Development And Support Continues At Funcom

Following the news of possible financial infringements a couple of days ago, we reached out to Funcom to find out if the situation would affect the company's in-development Lego Minifigs title, as well as continued expansions and support for their ongoing MMOs, including The Secret World. Today, we received an update from the developer and I've included it in full below. Here's a taste:

Production on all Funcom games continues as normal, and the company remains fully committed to games in development as well as the continued operation and updating of existing live games. Yesterday's events is not expected to have any impact on the company's continued operation or the development on future releases.

Good news then? It seems so.

Here's that statement in full:

On Wednesday, the company received a visit from Řkokrim (the Norwegian National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime) who is conducting an investigation on the suspicion of infringement of the provisions of the Securities Trading Act with regards to financial information given to the market surrounding the launch of The Secret World. Funcom is of course fully cooperating with Řkokrim and the company is providing them with all necessary information to make sure the situation can be clarified and resolved as soon as possible.

Production on all Funcom games continues as normal, and the company remains fully committed to games in development as well as the continued operation and updating of existing live games. Yesterday's events is not expected to have any impact on the company's continued operation or the development on future releases. Funcom's key priorities are the development of the upcoming LEGOŽ Minifigures Online, as well as supporting and expanding on the live games Age of Conan, The Secret World and Anarchy Online with new and exciting content. In terms of The Secret World, developers are currently in the process of finalizing its ninth content update, which will send players on a grand adventure through Tokyo, and Funcom will be releasing new information and screenshots from this update soon.

Please also note that trading in the company stock was only suspended temporarily yesterday, and trading was back to normal shortly thereafter. We were also happy to see that our communication to the market after the events and the way we handled the situation was well received, and the stock climbed throughout today.

It's unclear whether the situation is fully resolved or not but stock prices do appear to have returned to levels comparable to those before the investigation. As the charges related to historical document-keeping and financial representation, it's the area around the launch of The Secret World that may be the subject of further scrutiny. Eyebrows were raised at the time when Trond Arne Aas, CEO at the time, stepped into an advisory role on launch day.

Hopefully any irregularities aren't dangerously scalene and business can continue as usual. I haven't visited The Secret World in recent times but it's a splendid place to holiday.