For all the success stories that may happen, there’s always going to be a loser. It’s not demeaning nor depressing – it’s just the way the inudstry works. Stick too many high profile releases into a period and one is bound to emerge the loser.
Sadly, it seems to have happened to Funcom’s MMO The Secret World, which it spent a fair amount on developing and marketing. As GIBiz reported it’s only 200K units since it’s June 29th release.
Funcom admitted to these losses in their second quarter financial reports, stating, “Initial sales of The Secret World have been below expectations, as communicated in the stock notice of August 10.”
The company blamed low critics’ scores and the proximity of Diablo 3 and Guild Wars 2 in it’s release window for it’s failure. Funcom has since laid off employees and begun restructuring it’s development. “Funcom will concentrate it’s new development on more focused, systems-driven games that have a high degree of community and player interaction. These games require less time and development cost to bring to market.”
This includes the LEGO Minifigures F2P MMO in the works. Hopefully fortunes will turn around for the company and allow it post a profit soon.