I thought unchained was just really a free to play economical release. Secret World got a whole combat retooling, they also got some additional content in the story (later on). I don’t think they did as much for AoC back then; I admittedly do not remember. I am not trying to compare the games, but trying to give the example of releasing an updated older game can be economically successful. WoW does it with classic servers as does Everquest and such. I think AoC did well with the Saga server. So why not a refresh for the game, toss in some larger mod supports for fan created content and you could have a stable continuing money maker on lower maintenance levels?
As to the success of AoC, I think it was popular at launch, but it had a lot of bugs and issues and lower content levels. It took Funcom a bit too long to address these issues and they lost a ton of players to it. Age of Conan was featured on Big Bang Theory, that has to speak to its popularity at one point in time. Of course, now games launching with tons of obnoxious bugs is a norm; back then a little less as bad as it is now. Funcom has some great story telling skills and some great ideas, they just shoot themselves in the foot with lack of follow through in a timely fashion.

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