One of the trickier parts of the MMO business is the interplay between IP holders and the companies that make games with those IPs – after all, we’ve certainly seen MMOs implode over the loss of an IP before. One good way to avoid that problem is to just… buy the whole IP. And that appears to be exactly what Tencent-owned Funcom has done with the Conan IP.
“Funcom today announced the acquisition of Cabinet Group, home to dozens of intellectual properties, including Conan the Barbarian, Mutant Year Zero and Solomon Kane. Cabinet Group’s entire portfolio will be incorporated into the IP studio and Funcom subsidiary Heroic Signatures. Funcom CEO Rui Casais said he has high ambitions for the IPs and noted at least one unannounced project is already in development.”
Apparently, the Cabinet Group boss will stay on as boss of the new Heroic Signatures, which Funcom hopes to parlay into additional projects. “We are currently overseeing the development of an unannounced game which will combine many of the characters in the Robert E. Howard universe,” Rui Casais says in the press release. “And if you combine Funcom’s knowledge of games with Heroic Signatures’ knowledge of the TV/entertainment, publishing, and licensing industries, it makes us perfectly placed to take this venture to the next level. It’s exciting times ahead for us and for fans of the IPs.”
Even if nothing ever comes from that, it’s a comfort for fans of Conan Exiles, Age of Conan, and the absurdly-long-delayed Conan Chop Chop.
