Age of Conan Dev Funcom Confirms Layoffs

Age of Conan developer Funcom today confirmed reports that it has laid off a number of its US employees.

"We did have some staffing cuts at Funcom this week as well as new positions opening in the organization as part of our ongoing cost based efficiency and performance initiatives that are vital to any business," said a Funcom representative to TenTonHammer.

Though the company did not specify the scale of the layoffs, a rumor out of TenTonHammer claims that 70% of Funcom's workforce has been cut, with its customer service and quality service divisions seeing the bulk of the firings.

Funcom reported in June that its MMO Age of Conan had captured a userbase of approximately 700,000 subscribers, but by August that figure had dropped to 415,000. World of Warcraft developer Blizzard has claimed that 68% of Warcraft players who cited Age of Conan as a reason for canceling a subscription have since returned to Blizzard's game.

Age of Conan producer and game director Gaute Godager left the project in September, citing his dissatisfaction with the title. Since then, Funcom has focused on responding to subscriber feedback, releasing a large, free update to the game last week.