MMore Insight

Kanthalos from MMOre Insight moved his blog to a new domain. Check it out, he writes well, and covers a wide range of MMOs from WoW to Mythos.

On of his posts on the possibility of short-lived MMOs got me thinking about Age of Conan again. Funcom apparently expects to sell 700,000 copies of AoC, with 100,000 people already in the early access. Where do these 700,000 people come from? It is pretty safe to assume that most of them will be WoW players or ex WoW players. Now imagine in half a year Wrath of the Lich King and Warhammer Online are both released in time for christmas (I know, wishful thinking, at my age I should stop believing in Santa). Don't you think that the Age of Conan subscriber numbers would take a big hit then?

But that wouldn't necessarily make Age of Conan a failure. If they really sell 700,000 copies for $50 each, that is already $35 million. Keep the numbers up for half a year, then drop down to half, and the game is still quite profitable. It is hard to say how many players are in a "I'm playing this only while waiting for WAR / WotLK" mode, but I guess I'm not the only one.