Nixe Heilefix
22.04.2008, 12:09
Age of Conan
Update
22 April 2008
Funcom Update
The Funcom Group
Funcom N.V and subsidiaries
Funcom would like to provide an overview of the status
and plans for the launch of the Age of Conan game,
planned to take place on May 20th 2008.
Before launch
Funcom will spend the four weeks leading up to the
launch to further increase market awareness as well as
continue bug fixing, optimizing and preparing for the
retail launch:
Maximize market awareness,
• A general escalation of PR and marketing oriented
Age of Conan news messaging should be expected
up until launch
• An exclusive beta weekend with Gamespot.com,
one of the world’s most prominent game sites, was
conducted successfully during the weekend 18-20
April
• IGN and its partner Gamespy.com, also among the
most prominent game sites of the world, will
exclusively host an ‘Open Beta’ from May 1st
• Funcom and Eidos will conduct a large scale global
marketing campaign in conjunction with the launch.
Funcom expects to spend from 12% and upwards
of the Company’s anticipated gross revenues from
the game on marketing and related activities.
• Age of Conan has received over 20 front covers of
gaming magazines across the world and the
Company expects this number to reach above 30
by the end of the launch month.
• Funcom has received some pre-order data, but it
does not have an aggregated global overview of the
number of pre-orders for the game. Different retail
chains in various markets follow very different
routines with respect to collecting and reporting preorder
numbers. The Company interprets the data it
has received as positive and is part of the data
foundation for the scaling of the server park. The
pre-order numbers in some important retail chains
track as among the highest for any MMO launched.
• Internal surveys indicate that a large proportion of
the players who have tested the game would like to
buy it. However, the beta tester segment may not
necessarily be representative of the MMO gamer
segment. Nevertheless, the Company interprets the
survey feedback as positive.
• The Age of Conan community keeps growing and
reflects the momentum of the game. There were
475.000 unique visitors at ageofconan.com in the
last week (according to Googleanalytics)
Continued bug fixing and technical testing
• The Company will continue to polish and optimize in
the final weeks to achieve the desired quality of the
game at launch.
• The Company will continue to perform technical
testing to reduce risks at launch.
Key risk before launch:
Unforeseen technical issues that will require more time
to correct than is available under current time
schedule.
At launch
Funcom has, in the opinion of Management, prepared
well for the launch. However, most MMO’s on the PC
platform have experienced technical issues of various
severities during launch. The investor community
should therefore be prepared that Age of Conan may
also experience technical issues during the launch.
• Funcom has at present scaled the server park for
the Age of Conan game for handling 500.000-
600.000 active subscribers for the launch period,
under a set of assumptions for playtime per
subscriber, number of subscribers per server,
number of subscribers per game clients sold etc.
Funcom may, in the period before launch, decide to
further adjust the server capacity according to the
game momentum leading up to launch.
• With the current server capacity projection, Funcom
is facilitating for a major success in the MMO
market. However, the success of the game will
depend first and foremost on the response it
receives from players after several hours of
playtime of the finished product.
• Funcom would like to underline that this server
capacity does not constitute a projection for the
subscriber levels some months after the launch.
Funcom can add additional server capacity within
weeks (2-6 weeks) and will do so if required.
However, in a very successful scenario, server
capacity may become a constraint to the growth
rate. In a less successful scenario, the Company
may have to write off parts of the investment made
into server capacity.
• The performance of the game before, during and
after the launch is also dependent on the quality
and the performance of key partners in the areas of
hosting, billing, bandwidth, technology and
distribution. The Company’s most important
partners/suppliers are IPsoft, SCi
Entertainment/Eidos, Cisco, Dell and GlobalCollect.
• As for all MMOs, the number of Age of Conan game
clients sold through retail and digitally will over time
be significantly higher than the number of
concurrent subscribers for the game, due to
subscriber churn and periods of subscriber
inactivity.
• Funcom has passed the Age of Conan Gold master
milestone according to plan and the retail DVDs has
been delivered for box production. At launch an
online update will be available for downloading
where additional content, optimizations and bugfixes
will be included.
• Key pricing parameters for the game will be:
o The Standard game SKU will have a
Suggested Retail Price (SRP) of 59,99
USD in North America and at 49.99 Euro in
the European markets. Funcom will receive
a share of the wholesale price of the
product which is the price selling into the
retail-chains, which naturally is lower than
the SRP.
o The subscription fee will be priced at 14,99
USD in North America and 12,99 Euro in
the European markets (plus VAT where
applicable)
• Key risks at launch will be technical issues related
to network and servers and to client performance
such as stability and frame rate for different
hardware configurations.
After launch
In the period after launch, Funcom will focus on
ensuring that the game is stable and will adjust its
actions to the reception of the game in the gamer
market.
• Funcom will continue online updates with content
updates and technical fixes
• Funcom will provide additional guiding before the
Second Quarter 2008 reporting
• Key risks after launch of Age of Conan will be the
quality of gameplay, and thereby the longevity of
the average subscription, and the ability of the
Company to quickly address potential technical
issues during and after the launch period.
Funcom will not take investor and analyst meetings in
the period from May 4 2008 until May 30 2008 due to
the very sensitive nature of that time period.
The Management Board of Funcom N.V.
Dübendorf, April 22, 2008
edit: Quelle http://www.newsweb.no/newsweb/index.jsp?messageId=207928&lang=
Update
22 April 2008
Funcom Update
The Funcom Group
Funcom N.V and subsidiaries
Funcom would like to provide an overview of the status
and plans for the launch of the Age of Conan game,
planned to take place on May 20th 2008.
Before launch
Funcom will spend the four weeks leading up to the
launch to further increase market awareness as well as
continue bug fixing, optimizing and preparing for the
retail launch:
Maximize market awareness,
• A general escalation of PR and marketing oriented
Age of Conan news messaging should be expected
up until launch
• An exclusive beta weekend with Gamespot.com,
one of the world’s most prominent game sites, was
conducted successfully during the weekend 18-20
April
• IGN and its partner Gamespy.com, also among the
most prominent game sites of the world, will
exclusively host an ‘Open Beta’ from May 1st
• Funcom and Eidos will conduct a large scale global
marketing campaign in conjunction with the launch.
Funcom expects to spend from 12% and upwards
of the Company’s anticipated gross revenues from
the game on marketing and related activities.
• Age of Conan has received over 20 front covers of
gaming magazines across the world and the
Company expects this number to reach above 30
by the end of the launch month.
• Funcom has received some pre-order data, but it
does not have an aggregated global overview of the
number of pre-orders for the game. Different retail
chains in various markets follow very different
routines with respect to collecting and reporting preorder
numbers. The Company interprets the data it
has received as positive and is part of the data
foundation for the scaling of the server park. The
pre-order numbers in some important retail chains
track as among the highest for any MMO launched.
• Internal surveys indicate that a large proportion of
the players who have tested the game would like to
buy it. However, the beta tester segment may not
necessarily be representative of the MMO gamer
segment. Nevertheless, the Company interprets the
survey feedback as positive.
• The Age of Conan community keeps growing and
reflects the momentum of the game. There were
475.000 unique visitors at ageofconan.com in the
last week (according to Googleanalytics)
Continued bug fixing and technical testing
• The Company will continue to polish and optimize in
the final weeks to achieve the desired quality of the
game at launch.
• The Company will continue to perform technical
testing to reduce risks at launch.
Key risk before launch:
Unforeseen technical issues that will require more time
to correct than is available under current time
schedule.
At launch
Funcom has, in the opinion of Management, prepared
well for the launch. However, most MMO’s on the PC
platform have experienced technical issues of various
severities during launch. The investor community
should therefore be prepared that Age of Conan may
also experience technical issues during the launch.
• Funcom has at present scaled the server park for
the Age of Conan game for handling 500.000-
600.000 active subscribers for the launch period,
under a set of assumptions for playtime per
subscriber, number of subscribers per server,
number of subscribers per game clients sold etc.
Funcom may, in the period before launch, decide to
further adjust the server capacity according to the
game momentum leading up to launch.
• With the current server capacity projection, Funcom
is facilitating for a major success in the MMO
market. However, the success of the game will
depend first and foremost on the response it
receives from players after several hours of
playtime of the finished product.
• Funcom would like to underline that this server
capacity does not constitute a projection for the
subscriber levels some months after the launch.
Funcom can add additional server capacity within
weeks (2-6 weeks) and will do so if required.
However, in a very successful scenario, server
capacity may become a constraint to the growth
rate. In a less successful scenario, the Company
may have to write off parts of the investment made
into server capacity.
• The performance of the game before, during and
after the launch is also dependent on the quality
and the performance of key partners in the areas of
hosting, billing, bandwidth, technology and
distribution. The Company’s most important
partners/suppliers are IPsoft, SCi
Entertainment/Eidos, Cisco, Dell and GlobalCollect.
• As for all MMOs, the number of Age of Conan game
clients sold through retail and digitally will over time
be significantly higher than the number of
concurrent subscribers for the game, due to
subscriber churn and periods of subscriber
inactivity.
• Funcom has passed the Age of Conan Gold master
milestone according to plan and the retail DVDs has
been delivered for box production. At launch an
online update will be available for downloading
where additional content, optimizations and bugfixes
will be included.
• Key pricing parameters for the game will be:
o The Standard game SKU will have a
Suggested Retail Price (SRP) of 59,99
USD in North America and at 49.99 Euro in
the European markets. Funcom will receive
a share of the wholesale price of the
product which is the price selling into the
retail-chains, which naturally is lower than
the SRP.
o The subscription fee will be priced at 14,99
USD in North America and 12,99 Euro in
the European markets (plus VAT where
applicable)
• Key risks at launch will be technical issues related
to network and servers and to client performance
such as stability and frame rate for different
hardware configurations.
After launch
In the period after launch, Funcom will focus on
ensuring that the game is stable and will adjust its
actions to the reception of the game in the gamer
market.
• Funcom will continue online updates with content
updates and technical fixes
• Funcom will provide additional guiding before the
Second Quarter 2008 reporting
• Key risks after launch of Age of Conan will be the
quality of gameplay, and thereby the longevity of
the average subscription, and the ability of the
Company to quickly address potential technical
issues during and after the launch period.
Funcom will not take investor and analyst meetings in
the period from May 4 2008 until May 30 2008 due to
the very sensitive nature of that time period.
The Management Board of Funcom N.V.
Dübendorf, April 22, 2008
edit: Quelle http://www.newsweb.no/newsweb/index.jsp?messageId=207928&lang=