Age of Conan Delayed to Q1 2008

Funcom announced today that Age of Conan will be pushed back to Q1, 2008.  Here’s the info, text in bold is my emphasis:

Durham, USA – August 10th, 2007 – Funcom announce a new release date for ‘Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures’. The highly anticipated MMO is now set to release on the 25^th of March 2008. By setting a new release date for the game, Funcom can continue the focus on honing, polishing and improving the heralded qualities of the game, ensuring a fantastic MMO experience when it launches next spring.

 

“We naturally regret that we have to push back ‘Age of Conan’. However, after careful consideration, and analysis of recent Beta feedback, we believe that the new release date is in the best interest of the gamers, our company and our owners,” said Trond Arne Aas, CEO of Funcom. “We are fully committed to delivering games with absolute qualities, and in the current MMO marketplace we know that only the best is good enough to truly succeed. With the new release date we have therefore given ourselves more time to meet and deliver on the massive expectations for the game. We are certain that our choice will ultimately pay off, and that all ‘Age of Conan’ players will get a special online experience.”

 

”We are honored by the immense reception our game is constantly getting, with an astounding amount of positive press coverage, awards and magazine covers, but we still see that we need to polish some aspects of the game even further, especially when it comes to the entry barriers,” said Gaute Godager, founder of Funcom and Producer / Director on ‘Age of Conan’. “With the added development time we can now deliver something even more unique and powerful, something which is worthy of the incredible Conan legacy.”

There’s the “P” word that Darren has talked so much about.  VG scared the crap out of everyone and reminded all devs of the price of rushing a game to market when it’s not ready.  So I applaud Funcom for listening to it’s beta testers and not rushing this thing out the door.  I emphasize “entry barriers” because that’s been discussed recently as well.  With more and more “casual” gamers (use whatever definition you like) in the market, every game is trying to make those initial few moments in their MMO nice and smooth.  I haven’t played Conan obviously, so I don’t know what their current new player experience is like, but obviously they felt it needed to be streamlined, simplified, focused, or all three.

So go pop in one of the classic Schwarzenegger titles by the same name.  It’s the only Conan you are getting until next March.