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Funcom opens up videogame license of Conan and other Robert E. Howard IPs to other developers

LESS T_T

Arcane
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Codex 2014
http://pr.funcom.com/pressreleases/...lio-studio-secures-10m-usd-investment-2336799

Conan the Barbarian, Solomon Kane, Mutant Chronicles, and others join Funcom's games portfolio, studio secures 10m USD investment


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– Funcom and Cabinet Group LLC establishes HEROIC SIGNATURES, a joint venture that will manage the interactive rights to rich worlds and characters –

– These properties will be available for other developers to license, as part of Funcom’s increased focus on co-development and publishing partnerships –

OSLO, Norway – December 18th, 2017 – Game developer and publisher Funcom is excited to announce that it is teaming up with Cabinet Group LLC to establish HEROIC SIGNATURES, a new company that will hold and manage the interactive rights to numerous attractive intellectual properties from the writings of Robert E Howard and the Swedish original pen & paper and board games. These properties include Conan the Barbarian, Solomon Kane, and Mutant Chronicles, all of which have been made popular through motion pictures, comic books, novels, tabletop games, miniatures, and more. Other properties include Dark Agnes, Kult, Kull of Atlantis, Mutant: Year Zero, and El Borak. HEROIC SIGNATURES’portfolio includes a total of 29 different intellectual properties making up several decades worth of rich worlds and characters.

“Heroic Signatures is now the guardian and caretaker of a veritable treasure chest of incredible worlds, each of them ready to be brought into the interactive space,” said Funcom CEO, Rui Casais. “Any developer or publisher will be able to license these properties, and our ambition is to see a multitude of games grow from these worlds and to see the properties strengthened across the board to the benefit of everyone who works with them.”

Cabinet Group LLC controls the overall rights to all properties. Funcom and Cabinet Group LLC will each own 50% of HEROIC SIGNATURES, which will control and manage the interactive rights to each property, i.e. the right for video gaming on all platforms.

Funcom will utilize these properties, in addition to the Company’s internal properties, as part of an increased focus on co-development and publishing partnerships with third party developers. Funcom has previously shared that it will be going into select publishing partnerships with developers, and these partnerships are intended to be targeted to leverage the core strengths and markets of Funcom, with focus on quality over quantity of projects. The first of these projects developed by a third party and published by Funcom, will be revealed next year.

To fund publishing partnerships with third party developers, and secondarily to have more flexibility in investing in production of new games internally, Funcom has secured a 10.6 million USD investment from SwedBank Robur Fonder AB which has previously invested in several other major game developers and publishers.

“We see this as a new giant leap in Funcom’s turnaround,” says Erik Sprinchorn, fund manager at SwedBank Robur Fonder. “Building on its impressive recent development, multiple new revenue sources from IP and strategic expansion into publishing will increase cash flow robustness and boost further growth. Combined with additional funding and a reverse split the company is now really well positioned as an attractive long-term investment.”

For more information about Funcom, visit www.funcom.com. HEROIC SIGNATURES can be contacted via www.heroicsignatures.com.

Their site looks like some kind of brochure.

RICH WORLDS AND CHARACTERS -- AVAILABLE FOR GAME PRODUCTIONS
 

Fedora Master

Arcane
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Edgy
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Oh boy I can't wait for any of the major modern developers to get their claws on a problematic IP like Conan or Solomon Kane.
 

Zed

Codex Staff
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To fund publishing partnerships with third party developers, and secondarily to have more flexibility in investing in production of new games internally, Funcom has secured a 10.6 million USD investment from SwedBank Robur Fonder AB which has previously invested in several other major game developers and publishers.

“We see this as a new giant leap in Funcom’s turnaround,” says Erik Sprinchorn, fund manager at SwedBank Robur Fonder. “Building on its impressive recent development, multiple new revenue sources from IP and strategic expansion into publishing will increase cash flow robustness and boost further growth. Combined with additional funding and a reverse split the company is now really well positioned as an attractive long-term investment.”

SwedBank, lol. clown bank for poors.
 

Unkillable Cat

LEST WE FORGET
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Codex 2014 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy
Paradox Entertainment claims copyright on all material connected to Conan, yet most of the Conan work has been in the public domain in Australia and the UK since 2006.

Bizarre.
 

ERYFKRAD

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Strap Yourselves In Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Can't think of many developers who'd do the Howard works justice. Bums me out even more that we might get a Conan game, or rare case a Solomon Kane game, but no El Borak or even Steve Costigan.
Best thing I can hope for is that Taleworlds does a Hyboria mod for Mount & Blade or something.
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
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Codex 2014
With today's announcement of Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden: http://massivelyop.com/2018/02/28/f...-was-the-most-profitable-year-in-its-history/

Of course, the studio is particularly excited about today’s announcement of its publishing Mutant Year Zero.

Funcom Oslo continues to work on a new Conan the Barbarian title, while Funcom North Carolina has greenlit a “cooperative online shooter” using the Heroic Signatures IP that is going into pre-production next month. There is also a third IP-related project that is being mapped out for the future.

The studio also tooted its horn when it came to the acquisition of half of the rights to Heroic Signatures IP for games and shook with delight over the development of an Amazon TV series starring Conan.
 

bylam

Funcom
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Paradox Entertainment claims copyright on all material connected to Conan, yet most of the Conan work has been in the public domain in Australia and the UK since 2006.

Bizarre.

Not an expert on this but it always was explained to me that Conan as a character is trademarked, and that has been reinforced through the comics/movies/games etc. So the writings of REH are public domain in some places, but not the characters?

Dunno - not my area really.
 

hivemind

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funcom should be all ritually executed for killing BLC

I'd behead them all myself if I could
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
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Codex 2014
More Conan games are coming, including possibly an RTS by Petroglyph: https://www.pcgamesn.com/conan-rts

Another Conan game is coming to PC next year, and it'll probably be an RTS

Veteran strategy studio Petroglyph is making a Conan game. It is due for release in the first half of next year. The news comes in a quarterly report from Conan licence holder and videogame publisher Funcom. Funcom is fully funding the project and targeting a PC launch during the first half of 2019. They explicitly acknowledge "Petroglyph is a well-known developer of real-time strategy games", and state the studio is "utilising the Conan the Barbarian IP".

Clearly Funcom are looking for more ways to leverage that IP, as the report also states Conan Exiles "will soon be Funcom's best-selling game to date." The barbarian survival sim received its full 1.0 launch on May 8 and "has sold in total more than 1.4 million units, including retail sell-in and not excluding refunds."

There's not much more detail in the report, other than some corporate-speak about the collaboration being "in accordance with [Funcom's] strategy of publishing both internally and externally developed titles in order to generate more revenue streams" and blah blah blah. You can check out the report for yourself here.

Further updates are promised for Conan Exiles, including paid DLC, the first of which will be released in June. "New features and functionality", bug fixes, and quality of life updates will all be free. Conan Exiles has apparently been profitable since its first week in Early Access, from January 31 last year.

Enticingly, there are two more internal projects in early concept stages. Yet another Conan game is spinning up at Funcom Oslo, while Funcom North Carolina is hiring for "a cooperative online shooter" with "using an IP from Heroic Signatures that isn't Conan." Funcom co-founded Heroic Signatures to manage the IP of Conan author Robert E. Howard, which includes Solomon Kane, Wolfshead, Kull of Atlantis, and many more.

So that makes two Conan games in the next few years, one of which may well be strategy. Elsewhere the outlook is bullish for Funcom: "with $16.6 million in available cash at the end of 1Q18 and only $0.6 million in interest-bearing debt, the company has a strong financial position, significantly improved compared to recent years."
 

ERYFKRAD

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Strap Yourselves In Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Sounds to me like the coop shooter could be an El Borak-setting. I'm not sure what else could work for an online shooty game.
 

Hoaxmetal

Arcane
Joined
Jul 19, 2009
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Another Conan game is coming to PC next year, and it'll probably be an RTS

What is best in life? To right click on your enemies, to see their pathfinding get stuck before you, and to hear the lamentations of their lacking pylons!
 

Curratum

Guest
There will never be a good Conan videogame. The sooner you get to grips with this concept, the less you will suffer.
 

Dedup

Augur
Joined
Jan 1, 2013
Messages
146
Also the God of War styled Conan game that came out in 2007 is a guilty pleasure of mine. There's nothing spectacular in it, but it's a fun beat em up.
 

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