It’s been an interesting financial period for Funcom, what with the Tencent buyout and investors pushing for accelerated production on the DUNE survivalbox. The Norwegian studio posted its Q4 2019 financials today, showing a drop in overall revenue compared to Q4 2018 as well as a drop in overall revenue for all of 2019 compared to 2018. However, the studio points to improving revenues and a growing playerbase for Conan Exiles, it touts the last three years of EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization), and it suggests that 2019 was an investment year with “strong [December 2019] sales to be received in [2020].”
Notably, the investor slides appear to confirm that the Conan Exiles is indeed getting a normal DLC in the first half of 2020, with a “paid expansion” in the latter half of 2020.
As for that DUNE game? Funcom is now categorizing it as an “open world multiplayer” title still in pre-production, with a “premium games as a service” business model and an investment budget of 30 to 50 million USD.
Perhaps more importantly, the Mutant Chronicles shooter that was in production last year has apparently been delayed somewhat, as now its timeline says it’ll release after DUNE instead of before. MMO players will recall that this was a move Funcom’s shareholders were previously pushing so hard for that they posted a public message urging it.
The company says that with the ongoing Tencent share buy-up, which closes on March 16th, it now has 10 active projects: five new and five existing.
More on Funcom’s recent happenings:
