x4, like they did with their fishy "more than 1mio games shipped" note.
Going F2P was a last desperate move since Funcom didn't knew what else to do, respectively doesn't have the needed ability to do whatever with the game to keep it from bleeding subs.
So, see them cheering now about getting from about 50k to say 200k "players" is ridiculous. Going F2P in AoC's case remains a loser-move as Funcom remains a loser company -otherwise they wouldn't have lost ~950k players in first place.
There are times when people disagree, and discussions can be very usefull to bring truth and understanding to the table. At other times, people misquote on purpose to sketch out a particular scenario they would like to be the truth. This alternate truth of course, is still nothing short of jibberish. In such situations it's better to say "thanks, but no thanks, I'll rather have a discussion where there would be a point in having one". Fundamentalists are known to stick to that single set of thoughts they decided to have from the beginning... And those thoughts can never evolve into something else. This, regardless of if they are wrong or right. In other words, discussion would be a waste of time.
Azrile, if I look to your signature I find it to strangely coincide with my observations
Good luck with WoW.
The Ultimate Breakdown
Give it about a month after the movie is not on the big screen, and after all the new free to play wears off and lets looks at those numbers.
Actually post F2P funcom is reporting that AoC has 2million active accounts. Take that as you will, not sure why they are saying 300k when funcom is reporting 2million. Either way I dislike AoC's F2P model, it gives returning players who bought the game and the expansion nothing, not one thing for their origional buisness. The drinking cape still has little to no functionality, and as far as dungeons go forget Khitai all together. It is not able to be used in free to play, you can buy time in khitai proper, but in the long run it's cheeper to sub than to buy time. LoTRo and DDO have a far better, in terms of being nice to it's players, F2P model. The AoC model is more or less the true example of B2W.
They sell AA pots, purple weapons and armor, mounts, pets, and more in their store after all. Some willing to shell out the money for the teleport scrolls can travel anywhere they want. Yet because they don't want to slit their own throat you cannot buy perminate access to the newest content, or any of the lvl 80 dungeons in AoC. Meaning when you hit end game your going to have to sub to raid, faction grind, or do pretty much anything that is end game. Had Funcom done anything at all for people that bought AoC, made it where you can get access to the normal parts of khitai, or even let me get perma access to raid dungeons through the item shop then I'd been all for this F2P model. As it stands the game comes off as to much of a cash grab for me to back it the way I wanted to.
How is Lotro F2P model better. Free player in Lotro can't participate in any form of PvP (Age of Conan F2P does allow you join PvP) and how does Lotro tomes of permanent stat increase+10 (farily cheap in Store / nearly impossible to get in game ) differ from AoC store items?
REALITY CHECK
Actually, have you seen any other game that would allow you to buy Tomes that permanently rise your attribute (strength/agility/vitality/fate/will) by 10 points that you can buy in-game for cash and which are nearly impossible to get in game. And when I say nearly impossible, I mean, you see it drop once per month of everyday 5-10 dungeon grinding?
Because those tomes iN lotro exist, why aren't you guys trolling Lotro forums about their Pay to Win strategy?
You think DDO is different? Because you know, the tomes of permanent stat increase exist in DDo as wel, which are again, cheap from Store and impossible to get in-game.
REALITY CHECK
Funcom was never profiting from Age of Conan so the headline makes no sense ;p Doubled revenue? Yes, but remember most of the revenue boost is now through one time deals rather than a subscription. Plus Funcom has a history of calling events sucesses when they are epic failures such as Age of Conan's beta, head start, launch, sieges, shrines of bori, expansion, etc. So we now know from this release that the unchained event didn't meet expectations, which it didn't.
The playerbase may be up but it is not at the leves it was before or just after the expansion launched last year and with the silly restrictions on FTP and lack of stuff to do at level 80 combined with non existant content updates players like myself are leaving.
Its the same pay 2 win lie as with Lotro.
Both companies are using registrations as numbers instead of the REAL paying customers. Also theres no prove from either side about doubling their profits. So take it what it is, stupid PR lies for rushed products.
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play."
"Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
For now you can't PVP in lotro as free player becouse Monster Play wasn't "cash shop ready" when FTP launched. Rise of Isengard is just around the corner now and it's bringing updated and expanded monster play to free players.
Stat tomes - like you said, are cheap in store.
In lotro you can earn turbine points ingame. Play the game, get points, buy stat tomes. Not only that. Buy permanent gold cap removal or permanent access to endgame expack and dungeons. No silly 3 day pass crap like in AOC. No rare/epic quality gear you can buy while leveling or at max lvl on PVP server.
Some people proved that playing on few characters in lotro you can permanently unlock everything from quest packs / dungeons / skirmishes / stat tomes to expacks and all endgame content without spending real money.
Dont want to spend money ? Take your time accumulating turbine points. Want everything NOW ? Pay for it.
One way or another though - you don't need sub, and you keep access to the zones you payed for. Forevaa!
Revenue is not profit. Funcom could make a million times more than last week and theoretically not make a profit. They never said they are making 4 times the profit as some posts imply. It's all bullshit..either you're playing it or you're not. I like playing it from time to time. Nothing in the store...from what I've seen is pay to win just because it's name is in purple.. Some of the limitations seem ridiculous and store pricing on some items can really be too much but thats how these models make money. The "Its not really free" argument is really stale. We all know by now that "F2P" is going to come with a whole list "can" and "can not"s. Its a branding name and that's all. Even when something is Buy one get one free its really just buy these 2 items for one price. You can't get the free item without spending money...it's a condition of the offer...just like F2P has many...many..conditions. I am waiting for the day (and it will come) when all games will be F2P and start off giving you one room to play in. You can run around all u want but to leave the room you must pay. Just thankful it hasn't come to that ..yet.
Hellgate london - you can run around for free as long as you want - but if you want to progress you have to buy tickets to unlock new zones you can quest in.
HAH! That is just incredible.
Yeah the Freemium model will just become more popular now. Everyone is going to look at this and adopt that payment model. I'm really afraid other F2P games will take it up, you know F2P that aren't Freemium but Free Free, and then won't be.
P2P Games are just gonna get bigger communities, more access and get better with more and more content.
HOPEFULLY Buy-to-Win is not going to be a part of this movement on any large scale.