Age of Conan dev building Lego MMO
By
Eddie Makuch, News Editor
Funcom inks licensing deal with Lego Group to develop family-friendly massively multiplayer online game based on minifigures toys.
Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures and The Secret World developer Funcom has revealed its next project, a massively multiplayer online game based on the Lego minifigure line of toys. The developer has signed a licensing deal with the Lego Group that will see the studio build a "family-friendly" game focused on "maximum accessibility."
The Lego MMO game will be made available to gamers through unspecified online channels, and Funcom and Lego will work together to "provide a broad and enhanced experience."
According to the announcement, the game will play a "prominent" role in the already existing Lego minifigures online experience. Numerous Lego minifigures Flash games are available through the company's website.
“The market for family-friendly online experiences intended for children and youngsters is brimming with potential,” Funcom CEO Trond Arne Aas said in a prepared statement.
A Lego MMO game has been attempted before. In October 2010, NetDevil launched Lego Universe, but the game had a short life. In November 2011, the Lego Group announced it would be shuttering the game. It managed to attract 2 million users, but failed to set up a satisfactory revenue model, developers said.
By
Eddie Makuch, News Editor
Eddie Makuch (Mack-ooh) is a News Editor at GameSpot. He works out of the company's Boston office in Somerville, Mass., and loves extra chunky peanut butter.
45 comments
@Darkmoone1 Nah. That was made by lego and Tt games and was called lego universe and died less than a year after it was released.
1 Like Ok, I know that MMOs are the hot thing now, but is there any chance you guys can just get to putting out another, single player, Longest Journey game please?
haha this has potential to be awesome as LEGO is all about customisation after all.
Hopefully they can use the licences that LEGO has, albeit I could imagine that wouldn't be possible.
1 Like I hope they take more inspiration from Minecraft and less from World of Warcraft this time.
It is LEGO after all.
Hmm... Strange. I knew Lego was up to something... But... I didn't think it was gonna be another one of these. :T
Oh well.
I'll keep looking into this one.
Might be better than the last one...
(And I KNOW it won't come true, but, let's hope that they get rid of that horrible chat system. :T)
@Krystalthryx I haz finally found you. Anyway, before this game comes, I have a question: Do you play Minecraft? ._. - JetComet
Why does this company keep coming out with MMOs? who is paying them to make MMOs? STOP IT! They obviously don't know what they are doing.
Funcom doesn't want to devote its full attention to TSW for a little while longer? Has that game been released? Oh, wait...
Does Lego even make money from their blocks anymore? It seems now they make more money with video games than with their blocks.
@nurnberg Have you seen any lego sets lately? They're like minimum $80 for any set with more than 50 pieces (which is just about all of them). They probably need to sell just a few to break even. >_<
2 Like @chibi-acer 50 piece lego sets sell for less than 10 bucks these days. Also, LEGO are some the most top selling toy sets in the world, they make plenty of profit to blow on a game from a cheap developer. LEGO is the Nintendo of the toy world.
Coming next Lego the movie directed by michael bay and it's going to be a dark gritty realistic movie!
2 Like They should make a Lego game like Minecraft where you can build anything you want, just with Legos instead. They could even have DLC for different Lego "sets" like Star Wars pieces and other licensed ones. Then add an option to auto-create step-by-step instructions to build your creation in real life. Then people spend even more money buying real life pieces to get their creation in the real world.
@James00715 They had this feature called "Design ByME" where you could build anything you want on a computer program and they would send you the pieces and building instructions but it was shut down a few months ago.
@James00715 That actually sounds like a pretty good idea. They would just have to make a good enough interface with that much freedom. I had a Lego racing game a long time ago, and it was a pain to build things :-/
5 Like What someone should do is say nix on a Lego MMO....just don't do it, it will fail miserably just like the last attempt......MMO's are bland....
Do a Lego game that allows 2-4 players in a coop game either locally or online coop. and have it span the entire spectrum of Lego.....I bet that would sell if it was funny and it was done well. Generally the Lego games of the past 2 generations have been good so long as you are into the licenses they are based on.....
@MJ12-Conspiracy If they included the capacity for players to build their own devices, blueprints, etc. - I totally agree with you. Lego MMO might as well be called "Compulsory MMO", they're making it because it's a franchise that can be MMOified, nothing more.
@strayfies There is more than enough MMO's out there but most of them suck. Why stick players in a bland world with broken controls and broken combat what so the developer or publisher can make a quick million? My point was that small games with 2-4 players maybe even 8 feels better especially if a few of your friends also play the game, in MMO's you are forced to team up and join guilds and whatever but in smaller games you can still go alone and enjoy the game.....
@MJ12-Conspiracy I agree, but here's another twist: If they made it like skylanders and sold lego figures that you had to assemble and then link up with the game they'd have a hit on their hands.
@Odins_Fury The only way that would work well for consumers is if they sold a big tub of pieces of all colors, shapes, forms and sizes that would be compatible with the game, so you can insert ANY real LEGO creation you have made into the game, as long as its made with those pieces, or you can just upload Lego Digital Designer creations to the game (assuming its a PC game).
@Odins_Furyand the tub would be less than 50$, because anything higher is just outrageous. Even if you wouldnt use it for the game, you can make normal stuff with them and it would at least bring 3 copies of each block/piece.
@Odins_Fury I'm not even going to try and argue this, I'll just say that it's a bad idea and I'm tired of DLC ruining games. I don't mind getting extra stuff.......later like a couple months after the game ships. I don't like feeling like the game I'm buying is incomplete......
"A Lego MMO has been attempted before. In October 2010, NetDevil launched Lego Universe, but the game had a short life. In November 2011, the Lego Group announced it would be shuttering the game. It managed to attract 2 million users, but failed to set up a satisfactory revenue model, developers said."
I was about to say, hasn't this already been tried before with less than stellar results? I don't know, those Lego games were cool and all, but a monthly sub fee? No thanks.
1 Like Why the hell aren't they noted as Anarchy Online devs aswell..... It was/will be much more successful than AoC and TSW. Instead of leaving people face palming thinking "oh god makers of aoc".
That's media/news for you. Gamespot is good at spinning words to make things appear whatever way they want.
They are about as unbiased as a politician.
8 Like The MMO boom from 4-8 years ago is clearly over. Making these things at this point is just going to cause bankruptcy. Why not open some video stores while they're at it?
2 Like Ugh... Really? Do we need this? Does anyone really want this? This looks like it would be the kind of F2P throw away garbage you'd see advertised on one of the cartoon networks as a game available to play on their website. Probably great if you're 8 years old but no way I would pay money for it.
About a decade ago The Lego Group almost went bankrupt. They promised that they were going to stop taking chances on all sorts of crap and instead focus on their core products. I guess they're ready to go nearly bankrupt again (not just based on this game, but based on their expansion in several areas, like amusement parks, Lego retail outlets, etc.)
5 Like I'm sorry but "family-friendly" and "multiplayer" can NEVER be combined. Unless there is no text or voice chat in this game...
I really love LEGO. LEGO has huge potential as an MMO; the problem is that that potential hasn't yet been realized.
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