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Funcom CEO resigned one day before TSW launch
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Based on what?
Age of conan was #4 and TSW is #25 on Xfire, age of conan had 3x the forum post and trafic as TSW. Age of conan claimed to sell 900,000 boxes. TSW wished to sell 1.25 million.
If launch didn't own age of canan's then that is my base.
(1) Xfire is not a reliable data source for determining popularity in any way, shape or form. The only data it provides the end user with, is data provided by other Xfire users. Highly skewed.
(2) Forum traffic being lower is an indicator that players have less to complain about, and as a result, are spending more time playing the game than they are making forum threads. A large part of this can also be attributed to the plethora of issues AoC had at launch, which caused an uproar among the playerbase.
(3) We haven't seen numbers yet for TSW sales, so you're definitely passing judgment prematurely on that aspect.
Insert another coin and try again.
If TSW doesn't hit top 5 on xfire is is 100% true that it didn't sell 1 million. Xfire is more right on than many think, look at the top games and then the top MMOs on x fire, they are in order. I said forum traffic pre launch! Most of the age of conan post were about PvP, combat, or whatever...few about issues as was pre release.
To rebuttle another post, age of conan was #4 the first week only, after that it fell rapidly to 40 then a few month after FTP it fell much lower to where it is now.
Aoc didnt sell 900k copies prelaunch. Tsw aims for 1.3 mill and state that they Are on target. If they were not on target then they would have to disclose this.Again stock rose 10% after this was announced!!!
This thread is so far fetched and on the border of attempting to mislead both users and stock owners. I suggest mmorpg.com shut it down and review OPs statements
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
The launch was too smooth and customer support has been too fast, with real people not auto responses...
This absolutely wasnt going to be tolerated. He paid the ultimate price: a new job
Next week they upgrade the game engine to the old anarachy online game engine and replace the 15min customer support with an auto reply email.
Also a new race: Elves
...And then there's those of us that just roll our eyes because we've been playing the game for a month or more and know everything is fine.
The perspectives of gamers and investors within a company that makes games is 100% a diffrent point of view.
They could have been angry the game wasnt overhyped. I mean they were able to get 1.4mil box sales launching a steaming pile that was AoC at launch...and here they have a game thats in working order and good right off the bat.
Could be as simple as that.
That or mabey the investors are hardcore pvpers and pissed theres no way for them to gank lowbies in kingsmouth why they try to read stuff and listen to npc dialogue.
People read way too much into it.
First, the guy wasn't going to move to a new position before the game was launching. CEOs who are in good standing take new roles. Bad ones are fired or "move on to other opportunities in another company." My company goes through CEOs almost every year and they always wait until the end of a big project to move on. Be concerned if someone leaves in the middle, not at the end.
Second, it's the first day of the new month not the day before official launch in Corporate terms. His new role started today so that's when the press release was.
Third, for those who were in the closed beta and communicated with Ole (the COO who's now the CEO) you can tell that he was the one running the show. Ole deserves the promotion. I don't know of any other company who's COO spends time on forums answering questions and taking issues to research.
Please stop making everything into some conspiracy theory.
Meh, it just sounds like he finally got his baby out the door and has decided he wants to spend more time on the links. In the business world, retirement for big execs is often a process with several steps taking months or even years. Nothing real unusual.
The only problem with The Secret World is that too many conspiracy theorists will be playing it.
All die, so die well.
SOLD! send me a PM when the models are in so I can order. I havn't played a dark elf for a while so talk to him about it.
SOLD! send me a PM when the models are in so I can order. I havn't played a dark elf for a while so talk to him about it.
Do you understand irony?That or maybe the investors aren't pissed about anything because, you know, we have zero reason to think that they are. Look- everybody has been whining for a year now that you can't trust Funcom to launch a game correctly. Looks like they actually got it right this time. Even the Original Poster tried to pin his paranoia on a coming failed launch. If you're super desperate to believe there's something wrong with The Secret World, then I can't stop you...but I'm playing it and it's awesome.
no the games great, and the launch went pretty well (Very Well for a funcom game!)
perhaps he resigned because hes getting hired elsewhere
Don't blame him, I would have resigned too.
Grim Dawn, the next great action rpg!
http://www.grimdawn.com/
'Kind of reaching'? LOL
I remember when people who noticed that Gordon Walton, General Manager of Bioware Austin, resigned a couple of months before the launch of SWTOR were also accused of 'reaching'.
and more importantly - its a MUCH better game than AOC. never played AO, so couldn't comment.
OP has got me worried though, worried about EA takeover. I mean EA cant make a mmo in house to save their lives all their 2 good mmos - uo & daoc were bought in. Makes me worried they buy a good one in to save embarasment from swtor.
I don't care how rosy colored your glasses are... it's a bad sign. If he were resigning to assume a lesser role, why does it have to be 1 day before the release? He couldn't have waited until 2 weeks after? Or even 2 days? That way, initial sales wouldn't have a chance of being impacted.
IMHO: The CEO of Funcom just pulled an Allen Smithee on this title. That way, down the line, he can say that he resigned for personal reasons because he lost creative control over the product and it bombed. Not trying to be a complete naysayer, but that - to me- is the most logical explaination.
My prediction: the first 1/4th of this game is amazing and polished. The next 1/4th is buggy and incomplete, but playable. The last half is virtually unplayable and won't really be functioning for a year. That will be par for the course for Funcom
I don't see any issues in a CEO taking it a bit easier. I'm sure it's a stressful job and taking on a lesser role doesn't necessarily spell doom. People like to take a break from time to time. Many people work for a living, they don't live just to work.
Maybe if there actually were problems with the launch there would be reason to worry, but as everything is running smoothly, what reason is there to fret? Except, perhaps, if you really want to reach the conclusion that TSW is a failure, like you predicted all along, when the opposite is the truth..
I just don't see FunCom as a good 'buy' for EA.
And if EA were to buy FunCom they wouldn't have ousted the current CEO like this. This news actually means EA is not going to buy FC.
Yes, EA has exec on FC's board but CEO of Acti-Blizz also sits in the board of Coca-Cola.
No, Coca-Cola is NOT buying Acti-Blizz. :P
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
I love it, theres not 100s of other employees that help keep the company running from coders to managers to the cleaners and the designers.
If the ceo of coca cola steps to an advisory role do you think they would stop selling coke or not launch a new brand pfft.
Creative control of the product is not in the hands of the CEO, but in the hands of the game director, and the game producer.
Gaute was AoC game director... not CEO, CFO nor any other role in the board of directors. They deal with the economic managment of the whole company, not with the creative nor development elements.
Game director and producer is Ragnar Tornquist, any flak and fire would be directed to him, if a head rolls out of the game launch would be his.
Which is not the case. The CEO didn't even leave the company and is already on a different position, unlike Gaute.
On the 1/4 being complete... do you even know that the Closed Beta NDA is lifted and that plenty people got to the "end" there?
After doing some research at investopedia, I have a theory which fits the game. The CEO excersised a bunch of stock options a few weeks ago, and while CEO you have to notify the public when you sell them. Now that he is pretty much a nobody in the company he can sell them and there is no need to say anything about it. Funcom's stock is at a very low price, like 2 dollars USD/share.
Reason I quoted your post is that many employees did the same thing but don't have to notify when they sell.
There is a big difference between coke and funcom, as the later has little revenue. Funcom made 3 million in revenue, not profit last quarter and an AAA game costs 60+ million, and average AAA+ MMO costs 100+ million.
Doesn't matter whoever steps down as the CEO. It will and forever signal the company was doing poorly to begin with for the reason why he/she is stepping down. The role of the CEO is to just ensure all their shareholders gets money no matter what the cost is. So, basically this does apply to all the games they've made. A bad game = bad profits. Doesn't matter what new CEO steps in. He/she will just be stepping in to make a new plan for a new game. Old games will always be busted in my thought, if it is already broken. You can't fix something so costly in one day by putting a new CEO on the spot. It'll take loads of dough to fix a game. My long review on Amazon and mmorpg, has clearly shown a lot stuff that needs a major overhaul and that requires loads of cash. If the CEO starts firing the baddies that may signal a possible better sign cause right now, the coders I know for TSW are surely F-ing their job. Some stuff weren't bugged and is now bugged again. WTF?! Now, at launch there's still bugs and its the same ones again?!!!
The CEO is where the buck stops. They're the ones who promote the game director. Since Funcom was not working on any other projects, TSW is very much his baby and a resignation the day before it's release is a clear message: "I don't stand by what was created here."
When people got pissed off at the ME3 ending, John Riccitillio is the first guy people point fingers at - the CEO.
I mean, just look at this thread. It's the first sunrise of this game and the longest thread on one of the most trusted MMORPG news sources is "Why did the CEO resign 24 hours before the launch?" Isn't this the WORST kind of thread people looking for reviews/opinions of the game should see? Can you see any case where this will help sales?
If it was actually for the reasons they said, perhaps the guy *should* get fired for it. If it's for the reason I think, this CEO is already in the process of distancing himself from Funcom in a way that lets both of them save as much face for as long as possible.
It's the longest thread because of people like you baiting the people whom actually like the game, instead of you moving on to go do whatever else it is that you do.
edit- and many people are playing the game instead of being on here.
And people like you who respond with nothing substainative to add clearly shorten the thread, amirite?