Funcom announced today that Age of Conan has launched in Russia and Poland, giving a slew of new gamers the opportunity to venture forth into the Hyborian kingdoms.

The Russian and Polish versions of Age of Conan mark the first time Funcom works directly with an external publisher who take care of all service aspects related to the running of a MMO. The partners 1C and CD Projekt are responsible for localization, customer service and community management, as well as sales and marketing.

You can read the full press release below or check out the official Russian and Polish sites if you'd like. This announcement comes on the heels of a recent game update that introduced several new high-level dungeons and opened an additional part of Black Ring Citadel.

Durham, USA – February 23, 2009 – Funcom is proud to announce that Age of Conan has launched in Russia, and Poland. As the game gets ready for full service in two new languages, Funcom has seen a clear trend towards strengthened feedback from the current player community, which praises the many improvements to the game.

The Russian and Polish versions of Age of Conan mark the first time Funcom works directly with an external publisher who take care of all service aspects related to the running of a MMO. The partners 1C and CD Projekt are responsible for localization, customer service and community management, as well as sales and marketing.
    
 “Eastern Europe is quickly becoming one of the most important markets for massive online games, and it will be a continued focus for Funcom to strengthen our presence there. Together with our partners we will therefore focus on making the game a success for many years to come,” says Morten Larssen, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Funcom. “Since we launched Age of Conan last year, the game has taken large strides. This means that all new customers get a fuller Conan experience and nothing pleases us more.”

Launching in May last year, ‘Age of Conan ’ quickly became a smash hit in retail, shipping over 1,2 million copies around the world. In North America, the most prominent online gaming market in the west, Age of Conan became the third best-selling PC title of 2008, only beaten by ‘World of Warcraft ’ and ‘Spore’ . In the weeks after launch, Age of Conan simultaneously topped the charts in 17 countries, even in some all-format lists. This showed the enormous marked demand for brutal, barbaric MMO fun. This was further highlighted by the 15 million unique visitors to the Age of Conan website during 2008.

After having lower customer retention than anticipated in 2008, Funcom is now seeing a distinct turn of events when it comes to Age of Conan. Not only has the company seen a significant improvement in subscription retention, the trend is also that the players spends more time in-game. As a result Funcom continues to invest heavily in the game, and currently more than 120 people are working on adding new content.

Funcom sees that the challenges from 2008 are now turning into positive opportunities going forward, and the many content updates since launch have resulted in a better gaming experience.  This is evident not only from the feedback in Eastern Europe, but also through the current word of mouth among the many active players of the game.

With launch in new markets, an upcoming expansion pack, consistent content updates and numerous marketing initiatives Funcom is excited about the outlook for Age of Conan.

For more information on the local Russian version of ‘Age of Conan ’ please visit http://ageofconan.1c.ru/
For more information on the local Polish version of ‘Age of Conan ’ please visit http://www.aoc2009.pl/