Funcom

A Norwegian studio with a long memory

Funcom was founded in 1993 in Oslo, Norway, as Funcom Productions AS, by a small group of developers that included Erik Gløersen, Tyr Neilsen, André Backen, Gaute Godager and Olav Mørkrid. It began by making games for other companies before moving into the online games that would define it, and it has released more than twenty titles in the decades since its founding.

Its early reputation rests on two very different strengths. The Longest Journey gave the studio a beloved adventure game, while Anarchy Online, launched in 2001, made it one of the first developers to run a large persistent online world of its own. Those two strands, story and live service, have run through almost everything Funcom has done since, and they explain why the company has survived so many shifts in how online games are paid for.

The online games that made its name

Age of Conan arrived in 2008, an online role-playing game built on the Conan the Barbarian licence, and The Secret World followed in 2012 with a modern-day setting that mixed conspiracy and horror. Neither matched the biggest subscription games of its era in scale, and both were later reworked to survive on different business models. The experience taught Funcom how to keep a game alive after a difficult launch.

The studio's real commercial turning point was Conan Exiles. Released into early access on Steam in January 2017 and fully launched in 2018, the open-world survival game outsold Funcom's earlier online titles and gave the company a steady live-service business across PC and consoles. It remains one of the studio's most important products, and it set the pattern that Dune: Awakening would later follow.

Tencent takes over

Funcom spent years as an independent public company listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange. In September 2019 Tencent bought a 29 percent stake, becoming the largest shareholder. The following January it made an offer for all remaining shares, and the voluntary offer closed in April 2020 with Tencent holding about 95 percent of the company. The offer valued each share at 17 Norwegian kroner, a significant premium over the price at which the shares had earlier traded.

A compulsory acquisition in July 2020 took Tencent to full ownership and Funcom was delisted from the exchange. The company said at the time that it expected no changes to management, staffing or structure and would continue as an independent business. Its chief executive framed Tencent as a long-term investor, and the existing studios kept working on their games, with the parent's size promising more resources for projects already in development.

Dune: Awakening

Funcom secured the rights to make PC and console games based on Dune, and Dune: Awakening is the result. It is an open-world survival game set on Arrakis, developed and published by Funcom and built on Unreal Engine 5. It launched on Steam on 10 June 2025, with five days of early access for people who bought the Deluxe or Ultimate editions.

Dune: Awakening follows a straightforward model. Funcom sells the game and optional downloadable content rather than running an in-game store or a subscription, and it has said post-launch content will come as paid expansions and free updates. Console versions for PlayStation and Xbox were announced as following the PC release. That kind of one-time purchase is unusual for a large online game.

What the launch showed

The head start for Dune: Awakening drew more than a hundred thousand players at peak on Steam, and the game's user rating sat near the top of the store's scale in its first days. Funcom pointed to those numbers as evidence that the survival format and the Dune setting could carry a large audience without a subscription. The figures were strong for a paid game with no free-to-play tier.

The launch also exposed how much the studio depends on a single big game. Funcom's older titles still run, but Dune: Awakening is the project carrying its growth, and its later content and console releases will decide whether the bet pays off over time. For now it is the clearest picture of what the studio is and where its money comes from.

Quick facts

Founded 1993 in Oslo, Norway, as Funcom Productions AS. Best-known titles include the online games Anarchy Online, Age of Conan, The Secret World and Conan Exiles, the strategy game Mutant Year Zero, and Dune: Awakening. The studio develops and publishes its own games and has also published titles made by partner teams. Its headquarters remain in Oslo, where it has run online games for three decades.

Owner: Tencent, which became the largest shareholder in 2019 and reached full ownership in 2020, delisting Funcom from the Oslo Stock Exchange. Dune: Awakening launched on PC in June 2025, with console versions for PlayStation and Xbox announced to follow. The studio continues to develop and publish under Tencent's ownership, and it has said it will support Dune: Awakening with both paid expansions and free updates.

Games

• A Dinosaur's Tale
• Age of Conan
• Age of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer
• Anarchy Online
• Anarchy Online: The Notum Wars
• Conan Exiles
• Daze Before Christmas
• Disney's Pocahontas
• DragonHeart: Fire & Steel
• Dreamfall: The Longest Journey
• Dune: Awakening
• Hide and Shriek
• Lego Minifigures Online
• Nightmare Circus
• Speed Freaks
• The Longest Journey
• The Park
• The Secret World
• Winter Gold

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