Age of Conan box/subscription pricing announced

by Michael Zenke Apr 22nd 2008 at 2:45PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, Business models, Events, in-game, Launches, New titles

Prices for Age of Conan's retail boxes, monthly subscription fees, and a number of other interesting tidbits have been unveiled in Funcom's new investor update. For those of us on the US side of the Atlantic, we'll be paying out $59.99 for the basic box and $14.99 per month to stay in Hyborea. If you're keeping track, that makes the collector's edition of the game not that much more expensive than the basic set.

Other fascinating informational drops from the pdf document:

The company expects to spend 12% of gross revenues from the game on further marketing.
Funcom's server farm is scaled to handle some 500,000 - 600,000 subscribers at launch.
AoC has had 20 front covers already, and expects to top 30 by the end of May.
Last week Age of Conan's website had some 475,000 unique visitors (according to Google Analytics).
The company acknowledges that its launch success also hinges on its partners. "The Company's most important partners/suppliers are IPsoft, SCi Entertainment/Eidos, Cisco, Dell and GlobalCollect."
Funcom is up front about the bottom line on AoC's future: "The success of the game will depend first and foremost on the response it receives from players after several hours of playtime of the finished product."

[Via Ten Ton Hammer]

Tags: age-of-conan, aoc, breaking, collectors-edition, funcom, pricing, subscriptions

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Rollins said on 2:54PM 4-22-2008

Translation: If you're planning to pre-order the regular edition, do it quick!

Green Armadillo said on 4:41PM 4-22-2008

Few, if any, retailers will guarantee you a price if the retail product turns out to be more expensive than their pre-order price. (They will usually refund the difference if the pre-order price they guess turns out to be too high, and typically a price change gets you out of even a "non-refundable" deposit, your retailer fine print may vary.)

Between the higher than usual price for a new PC game, the underhanded fee for the pre-order early access that they're already charging extra for, the almost certain abundance of topless female avatars, and the extremely low likelihood that the game is actually going to be finished at launch, this one has gone from "may try in open beta" to "no thanks" on my watch list. Then again, there may not even be an actual open open beta, so I suppose the point is moot. I'm DEFINITELY not shelling out $60 for a non-resellable MMORPG sight unseen.

Rollins said on 9:20PM 4-22-2008

Amazon and GameStop both will.

GRT said on 7:50AM 4-23-2008

Read the fine print. At Gamestop, at least, the "Pre-order low price guarantee" protects you if the game price drops. IE, if you pre-order the game for $49.95 and it ships at $39.95, you get it for $39.95. It doesn't say anything about what happens if the price increases.

All that said, I'm wondering if there isn't some confusion here. Maybe they were talking about the box price for the XBox 360 version. On the 360, $59.95 is pretty much the 'standard' price for a AAA title.

Griffon said on 5:03PM 4-22-2008

Man... the box prices for these non re sellable non playable without monthly type games is just getting insane. I'm sorry but the software has no value without the subscription they should be GIVING away the client.

Lewie said on 7:57PM 4-22-2008

All these years of development and you are concerned about the box price. They are way deep after this development cycle. Its time to start collecting for all that hard work that was put into it. $60 may be a bit steep but I have no problem compensating them for their efforts. I guess it just looks different from an industry standpoint.

GRT said on 8:31PM 4-22-2008

$60?

Seems like every post about AoC makes me less and less inclined to support Funcom, no matter how good the game is.

Acidpoptart said on 9:48PM 4-22-2008

I don't believe it will be $60 when it hit stores... It is hard enough to get people to try out your new MMO... Why would you also make it the only PC game on the shelf that costs $60? To be unique maybe?

easybakeevan said on 12:31AM 4-24-2008

It is the standard price point for all console titles, and with rising costs of game development it is only a matter of time before next gen pc titles are raised to 60 dollars as the industry standard.

10 dollars is not going to decide whether this game is good or not. If the game has the gonads to survive the flailing mmo market then it will do so. Lets hope it does.