Age of Conan

Originally posted by Azrile

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.

Originally posted by ZigiRage

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. :)

Originally posted by hobo9766

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? 

Originally posted by AmazingAvery

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.

Originally posted by zymurgeist

 

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Originally posted by Hamrtime2

 

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.

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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.

Originally posted by Malthros

Originally posted by AmazingAvery

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.

Originally posted by Malickie

Originally posted by Malthros

Originally posted by AmazingAvery

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:

Dark and  Light

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