Funcom - Opening up Conan License & Others

Funcom is opening up its licenses to other game developers by establishing Heroic Signatures as a joint venture. These properties include Conan the Barbarian, Solomon Kane, and Mutant Chronicles.

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

Press Release • Dec 18, 2017 07:53 GMT

- 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.

More information.

Nows your chance Obsidian/InXile/Larian/Harebrained/Logic Artists. Do a Conan game now!

Not sure who would be a good fit for the Conan license. I hope for a single character CRPG in the style of classic Fallout but I'm open to a well made action RPG.

With Kane and Conan available maybe this time we can get a decend Howard game.

How fun would it be to play a dark and dirty Skyrim type of game set in Hyboria? I would also take any kind of well made game in these settings. It would be great if these games were made with love and not cash grabs but that would be surprising.

Originally Posted by Hastar
How fun would it be to play a dark and dirty Skyrim type of game set in Hyboria? I would also take any kind of well made game in these settings. It would be great if these games were made with love and not cash grabs but that would be surprising.

Well, tjhere is a small Hyboria mod for Skyrim that lets you play as a Conan-looking character, it also adds one dungeon with quest and some equipment like the Atlantean Sword. Parts of Skyrim already feel like Cimmeria.

I would really like to see a Mutant Chronicles game, it would be a perfect fit for a FPS or a Warzone-style RTS game like Company of Heroes / Dawn of War (there was one abortive attempt at such a game a couple of years ago).

Originally Posted by Cherno
Well, tjhere is a small Hyboria mod for Skyrim that lets you play as a Conan-looking character, it also adds one dungeon with quest and some equipment like the Atlantean Sword. Parts of Skyrim already feel like Cimmeria.

I remember playing my melee char in Oblivion as a Schwarzenegger/Conan look-a-like.
Good times!

The original Conan is still one of the greatest movies of all time! And the soundtrack! Wow, just wow!

Originally Posted by Darkheart
I remember playing my melee char in Oblivion as a Schwarzenegger/Conan look-a-like.
Good times!

The original Conan is still one of the greatest movies of all time! And the soundtrack! Wow, just wow!

AH you reminded me and I had to listen to it again!

Music so manly, my chest hair grew its own chest hair

The CTB soundtrack is so good, Chuck Norris plays air guitar to it.

Well, Age of Conan had massive potential back in the day.

Unfortunately, the mainstream MMO market has changed and I don't really think there's much room for a big budget Conan MMO these days.

One thing I've always loved about Robert E. Howard's work is how he was inspired by Lovecraft - and vice versa.

Fantasy combined with Lovecraft is a unique and delightful blend.

Would love pretty much any competent RPG combining the two in a fifty-fifty combination.

Would be interesting to see Larian's take on such a game - if they could manage to dispense with the humor.

D:OS2 was already a bit Lovecraftian - what with the voidwoken from the sea and such.

I don't believe anyone could pull off a real Conan game/universe. Without Howard, Carter, or maybe Lyon, it just isn't possible. Faking it until you think you've created something simply won't work, the real Conan fans will just wind up mocking it, then rejecting it. Get one of the three that I mentioned earlier to sign on, and maybe it could happen. And best of luck dealing with ghosts!

Originally Posted by lostforever
AH you reminded me and I had to listen to it again!

loading…

Listening now to this sound track, it somehow reminded me of Baldur's Gate main theme, especially that end part!

Originally Posted by Zogar Sag
Listening now to this sound track, it somehow reminded me of Baldur's Gate main theme, especially that end part!

Yeah, there are some similarities for sure. I've mentioned before that I think that sountrack was one of the influences for Michael Hoenig when he composed the ST for Baldur's Gate.

not a bad soundtrack to use for inspiration imo. I used to daisy chain CTB and the Superman soundtrack, the one with Christopher Reeves. Reeve? Get the two dudes mixed up….

This would be a perfect opportunity for some SJW-ish game studio (Beamdog? Hello) to get a hold of Conan, and turn him into a gay, transgender, wimpy effeminate man…what an opportunity for revenge! All that toxic hyper-masculinity finally avenged!

Reeve

Originally Posted by Arkadia7
This would be a perfect opportunity for some SJW-ish game studio (Beamdog? Hello) to get a hold of Conan, and turn him into a gay, transgender, wimpy effeminate man…what an opportunity for revenge! All that toxic hyper-masculinity finally avenged!

If Conan was gay he would be a bear. Also, he would do the pitching instead of the catching

On the topic, my reaction is: meh.
Anyone can make another tits&dicks stretching game without any kind of licenses.

On gay Conan, just no. He is not even bi. Could work in some parody product type, perhaps would be fun to see it, but in works based on original character it shouldn't happen. IMO.
Actual gay characters do exist in different comics so if someone wants to make a game based on them, while not forcing them to be str or bi, hell why not, in fact I'm not sure why noone made such game yet.

Originally Posted by Carnifex
the real Conan fans will just wind up mocking it, then rejecting it.

You're right, as a real Conan fan I would reject it, but since there are only around ten of us I don't think it would be an issue.

Conan's been so thoroughly bastardized not many people have a sense of the real material at all. Example: Conan never traveled to Cimmeria in the original stories, and it was described as a rainy, hilly land, not some icy, mountain Viking thing.

I don't think Funcom even *owns* the rights to Conan as a character. Howard died in 1936 and many (most?) of his works are public domain. Of course since the US copyright system is completely ass-f*&^ing backwards, there would probably be a court challenge if someone stuck their head up and tried to use Conan without paying them.

Allow me to rewrite their press release for them:

Press Release • Dec 18, 2017 07:53 GMT

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 Conan the Barbarian.

We honestly didn't know we would make nearly as much money as we did with Conan Exiles. I mean, we knew we would make serious bank, because we put in that giant-cock slider. Come on, it's a cock slider, right? But can you believe how long it was on Steam's Top Sellers list? We couldn't either. We bought the guy who pitched the cock-slider idea lunch for a week.

Now, however, we're simply out of ideas. We can't top the cock slider, so we're selling it. Oh, yeah, and Solomon Kane and Mutant Chronicles, too. Almost forgot we had those. We don't think people want to see giant cocks on mutants.

Seems as good a time as any to mention that the Conan Chronicles modules for NWN2 are very good.