Funcom Q4 Financial Report - New ETA for the map and other details you may have missed

Conan Exiles General Discussion
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Hey there,

Here are some details from the Q4 Financial Report and Presentation.
Did I miss any? Let me know :slight_smile:

Anarchy Online, Age of Conan, Secret World Legends

  • Game remains maintained.
  • More content and community, anniversary and unnanounced events in the future. Content is limited, however -as mentioned post-stream-, as these games are getting quite old. Investments need to be scaled to the size and revenues of those games. Large scale expansions are not possible (neither if getting bought out by Tencent).

Conan Exiles

  • ETA for the payed map expansion DLC has been revealed: H2 2020. The exact date will be announced later.
    – It is now being called a map “expansion”, as mentioned post-stream. They can’t talk in more detail yet.

Rui: I do think we’ve said the word “map” before, now we’re called it an expansion. And, that’s as far as we’re going to go.
What is in an expansion? How is it going to work? We’re not going to say anything or the marketing guys would come after us with pitch forks if we did that. So, let’s them keep these pitchforks in their room for now.
[
] And the way it will work? Yea, there’s no point saying much about it - it’ll be explained later.

  • First Year 3 Season Pass DLC and Steam Free Weekend confirmed for H1 2020 (along with one of the next big updates, see wiki below).
    – “DLCs” is noted in plural in the financial report.
    (It was unlikely that a Year 3 Season Pass / DLC Bundle would not happen, imo.)

Unnamed (Dune)

  • The invest budget -for the first game- is now estimated at USD 30-50m. This is bigger than that of Conan Exiles. A more concrete budget will be given in the future.
  • Funcom needs to make sure they secure funding before the Dune game sees the light of day.

Unnamed (Mutant Chronicles)

  • It’s further confirmed that the game will be released after Dune.

Upcoming - Internal
Nothing new here, move along citizen. See “In the pipeline” on the wiki, linked below, for more information.

Upcoming - external
Nothing new here, move along citizen. See “In the pipeline” on the wiki, linked below, for more information.
These are still “top secret”. The only other mention was

Rui: They are both quite exciting projects and we think they fit what we do at Funcom quite well.

Post-stream details

  • Funcom’s ownership does not influence their (plans for) games. Games need to be made and ready for launch, to continue running the bussiness is the most important. The ‘owner’ is mostly a shareholder. Funcom’s position is that they develop independently.
    Furthermore, working with a company like Tencent has certain benefits. These are mentioned in the financial report and earlier press releases on this topic.
  • It is undecided if there will be an Annual Investor Event in the Oslo Office this year. They will come back to this at a later stage.
  • Moons of Madness is prioritized for consoles. Games in general are prioritized for the bigger stores. It may come to other PC platforms (such as GoG) at a later date.
  • An Anarchy Online port to Nintendo Switch would be near impossible, because of for instance the numerous controls.
    After a reply on the question whether Anarchy Online is free to play (it is, but more ‘old-school’ aka restricted in what is free), Rui comments that the question asked was for an Anarchy Online port to Switch, not an Anarchy Online 2 port to Switch (which is a much wanted sequel. It has been stated in the past that an AO sequel is not one of Funcom’s plans).
    Stian then jokes about (hints at) a future “Anarchy Online 2” -type of- game (or maybe an Anarchy Online port), but Rui manages to shush Stian just in time.

Rui: [
] But they are not asking if it’s Anarchy Online 2 on Switch, they’re just asking if it’s Anarchy Online on Switch.
Stian: [laughs] Yea, yea, yea. Who knows, maybe one day, someone, some kind of Anarch–
Rui: Be careful, be careful, Stian. :shushing_face:
Stian: [laughs out loud]
Rui mentions an Anarchy Online 2 is asked for in every stream.
Rui: It is something that I want to see happen one day and, ehm, let’s leave it at that for now.

  • On the Conan Single Player game and Mutant game being on hold:
    Conan Exiles and the segment in general is doing well. Maybe with a game like Conan Exiles -Dune-, more time, more money and the Dune IP, Funcom can improve upon Conan Exiles. It’s an opportunity they can take right now, as the market seems to be suited for it at the moment.
  • It is logical that games like Conan Exiles decline in revenue, considering that a launch is what brings in the most revenue. The ‘trend’ on Conan Exiles is positive, though.
  • In reply to whether Funcom’s name will be changed to “FunCent” if Tencent takes ownership of Funcom:

Rui: We will not be called FunCent [laughs], thanks for the question though.

  • Dune is in pre-production, as noted in the presentation. Some explanation is given by Rui on what pre-production is for games (watch the video for this).

For the upcoming Pareco Gaming Seminar, see Funcom Q4 Financial Presentation and talk at Pareto Securities' 4th Annual Gaming Seminar

For investors and others interested in boring financial talk:

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Aww new map is H2 now? Well that sucks but hey, the more time they got is more time they get to fix and polish it up.

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Maps are a lot of work :slight_smile:

Btw, only the update was previously mentioned for H1. The map did not have an ETA yet.

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I’m now curious as to how long they have been working on it, has to atleast been a year right?

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Map “expansion”
 love it!

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Knowing they were in a planning phase this season, I think they’re still getting ready. Keep in mind, they’ve been busy with dungeons as well. The map might be coming out of concept / pre-production soon. Then there’s other updates to be made too, of course.
I can’t say whether they’ve been working on this for more than a year, let alone half a year.

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I finished adding the post-stream details to this thread (inspired by @Multigun’s past Conan Exiles stream summaries) and updating the wiki with references to the financial report.

A video link will be added asap.

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It likely means that there is a lot more to it than just a new map, so that’s exciting. An expansion is far more content heavy than something like DLC.

I’d imagine it’ll have new clothing, building stuff, weapons, everything, including the new map. That’s how most expansions work over DLC, but I could be wrong.

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And maybe include
 sorcery?!

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Yeah
 you have to cast a spell to get to the new map.

Funcom Devs:
Player begins to chant. POOF
 “There, we added sorcery. Okay, what’s next on our to-do list?” :rofl:

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Thanks for the report TheLOLxd2, this has satisfied some of my recent curiosity surrounding upcoming content.

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I’d rather they extend the Exiles map on the other side of the Jungle. You have to sail across to the other map.

Thus, add boat-building pieces to the game. Exiles have to craft their ship to sail over. It would put the Jungle in the “Center” of the two maps (and hopefully much bigger on the other side). Maybe even some “Jurassic” kind of feel, like an island that ‘time forgot.’ Very dangerous wildlife.

I really hope there’s no loading screen between maps.

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Much the same was being said when Activision and Blizzard got together. Anyone who’s been paying attention knows that they have now entered the free fall section of their downward spiral.

The same was also said about the many empty husks that EA has left in it’s wake as well. Before they were sucked dry of course.

So forgive me if I remain skeptical as to how much independence Funcom will ultimately have. I understand there are benefits. Of course there are benefits. Why do you think developers keep signing contracts with companies like EA? But these deals frequently turn out to be Faustian bargains. Never forget that.

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Just not possible with the engine version, as has been widely documented. Dune probably will have an easier time with larger maps thanks to Fortnight’s rapid success (where Epic improved their engine for that type of thing).

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That’s too bad. Having a really large map in Dune sounds fantastic though. I’m looking forward to seeing what the Dune game is going to be like when it gets finished.

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That’s a possibility!

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I’m actually pretty happy with the map being slated for the second half of the year. Sure, it means we’ll have to wait longer and we probably shouldn’t hold our breaths for any sneak peeks any time soon, but on the other hand it also sounds less likely to be a slapped-together rush job if they’re planning to take that long on it.

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I’ve replaced the Twitch VOD with the YouTube video.

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Speaking of 4.20, the Fortnite Build, have you tried out any scenarios of working Conan Exiles up to this or a greater version of the engine? I know Unreal provides workflow estimates for big projects, but I think there’s a developer tool that lets one estimate the cost and consequences of updating the engine. :motorcycle:

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No, that’s outside my wheel house. I just know it’s a huge pain and expensive. And almost never done for a game that is post release. Conan already updated it’s engine (twice I want to say) during EA, and my understanding that was a huge undertaking at the time.

I just don’t see it as a reasonable expectation at this point.

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