The Secret World Fails To Impress…Funcom Sacks Employees
The Secret World was hailed as an MMORPG that could redefine this generation of role-playing games, but has it made the cut? Judging by the recent actions from developers, Funcom, it definitely hasn’t. Within weeks of launch Funcom offered a free to play weekend, hoping that allowing players to sample the game would increase subscriber numbers. Sadly, it didn’t go to plan as all it seemed to do was make more people aware of the severe amount of problems with the MMO.
Exhausting all regular methods of cost reduction, Funcom have been forced to layoff a huge number of their employees.
“As we announced in the stock notice that went out on August 10th, Funcom is in the process of reducing operational costs and this process includes temporary layoffs as well as other initiatives. As we are currently in the middle of this process we can not provide any further comment at the present time. Rest assured however that we have long-term plans for the company and that we remain fully committed to all of our games. We aim to provide more information soon.”
In short, it’s safe to expect The Secret World to hit the free to play market within the next 12 months.
F2P within 12 months? I think it’s more likely they’ll just shut the whole thing down within 12 months. Funcom already has one feeble PoS game they’re maintaining. I don’t think they can afford another.