Funcom has just announced that they've acquired Cabinet Group, which is the IP holding company that owned "Conan, Solomon Kane, Mutant Year Zero, and dozens of other properties." In a recent article, Gamesindustry.biz had a conversation with Funcom CEO Rui Casais and Cabinet Group co-founder and CEO Fredrik Malmberg about their reasoning for acquiring Cabinet Group and what this means going forward:
"Conan is the jewel in the crown, but we probably have I'd say 30 to 50 characters that we could exploit," Malmberg told Gamesindustry.biz. "We felt we cannot only work through Funcom because they're so busy doing Dune, Conan Exiles, and all their other games."
Cabinet Group will be folded into Heroic Signatures, which was previously a joint venture that Funcom and Cabinet set up in 2018 to license Cabinet's IP library for video games. This will now be expanded to handle licensing for properties not just in video games, but outside of it.
"Together we feel like we have a lot more muscle to develop these IPs in the coming years," Casias said. "Of course, IP development takes time. But it's not just about Conan. Conan is extremely important and there's a Netflix TV show in development. But the other characters we can bring to life will feel a lot more attention with the backing we have and the ability we have to push them."
Funcom has had a long history with Conan. Age of Conan is perhaps the most high-profile example, but in recent years Conan Exiles has been Funcom's biggest game. Recently, an expansion being released in May 2021 and players were given the ability to play Conan Exiles offline, which is actually a pretty cool feature that I'll probably check out eventually.
Besides Conan, Funcom has been pretty busy recently, with their work on the Dune game and an unannounced game that will "combine many of the characters in the Robert E. Howard universe." Age of Conan 2, please?
For more information on Funcom, Conan, and everything in between, stay tuned to TechRaptor.
