Funcom, developers of MMORPG Age of Conan, has seen its stock drop 55% over the last couple weeks. Age of Conan was launched in late May this year, and made Funcom#DY#s stock to a high price of 54 dollars. Now it made dramatic moves to 24 dollars per share.
Funcom#DY#s average stock price before AoC was about 25 dollars a share. With the excitement and very strong pre-order numbers around the launch of AoC, that price more than doubled up to 54 dollars per share. Now, we#DY#ve tumbled back down, to about 24 dollars per share. The reason:
There#DY#s speculation that, despite strong initial sales and account sign-ups, investors are concerned at how well the game will retain its players.
Although polished in the early stages, some feel that Age of Conan#DY#s content and quality thins out as the game progresses, and that this has led many players to cancel their subscriptions. We gave it the benefit of the doubt in our review.
Massively notes that there#DY#s no way of knowing how many players actually stayed beyond the free 30-day trial and Funcom#DY#s done some phenomenal PR spin on the topic; however, we do know that the game has had strong sales at retail. The 54 dollars price may have been a bubble, though, since 24 dollars is what the company had been trading at earlier this year. If the price drops down further, then it looks like investors don#DY#t like what they#DY#re hearing about the game and are losing confidence in the company.
Resource: Massively
