Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Sad for the employees of Funcom
Xris375
Member Posts: 1,005
When PE said they where downsizing their crew due to gearing up for release or some BS like that, I had two feelings. One being vidicated being right the other one being sad for those loosing their jobs. I mean loosing your job for someone else's mistakes must be one of the worst experiences you can have in your career.
I am having similar feelings for the employees of AoC now. If AoC tanks, I'm sure some people will loose their jobs.
The question is, who will loose their jobs? The one that designed a decent PvE game or those who hyped it to be much, much more creating unrealistic expectations from the customers ?
Unless something changes to the better fast, the employees are heading for uncertain times...
---
And when we got more women on the team, it was like No, no, no. We need puppies and horses in there.
John Smedley, SOE
Comments
I agree its never good when someone loses there job .I do feel though that this an important lesson to companies that decide to release a MMO game and dont deliver on promised content ,cannot address bugs properly and treat customers with complete irreverence .
"after the time of dice came the day of mice "
I know you wish that Funcom closes down etc etc, but this is not happening, mate. AoC is a very successful game, whether you like it or not. Actually Funcom is currently expanding, since apart from the AoC team, they got some more projects in full production.
So no worries for the guys working there. I think their future is safe with FC.
Hmm.. If someone came up to me and said "Hey buddy, your future is safe with FunCon!", I'd probably shoot myself.. I hope those poor bastids get fired so they can get a real job at a real company.. bleh :P
Why do people say it's going down just because they dont like it? dont make any sense. Fact remains the game is succesful. Ye i can't prove it but i just go by what they say, and why shouldn't i? if they have sold so many box's and have so many subs then why not believe them. Look at VG and other games and they run with 10% ( just a guess ) of AoC's sub's.
Lose, not loose.
Awww how thoughtful of you!
Not to worry about FC employees though, the game nearly recouped their developement $$ entirely, and have another MMO and AoC expansion on the way amongst other products.
Fact is the game is successful wether you like it or not, even if the ENTIRE player base cancels there subs next month (which of course isn't happening), it still has one of the most successful launches in MMO history.
Yes it's missing content, yes it's buggy etc., but it's already a success in FC's point of view. Players might think other wise though.
Funcom is not falling.
The game is not what was expected, but you still have the Box version coming.
As for firing, the OP got it all wrong. Who would you fire ?
The guy who's job was to get 1/2 a mil ppl buying the game the first month and got twice the numbers ?
Or the guy who was responsible for making a PVP system and didnt get it right ?
The answer is: None of the above, cause the fire on future need and not past performance. And one of the did a great job and the other is needed to make the box work and fix the PC game.
at 1st aoc was going ok.....then u think 700,000 copies sold but not active account is more like 200,000. so i would say it was a huge over hype. it was released with memory leaks and content not done (which is understandable to a point) but failcom has screwed that game up in more ways then one (im not going to list them all) 1st thier CS sucks i mean wtf 2nd stop your cloak and dagger patch changing crap be up-front with your base it makes them less mad and 3rd fucking listing to your base when they say hey fix this and maybe work on this content listen. Dont bust out another crap patch it causes more problems. i played aoc over-all i was like not bad but when failcom unleashed their mindless patch and crap chop shop OPS i was like im out . so they need to stop being stupid moron and fix thier shit, they failed aoc wasnt a epic fail but it's on the edge of being a fail and every one at failcom losing thier jobs (which should happen to thier marketing and programs depts if u ask me)
assuming they are norwegians, they will be kind of ok. Norway has a really good social/welfare system.
Either that or this is just your own opinion.
It's perfectly normal for some of the dev team of computer games to finish their jobs at a company when the game moves from production phase to live retail, and the company assigns a live dev team to support the game as agreed in their contracts. It's no different for MMO's or single player games. I wouldn't be surprised if this is the case with those who lost their jobs
You believe a politician when he says he's going to put the country on a new course, changing everything and making life grand and happy for everyone?
There ya go. Companies lie too you know, or they simply "reword" things or conveniently "forget" things. Sure they could have sold that many boxes, but they've never said how many subs they still have (have they? If so, I haven't heard). I doubt they will because out of the 700K+ boxes they sold, it's probably down to about 200,000 subs - max. And it'll keep going that way unless they change things.
To the OP, I'm sure that some people will of course get cut but Funcom isn't going to crash and burn...there's always people who will play a game even if it's totally destroyed by the company. If that's the case then unfortunately the majority of workers might lose their jobs, but they'd probably have so many salary cuts by that point that they'd A) quit or
be glad they're fired.
Most of them don't really have much to worry about, at this point, unless their bosses keep going in this direction...
--------------------------------------
A human and an Elf get captured by Skaven. The rat-men are getting ready to shoot the first hostage with Dwarf-made guns when he yells, "Earthquake!" The naturally nervous Skaven run and hide from the imaginary threat. He escapes. The Skaven regroup and bring out the Elf. Being very smart, the Elf has figured out what to do. When the Skaven get ready to shoot, the Elf, in order to scare them, yells, "Fire!"
Order of the White Border.
I would say that objectively the game did have a successful release, from a purely financial perspective. After all, by selling 700k boxes they have doubtlessly made a huge amount of money.
However, I would expect that several things will happen as a result of what they have done
a) Many serious MMO players will never touch a Funcom product again due to the lies, deceit and shoddy nature of the product that was released. I am in this bracket. That company won't get a penny of my cash ever, ever again.
b) Other MMO developers (specifically Mythic and EA with WAR) will see the huge demand for a replacement for WOW (as demonstrated by the numbers that tried AOC), and realise that if they avoid the mistakes that Funcom have made, they will potentially sell millions of boxes and have a massively successful game.
Basically, Funcom have piggy-backed on the massive success of WOW, and the fact that after 3 years, lots of people are bored with it and are looking for something new. This is basically why they had a successful release. As most of those that tried it realised quite early on it was a lame duck, and its subscription retainment figures will be massively lower than the initial box sales.
Either that or this is just your own opinion.
No I don't need to sorry, you do it yourself (tip: google).
Considering AoC cost around 30millions to develop, do the math (production/marketing/branding/licensing etc).
AoC is a success for FC, and that's all they care about. How do I define success? mmm how can I put this... "Is it getting you LOTSA money?" AoC is.
Ascension08..Sorry friend but i will never be the person who instantly distrusts and disbelieves down to reputation. You are right people lie, but FC have never lied to me....Dx10 on the box..did they lie to me? no they didn't..they failed to deliver..not a lie. I have a son who i want to bring up to always treat others with respect to start with, so if i dont do the same, how can i expect him to? you say 200k subs! exactly! that's what i am saying..a success.
I have been playing mmo's for over 10 years and know that anything over 100k subs is plenty enough to run a game for years. Now if they gain more through improvments and extra content then the game will be even more of a success.
well talking financialy funcom has to recouperate its intial costs as well as make profit to pay for its continued funding and make its investors a tidy sum.
With a development budget of more than $25 million, Age of Conan is reputedly the largest-scale entertainment property ever produced in Norway.
many Funcom employees are prominent public figures.
The company has even received government funding to partially finance a future project - Dreamfall Chapters, the third installment of Funcom's The Longest Journey series. It's clear that many Norwegians have a vested interest in the continued success of Funcom.
So from my point of view funcom has got its self backed in to a corner to continualy lie and saying nothings wrong because there are not just players of AOC got they eye on its succsess.
There now a public figure in Norway very much in the public eye, they cannot come clean now and say sorry we messed up.
Denial best policy at the same time as trying to recoupe the intial funding and pay there investors what they promised.
so from inital sales and the fact they are still paying the running costs and wadges and trying to turn a profit id say funcom are most definaly far from being in the clear yet!
Either that or this is just your own opinion.
No I don't need to sorry, you do it yourself (tip: google).
You said it why not back it up? why should i look up your claims?
Considering AoC cost around 30millions to develop, do the math (production/marketing/branding/licensing etc).
yes so there in a 30 million deficit, plus extras before they start even looking at making money back.
AoC is a success for FC, and that's all they care about. How do I define success? mmm how can I put this... "Is it getting you LOTSA money?" AoC is.
but you have yet to prove they have made lotsa money (key work here is profit ater over heads).
Why does anyone need to prove it? if they dont make money you will them fold..if not then lets just lay this to rest shall we? only time wil tell
.
well just nice to know if some one comes on here with claims they actualy have some facts to back them up,
Lol.. FunCom isn't shutting down...
Not even a screwed up launch with Anarchy Online could kill FunCom (and that was damn near close).. They will rebound with this game and the people who like this type of game will continue to keep it afloat, bottom line.. This game isn't for everyone, its a niche game.. And those games are known to have some of the most passionate player bases who would pay friggin 30+ bucks a month for multiple accounts...
Either that or this is just your own opinion.
No I don't need to sorry, you do it yourself (tip: google).
Considering AoC cost around 30millions to develop, do the math (production/marketing/branding/licensing etc).
AoC is a success for FC, and that's all they care about. How do I define success? mmm how can I put this... "Is it getting you LOTSA money?" AoC is.
Oh Yeah, very successful.... http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=FUNCOM.OL&t=3m&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=
Investors, Publishers, post production marketing... money spent building the game engine ... oh yeah they are making tons of cash /sarcasm.
You dont know what you are talking about. It takes money to make money and they have spent more than they would like to advertise. In an interview they admitted that over the entire course of their companies history, the cost of continuously developing and updating the AO/AoC engine went over 60 million.
In addition to this funcom is also wasting money on another mmorpg in development (the secret world), an AO graphical overhaul and the expansion for AoC.
Either that or this is just your own opinion.
No I don't need to sorry, you do it yourself (tip: google).
Considering AoC cost around 30millions to develop, do the math (production/marketing/branding/licensing etc).
AoC is a success for FC, and that's all they care about. How do I define success? mmm how can I put this... "Is it getting you LOTSA money?" AoC is.
Oh Yeah, very successful.... http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=FUNCOM.OL&t=3m&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=
Investors, Publishers, post production marketing... money spent building the game engine ... oh yeah they are making tons of cash /sarcasm.
You dont know what you are talking about. It takes money to make money and they have spent more than they would like to advertise. In an interview they admitted that over the entire course of their companies history, the cost of continuously developing and updating the AO/AoC engine went over 60 million.
In addition to this funcom is also wasting money on another mmorpg in development (the secret world), an AO graphical overhaul and the expansion for AoC.
You didn't...
You seriously did not just link to a financial page that shows how Funcom has been doing over 3 months.
I know you checked out the 1yr, 2yr, and 5 yr links...
Yet you posted the 3 months one.
Why did you try to manipulate people like that? Because it helped trick people into thinking they were not doing well?
Please, don't do that again.
Either that or this is just your own opinion.
No I don't need to sorry, you do it yourself (tip: google).
Considering AoC cost around 30millions to develop, do the math (production/marketing/branding/licensing etc).
AoC is a success for FC, and that's all they care about. How do I define success? mmm how can I put this... "Is it getting you LOTSA money?" AoC is.
Oh Yeah, very successful.... http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=FUNCOM.OL&t=3m&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=
Investors, Publishers, post production marketing... money spent building the game engine ... oh yeah they are making tons of cash /sarcasm.
You dont know what you are talking about. It takes money to make money and they have spent more than they would like to advertise. In an interview they admitted that over the entire course of their companies history, the cost of continuously developing and updating the AO/AoC engine went over 60 million.
In addition to this funcom is also wasting money on another mmorpg in development (the secret world), an AO graphical overhaul and the expansion for AoC.
They've now removed The Secret World from the Funcom website, I expect that "graphical overhaul" of AO to soon be delayed and eventually cancelled, and I don't think they're gonna have enough people left playing AoC through the bugs and lack of content long enough to bring out that expansion profitably.
All IMHO.
I wouldn't feel sorry for them at all. People get hired, fired, laid off all the time in the gaming industry. That is the nature of the business. Most games have a very short life span.
MMO devs probably keep their jobs longer than most in the industry, so they should feel grateful they had a job as long as they did. And even if AOC tanks, probably a lot of them will just get shifted to other projects run by funcom.
Calm down folks, FC is recruiting quite a few people : http://www.funcom.com/wsp/funcom/frontend.cgi?func=publish.show&func_id=1005&table=PUBLISH&item=1005
and the Secret World info is there: http://www.funcom.com/wsp/funcom/frontend.cgi?func=publish.show&table=CONTENT&func_id=1204