According to Eidos and Funcom, over one million gamers have signed up to take part in the Age of Conan beta launched this past April 3. Both companies also documented that 800,000 fans signed up for the Clan of Conan newsletter, and the official website has racked in over five million unique visitors since the beginning of the year, with 725,000 uniques hitting the website last week alone. Last week, Funcom even saw over 115,000 posts registered on the official forums, offering a glimpse into the end users' high anticipation for the upcoming fantasy MMORPG.
"Funcom has not been able to find any higher beta numbers for MMOs in the Western world," said Morten Larssen, vice president of Funcom sales and marketing, in a press statement. "We believe it represents the largest ever beta sign-up figure in the history of the genre." Larssen also stated that retail chains are reporting record pre-sales figures for Age of Conan against other popular MMOGs sold.
While interest may be high for Age of Conan, this is not Funcom's initial foray into the MMORPG market. In June 2001, the company launched the sci-fi MMORPG Anarchy Online and suffered one of the roughest launches in gaming history. Littered with installation bugs, high latency and poor customer service, a huge number of its fans - including this one - unsubscribed from its service within months. The company frantically went to work cleaning up the outstanding problems and finally pleaded with the fleeing gamers to come back and try it again for free. As of today, the enhanced version remains stable and trails an impressive following of free-to-play adventurers and subscribers alike. Currently new gamers can sign up and play Anarchy Online for one full year without any cost.
With the launch of Age of Conan just around the corner, it's impressive to see so many fans keeping track of the upcoming MMORPG. Game websites and print magazines have certainly contributed to the hype. Set in Robert E. Howard's highly coveted Hyborian Age, the game yanks subscribers into the events transpiring just one year after the Conan novel, The Hour of the Dragon and will cost the standard $15 monthly fee. The game supposedly ignores the usual click/hotkey combat system, but relies on gameplay found in action/RPG titles instead.
Age of Conan wraps up its five-year development span and brings PC gamers into the fantasy world on May 20, 2008, with Xbox 360 gamers merging into the realm later in 2009. And with Funcom's reported beta numbers and website statistics, it may be possible that Blizzard will have a formidable competitor in the fantasy MMO market.
