Funcom

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Funcom Productions A/S

Type	Public (NASDAQ: FUNCOM.OL)
Founded	1993
Headquarters	Oslo, Norway
Key people	Gaute Godager, Co-founder Trond Arne Aas, CEO
Industry	Computer and video game industry
Products	The Longest Journey Anarchy Online Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures Dreamfall
Revenue	NOK 5,291 million (2005)
Operating income	NOK -1,321 million (2005)
Net income	NOK -1,558 million (2005)
Employees	233
Website	www.funcom.com

Funcom Productions A/S (OSE: FUNCOM)is a Norway-based computer and video game developer and publisher. Besides its Oslo, Norway, headquarters, Funcom has offices in USA, China, and Switzerland.

1 History
2 Well-known games
3 Ludography
4 References

[edit] History

Founded in 1993 by Erik Gloersen, Ian Neil, Andre Backen, Gaute Godager and Olav Mørkrid, the company is one of the leading independent game developers and publishers in the world, possibly number one in Europe. They focus mainly on PC games but has also released games on other consoles such as Super NES, Sega Saturn, Sega Genesis and Xbox.

In December 2005, Funcom was the first Norwegian game developer to be listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange.

On 14 March 2007, the company abandoned traditional "offline" product distribution (e.g. on optical discs) in favor of digital distribution completely. The main reason for this decision was admittedly the financial losses due to software piracy.^[1]

[edit] Well-known games

The Longest Journey was produced by Ragnar Tørnquist and was very well received both by critics and users. The game was published in 8 languages. English, Norwegian, French, Dutch, Swedish, Polish, Russian and Spanish. The game was also released in other countries, but mainly in English-speaking ones.

Anarchy Online is a critically acclaimed online game, more specifically a MMORPG, with 20 international awards; including several from RPG Vault. Funcom issued several expansions; The Notum Wars, Alien Invasion, Shadowlands and Lost Eden. Founder Gaute Godager was the first Game Director, before Marius Enge released Alien Invasion and took over at the release of Shadowlands. However, shortly after the release of Alien Invasion, Morten Byom took over.The story takes place on the planet of Rubi-Ka. Following the game, a book has been written about the pre-history about the planet and also a CD with music from the game has been released.

In the spring of 2006, the company released the sequel to The Longest Journey for the Xbox and PC, entitled Dreamfall.

Funcom is also developing a highly-anticipated online action RPG for PC and console entitled Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. This product utilizes the Conan the Cimmerian franchise license and is slated for release in October 2007.

As of 2006, Funcom has released 23 games.