Funcom

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Funcom Oslo AS
Founders:	Erik Gloersen Tyr Neilsen Andre Backen Gaute Godager Olav Mørkrid
Founded:	1993
Headquarters:	Oslo, Norway
Keypeople:	Lead developer: ? CEO: Rui Casais
Products:	Secret World Legends, Conan Exiles, Age of Conan, Anarchy Online, The Park, Dreamfall: The Longest Journey, The Longest Journey, Hide and Shriek
Website:	https://funcom.com/

“	Make great games and have a damn good time doing it.	„
	~ About Us

Funcom, pronounced soundfile in Norwegian and in American Englishsoundfile, is the home office of the Conan Exiles studio, a ?-party game developer and game publisher. It is known for the creation and development of Conan Exiles. Located in Oslo, Norway, Funcom currently has over 120 employees from more than 20 different nationalities

History

See also: Wikipedia:Funcom.

Funcom was founded by Erik Gloersen, Tyr Neilsen, Andre Backen, Gaute Godager and Olav Mørkrid in 1993 as an independent video game developer. Its original name was Funcom Productions AS..

Rui Casais joined the company as a junior AI programmer in 2004 And was named its CEO in 2015.

At its peak in 2008, Funcom had around 680 employees spread across offices all over the world.

1993-2018

1993

Funcom is founded.

1993-1996

In the early years of Funcom, they were mostly guns for hire making games for other major entertainment corporations. It made games for the SNES, SEGA Genesis, PlayStation, and many more. Games include:

• Nightmare Circus (SEGA Genesis)
• Winter Gold (SNES)
• Casper (Game Boy, PlayStation, SEGA Saturn)
• Disney's Pocahontas (Game Boy, SEGA Genesis)
• DragonHeart: Fire & Steel (PlayStation, SEGA Saturn, PC)
• A Dinosaur's Tale (SEGA Genesis)
• Daze Before Christmas (SEGA Genesis, SNES)
• Fatal Fury Special (SEGA CD, SNES, and more)
• Samurai Shodown (SEGA CD, SNES, and more)
• NBA Hang Time (SEGA Genesis, N64, PlayStation, SNES, PC)

1999

At the very end of the 90's released The Longest Journey, which made a huge impact on the point-and-click adventure scene and went on to become a big hit around the world.

• It received countless awards and positive reviews.
• Funcom states that this is the "greatest passion project to date".

1999/2000

Speed Freaks came out for the original PlayStation in late 1999 (Europe) and early 2000 (North America) and put players in gocarts, racing each other around tracks and sabotaging each other with various weapons.

• IGN gave it a 9/10!
• Funcom states that they "are quite proud of this one."

2000

No Escape, a 3rd person action game where you could play online against other players or practice alone with bots is launched.

• Its setting is a live-action reality TV gameshow where you compete against other players.
• Its reviews were less positive than expected.
• Funcom accepts this, stating that they are "still proud of it.".

2001

In 2001, Funcom's biggest game until then was released. Anarchy Online is a massively multiplayer sci-fi game that pits Omni-tek against the Rebels on the strange alien planet of Rubi-Ka.

• The game pioneers many new features and business models which is commonplace in the industry today, including in-game video ads.
• In the years following several expansion packs are released.

2005

In December 2005, Funcom NV., the Dutch mother company of Funcom Oslo, becomes a publicly traded company listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange (OSE) as FUNCOM^TM.

• Naturally this had significant impact on the company's structure and way of business, and also opened up new opportunities for financing.
• An updated logo is released.

2006

Dreamfall: The Longest Journey is released on PC and Xbox, continuing The Longest Journey saga.

• The game releases just as the pre-360 Xbox generation comes to an end and is positively received among press and gamers.

2007

“

Before Dreamfall had come to the stores, over 200,000 had downloaded it illegally. For each game sold, it is estimated to be between 3 and 10 times as many. Obviously, we and others in the industry are losing huge amounts of money on this.

„

“

We have decided to stop developing offline PC games. Piracy is the main reason for it

„

“	Many players who only rely on offline PC games have had big problems. For example, in France, the game industry is in crisis due to piracy, he says.	„
	~ Funcom boss Trond Arne Aas, in an interview with E24.(Translated)

This interview, held on March 14 explains why Funcom abandoned traditional "offline" product distribution (e.g. on optical discs) in favor of digital distribution completely. The main reason for this decision was claimed to be the financial losses due to software piracy.

2008

The massively multiplayer online game Age of Conan is released and instantly becomes a massive commercial and critical success.

• The game goes on to sell over 1.4 million units and became one of the best-selling PC games of 2008.

August 21: Funcom laid off half of its Customer Service department located in Durham, North Carolina.

November 22, 2008: Third parties reported that Funcom fired additional 70% of the staff in their US workforce, possibly endangering future releases.

September 17: Gaute Godager left Funcom, stating he was dissatisfied with certain elements of Age of Conan, which he directed. Craig Morrison took over the direction of Age of Conan.

2010

The Age of Conan expansion pack Rise of the Godslayer becomes free-to-play.

2011

Age of Conan becomes fully free-to-play.

2012

Funcom launches The Secret World, a massively multiplayer online game featuring a real world setting built on earth's myths, legends and conspiracies.

• The game generates a loyal following and receives acclaim for its great story and different take on the MMO formula.
• It fails to become the commercial success the company was hoping for.

2014

LEGO Minifigures Online, an online multiplayer game based on the LEGO Minifigures brand is released.

• The game becomes the first online game with shared multiplayer between PC, iOS, and Android.
• Funcom also cooperates with LEGO in bringing game codes into millions of physical Minifigure bags.
• Despite a large number of free-to-play gamers joining, the game fails to monetize well and it is shut down the following year.

2015

• After both The Secret World and LEGO Minifigures Online fail to become the commercial successes Funcom had hoped for, a new, future strategy for Funcom was created.
• In this new strategy, major changes to the company structure, ambitions, way of doing things, priorities and tools were made.

2015/2016

Funcom develops two smaller games in both Oslo and North Carolina, aimed at increasing the teams' experience with the Unreal Engine.

• The Park (PC, Xbox, PS4) is a 1-2 hour long narrative adventure.
• Hide & Shriek (PC) throws players into 1-vs-1 matches where they have to place traps and scare each other to death. Both games are successful in reaching the goals the company had set out for them.

2017

January 31: Funcom releases the open-world survival game Conan Exiles into Wikipedia: Steam#Early Access and it immediately becomes a hit for the company, selling half a million units on Steam in the first month.

• August 16, 2017, the game launches into Xbox Game Preview as The Frozen North expansion update is also released.

July 26: Secret World Legends, Funcom's relaunch of its 2012 MMO The Secret World, goes live.

• The game exceeds the company's expectations, raising the activity levels in the game higher than ever before.

August 31: Funcom gets a new logo. The new logo, the first logo update in 12 years, represents Funcom's journey that has led them to where they are today.

The first six months of the year were the most profitable ever in the history of the company.

• This was announced on the same day that the Q2 2017 report was released.

2018

May 8: Funcom launches Conan Exiles fully on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

June: Another Conan Exiles DLC, this time payed, is released.

Studio

Current offices

Oslo, Norway

Funcom Oslo, situated in Oslo, Norway, is the home office of the Conan Exiles studio, and is where the decisions regarding the Conan Exiles franchise are made. 47 Oslo members are portrayed on the Contact page.

Durham, North Carolina, USA

Funcom Inc is located in Research Triangle Park (RTP), Wikipedia:North Carolina, one of the largest research parks in the world. RTP is home to numerous high-tech companies and enterprises, including several game development studios. Employees at Funcom Inc have easy access to the nearby cities of Durham, Raleigh, and Chapel Hill.​ 48 NC members are portrayed on the Contact page.

Badhoevedorp, The Netherlamds

Funcom NV, the mother company of Funcom Oslo AS.

Previous offices

Previous studios include:

• Beijing, China
• Dublin, Ireland
• Montreal, Canada

Games

Conan Exiles

Main article: Conan Exiles

Other games

List of products

Employees

Game developers

Name	Avatar	Position	About

Community Managers

Name	Avatar	Position	About

Investor Relations

As of 1st November 2016 (excluding COO and CFO):

Name	Avatar	Position	About
Ole Schreiner		COO
Stian Drageset		CFO
Alain Tascan		Chairman Remuneration Committee	Vice-Chairman of the Supervisory Board
Fredrik Malmberg		Member Remuneration Committee
Magnus Grøneng		Chairman Audit Committee
Egil Kvannli		Member Audit Committee

Official links

• Official site