Funcom’s annual report is out, and there’s a whole lot to glean from the document about the company’s state and its future plans. In summary, Funcom is about breaking even in its finances, is banking hard on Conan Exiles being a big hit, and will probably be letting LEGO Minifigures Online go later this year.
One surprise is that there appears to be yet another Secret World spin-off in the works after the success of last year’s The Park: “The company has started internal concept development and protyping for a smaller game based on The Secret World IPÂ […]Â There is no target release period yet as the project is still in a very early phase.”
The report doesn’t bode well for the underperforming LEGO Minifigures Online: “As of the time of this annual report, [Funcom] does not find it likely that any of the game metrics will improve, and has adjusted its investment in the game accordingly. The license agreement with LEGO for the LEGO Minifigures Online game ends October 2016.”
Financially, Funcom continues to tread water. It made $10.23M in 2015, which was down $2.35M from 2014. However, operating costs were down as well, saving the studio $1.97M, and its net loss was far less in 2015 than 2014. Funcom is still restructuring the studio and looking for other cost-saving measures. Further helping the stability of its finances was the deferment of the repayment of a large bond to the end of 2018.
While the studio expressed confidence in its live MMOs, it made it obvious that it expects big things from Conan Exiles when it launches this year: “The company believes the largest potential value drivers of the company to be the upcoming Conan Exiles, with its live games — Anarchy Online, Age of Conan and The Secret World — continuing to bring solid revenues.”
In the report, Funcom quotes a statistic claiming that there were 23.4 million MMO players worldwide as of 2014.
