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The Secret World: 200k Sold, Funcom to Shift Focus for the Future
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Funcom has released its Q2 2012 investors' presentation. The document indicates that The Secret World has sold only 200k units at the time of writing and that the company is reducing costs through layoffs and other money-saving measures. The report also looks to the future with a new focus on "system-focused games with a high degree of community and player interaction".
Funcom will in the future direct its resources towards smaller, more focused online games.
With the proprietary Dreamworld engine the company has some of the best tools and expertise available to build and these games on time and on budget.
Check out the full report on Funcom's site.
Comments
I don't recall anyone ever saying TSW would be a WoW killer, especially when GW2 was right around the corner at release.
But it looks like they're done with the MMO market after this one. That must have been really disappointing for them. But really, I don't know how they expected it to do very well with such limited content, mediocre combat, and most of the resources going towards the great story -- which just isn't as important in an MMO as in a single-player RPG, as has been proven with both SWTOR and TSW ending up as they have.
Only 200k that is rly bad, guess game is going F2P soon or gonna shut down, som uch about monthly updates.
Also guess we can say this game has been financiaal FAIL so far, lets see if it can change.
Actually my thought is that it had limited appeal.
Now, I like TSW and still have a sub. But not everyone is going to be interested in this type of setting, espeicaly when words like mystery solving and metagaming are being thrown around.
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They could start by not fleecing what's left of their loyal fan base.
You TSW players will find out what I mean soon enough. When the game has to shift into a new profitability model to save itself, Funcom will do what Funcom does. It will turn to it's existing player base in an attempt to get more money out of you than your basic sub fee.
If FC tried to make a game based on making a good quility fun game (GW2) rather than about the money as they always seem to talk of, maybe they would have more success.
No matter when a game is released or what is released along side, if its good people will buy and play it.
Sort off, but i think the big problemwas that, not only was it a niche game from the start, it had very little adverstising. Most people don't seem to even know about, compared to something like even TERA, much less TOR and GW2.
No wonder it didn't sell much, IMO.
And sorry about Funcom. Alot of people are going to lose their jobs i bet.
Get a clue when peopel say a game is a WOW killer makes me laugh, WOW was made when there where NOT that many MMo's and WOW was design around all gamers to enjoy, TSW was design for a set type pf gamer( Niche) style game, and just because a game has 3 million subs does nto make it better. Gamers today make me laugh to with this attitude we need a game to kill WOW, wow will never die, unless Blizzard says so, there are way to many games that people like to beat those kinda of subs, SWTOR come close, and they still made a ton of money and i'm sure there are happy, and when it goes free it will make even more money....
People don't realize when a game goes F2P they make alot more money than when its sub based because gamers today don't have a clue and think there getting it for free when clearly they are NOT. All companys know they will prolly go F2P because of the market, I make games all the time and make them F2P and make more money than I did when I sold them because of how people think today... I perfer the sub based games for MMO's because you get eveyrthing for 15 bucks with F2P you end up paying way more for what you could of got for 15 a month.....So you gamers do this to your selfs.
Yeah, i bet Anet is more interested in making you happy than getting your money.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
I think they did try make a good quality game with TSW and they seem to have succeeded. The fact and the problem is that the game has a limited appeal. It is not a mainstream fantasy game with a cookie-cutter gameplay.
"The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in."
No one has said ever that this was going to be a WoW killer! Pretty much everyone knew this would be a niche game based on it's setting and theme. So you're just trolling! /Facepalm
And someone saying it's the best MMO ever, is his/her personal opinion of this person thinking it's their best MMO experience so far.
And only 200k units sold shouldn't have come as a suprise really, seeing there was hardly any money spend on advertisement.
They were relying too much on mouth to mouth and viral marketing.... which unfortunately didn't work out for them well enough.
Doesn't mean the game can grow from now on, as it's a good solid game that can only get better over time.
I myself I am enjoying this game immensly together with Guild Wars 2.
GW2 is free, so I only pay one sub fee for TSW. No bad deal for me. :-)
By the way TSW also like any sandbox attracted certain people and that was the plan, so GW2 was not much competion, and so far GW2 launch has been a failure , ridden with bugs, lag and hardly and spots for members to get in the guilds that want, and the social aspect so far is a joke. Full of trolls as bad as WOW, TSW had a great community ... So far not impressed w2ith GW2 and its so called community and bug ridden game, hell you can barely invite people to a guild, do upgrades and more... Horrid..TSW had a great launch They will do fine, as I said most sandbox's always sell less because its a niche style game and sucks in only certain type of players, I hardly seen any trolls or annoying people in TSW. Where GW2 is full of them. I think funcom in the long run will be fine. So will TSW, if they go F2P thats fine, because that only means they will make more money if they do it right. Unlike SOny they do it wrong, they need to follow when turbine does with F2P models.
Agreed my guild is gonna continue both games and enjoying TSW, we just hope GW2 fixes some annoying bugs..
No one ever called TSW a wow killer. What we called it was a sub based game that will have a very specific Demographic and small community.
so in the end we were right. Box sales, Subs, Population mean nothing to us. we care about playing a game we like, not trying to topple Olympus.
Because i can.
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This doesn't surprise me the least bit, Tabula Rasa was 10x better than tSW except NCSoft trashed that game on purpose to get rid of Richard Garriot. The overall gameplay of TSW just put me off, although I'm a fan of sci-fi MMO games (there simply aren't ENOUGH of those compared to fantasy/medival shit).
If anything this is pretty bad news for all of us. Many things can be taken from this game by other devs and pubs as false negatives. For example, this game was different in its setting. It also had a level system that was not really based on levels which is not done alot and its skill system is wide open.
These changes to the formula, which actually can be great things to players and the genre, can now be viewed as things not to do in future mmos by the folks who make mmos. Im not saying its going to happen but whenever a developer goes out of its way to try and make a different game and fails, the industry shuns those "different ideas" for a long period of time.
What I believe is at fault here is the price model. The game released in a though spot in between a very hyped game and the expansion of a very established game. The market is leaning towards F2P and they expect their playerbase to ignore the cheaper priced competition and play their P2P game. In order for that to happen the game literally had to be the next super mmo, we all know that TSW is not that by any strech of the imagination. This, if anything, is what other devs and pubs I believe have to take away from this game as what not to do. I just hope they don't blame the innovation as what is at fault here.
That's exactly right, and reflective of what ive always said about tsw.
Sad that this will apparently be the last mmorpg funcom will do, They have some great ideas...
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Well i never said either of this 2 things but i still think that TSW was the best MMO to be released in the last few years.
Numbers sold does not mean best or worst all it means is that its not as popular as other games.
I am however surprised that the sales were this low its a shame really the only game in a long time that did try to be different and it seems to not pay off.
Maybe it will get some more sells in a couple months once the hype about GW2 faded away the Quality games might become a chance to get some sells out.
I just hope that Funcom does not pull some desperate moves now and try to dumb down the game to make it more appealing that would be the worst decision they could make.
Maybe it would have been best to delay the game for the Christmas time by than the MMO market would have settled down again and with a good advertising campaign they might have been able to get some decent numbers......but maybe they just had to release
Maybe you could link to a thread in the TSW forums where people said this would be WoWkiller ? to my knowlage I don't recall ever seeing anyone suggest it would be .
I would go into hiding yourself because I think you've shown yourself up for what you are .