Funcom dramatically cuts the number of Age of Conan servers to ensure survival.
Walking though JB Hi-Fi in Sydney, yesterday, I was slightly saddened to see that Age of Conan (AoC) had plummeted to $29. I was even more saddened by the large number of copies on the shelves that looked suspiciously similar to the large number there a month ago.
This time last year, the game didn’t exist, yet now it can’t even be discounted off the shelves. For a game that sold massive numbers in the initial few weeks, the situation doesn’t bode well, for not only does the game lack an influx of new players, the initial purchasers of the game just haven’t stuck around. This creates a pretty poor multiplayer experience, with remnant player enclaves dispersed across servers designed to cope with an exponentially larger player base.
To cope with this, Funcom announced server mergers back in September. However, now that the sheer extent of these mergers has been announced, it paints a pretty depressing picture for AoC’s future. The US and Oceanic region is hardest hit, with the 24 servers in the region becoming a mere six, while Europe is having its number of servers halved.
This shows how few people stuck around in Hyboria once the content started to dwindle away. Sadly, most of these players are probably now happily running Naxxramas in World of Warcraft and will be forever lost to Funcom as customers.
Let us hope that those who are still sticking with Conan benefit from these mergers. While Funcom has already gotten rid of staff, and obviously doesn’t have the revenue streams that it could have expected from launch sales, the company, to its credit, is still dedicating development time to making the game better.
For those wondering what the server mergers entail, Funcom has a FAQ up here and the list of servers is here. The mergers are due to happen over the next week, with more information on specifics to come.
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