Age of Conan

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Age-of-Conan-Release-is-a-Sold-Out-Hit-85928.shtml

There are many voices claiming that Ago of Conan: Hyborian Adventures is the title that could take the throne of best MMORPG from World of Warcraft. Although a few years behind and with a different, more "mature" approach to the game, Age of Conan really is a competitor to the throne. It will probably remain like that since the WoW-mania seems hard to beat at the moment, but that does not matter too much.

What matters is that Funcom's MMO will be officially, fully released tomorrow, on the 20th of May (with a 23rd of May release date set for Europe) and the game is already sold out almost everywhere. In a press statement earlier this day, Funcom proudly announced that all the Collector's Edition had sold out weeks ago and extra copies had been ordered - only to sell out, as well. Also, the regular pre-order campaign is working great and the developers are having trouble already due to server limitations and lack of physical copies of the game!

All in all, 111,000 Collector's Edition units have been sold since January and no less than 700,000 regular units are expected to be sold only in North America on day one. No matter if we're talking about a MMO or an offline game, these numbers are really impressive. And, since they're probably going to grow as soon as people start talking about the game, Funcom has decided to order extra servers in order to facilitate handling more customers.

"Everyone in Funcom is delighted and humbled with the historical pre-order numbers for Age of Conan. If the information we have is correct, they represent the highest pre-order number for any global launch of an original PC game, ever, including the original World of Warcraft launch," said Morten Larssen, Funcom’s VP of Sales & Marketing.

So, it seems that battle is on! Might good old World of Warcraft lose in front of the Cimmerian?

my 2 cents,  Funcom has earned it-- now the next hurdle is to see how many of those sales turn into monthly subscriptions. If  over 250k on the first , second, and third month . . then there is absolutely nothing else to be said if this game is a failure or not.

Also, the MMO genre was long over due to have a success story. Not in the sense that one game will be better than another, but for the premise that the mmo genre can still be a place where evolution still thrives, and people, both constumers and developers alike, can nod their had in satisfaction and to say to the rest of the gaming industry, "we can still move forward".

I will be rooting for WAR to be just as successful if not more, because this industry still needs this kind of positive feedback more than ever.

As for everyone else,  See you guys in Hyboria

--Beanie

RP-PVP: Cimmeria

Brudi:  lvl 13 Conquerer

700,000 expected to be sold is not the same as actually  sold:) Now i hope it does and yes it all depends on how many retained. It will be a success IMO but not even close to WOW s numbers. I m not a WOW fan at all never really have been but they have the time and money to do whatever they want unfortunately to counter anything any company does so we ll see. I believe AOC had 1 million sign up for beta total(correct me if i m wrong) which is impressive, but i can t honestly see all of those signed up going to play it long term or at all. WAR has 700k+ and it s a few months from OB at least, i expect it to top AOC s beta numbers and subs but hopefully the 2 combined can drop down WOW a notch or 2. Only time will tell.

Funcom has revealed that it has not been able to fulfill all orders for the upcoming Age of Conan in all markets despite shipping 700,000 copies on day one, and that the Collector’s Edition has already sold out.
The total print run for the Collector’s Edition will stand at 110,000, with no additional reprints.  The Collector’s Edition may however be available at retail.


While Funcom did not release exact numbers relating to customer pre-orders, it did say in a statement that those numbers were “impressive”. Morten Larssen, VP of sales and marketing for Funcom, said of this number, “Everyone in Funcom is delighted and humbled with the historical pre-order numbers for Age of Conan. If the information we have is correct, they represent the highest pre-order number for any global launch of an original PC game, ever, including the original World of Warcraft launch.”

Funcom has stated that the inability to fulfill all orders for the game in all markets is related due to limitation in server capacity, and that more servers will be made available. In addition, the company has stated that the DirectX 10 version of the game has been delayed, and will be next available for preview in late August at the German Games Convention in Leipzig.


http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10552&Itemid=2

Dont mean to spoil the fun but Funcom is shipping 700K copies IN TOTAL. 110K CE and 590K Regular games.

Still its like 170K more than WOW shipped when the opened in US and EU. together.

if they dont get their shit together, they wont have many subs for very long.

Originally posted by jayheld90

if they dont get their shit together, they wont have many subs for very long.

wont be hearing reliable numbers for a week

selling to Retail   vs selling to players  

are 2 different things

WOW didnt release their record breaking "day one" sales until the necessary information was available

findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2004_Dec_1/ai_n7584110

Originally posted by Estrus

 

Originally posted by jayheld90

if they dont get their shit together, they wont have many subs for very long.

As far as I can tell, their shit is quite together.

 

Not really. Still a lot of things wrong with it.

We also have to remember this game is the only thing new for awhile now(TR and POTBS are but not ) Anyone that is remotely bored atm will buy it. I didn t but thats another story. I think once WAR OB comes closer and between WAR and WOW/LK are near it won t retain close to it s numbers the first few months will have. Then theres Aion and TCOS which will dent it as well. It will do well but in the end i think they would be lucky to have 300-500k long term subs. Thats still good but i m really finding it hard to believe 1 mill subs for a long stretch.