The hype surrounding the highly anticipated release of Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures keeps growing as the latest release date announced by Funcom (the 20th of May) is getting closer and closer, and it seems that no delay is in sight. However, before the release of the MMORPG, Funcom has posted the financial results for the first quarter - and it could've been better.

With earnings before interest and tax loss of $3.13 million (compared to $1.21 million loss last year), Funcom declared that most of their money was spent on the marketing campaign for the build-up to the release of Age of Conan. However, the company's earnings after tax have increased to a profit of $919,000 (compared to a loss of $222,000). All in all, Funcom has reported a cash balance of $47 million - enough money to be able to maintain their game servers at full speed and functionality while continuing the marketing campaign.

Even though the developers know that their launch window is a great one (with competitors like WoW: Wrath of the Lich King and Warhammer Online, both due to release later this year), they are still wondering if their Age of Conan game servers can remain stable during the first days following the launch. It could be that their desire to have a perfect, flawless launch has pushed them to accept no less than 1 million users in the never-ending beta testing sessions of the game (making Age of Conan the largest beta-tested game in history).

"How all of our strong figures convert into later sales and subscription figures is still unknown," said Morten Larssen, VP of Funcom Sales and Marketing. "But our pre-order numbers in some important retail chains track as among the highest for any MMO launched."

While the first official sales figures are expected to be published in the next couple of weeks, Funcom has also reported that revenues Anarchy Online and Plutolife are steady.