Obviously, Age of Conan don't have an easy time in North America. Funcom, developer and publisher of Age of Conan, will close 31 out of 48 Age of Conan servers this week, likely a result of lower-than-expected subscriptions for the massively multiplayer online role-play game.
The closings are most significant with its North America and Oceania operations, which the company will consolidate from 24 servers to just six. In the US, only one player-versus-player server and two player-versus-environment servers will remain, with each combining the populations of six or seven existing servers.
Europe will retain 12 servers due to the company's need to provide German, French, and Spanish-specific servers, but Age of Conan's English servers in the region will be cut from 13 to four.
Funcom's line is that this will improve player experience, with busier servers meaning busier, more enjoyable worlds. And in a small way, they're right. But in a bigger way? Going from 49 servers to 18 shows just how quickly and how savagely this game has tanked. Even so, Age of Conan remains Funcom's only way to make money until it releases its next MMO The Secret World - likely to be next year at the earliest - so it's unlikely to be shut down entirely.
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