The MMO had to compete with Guild Wars 2 and Mists of Pandaria

Oct 2, 2012 21:31 GMT  ·  By

Joel Bylos, who is the new content director working on The Secret World, has revealed that the game he is managing has had a tough time on the market because of the competition in the MMO space.

Speaking to Gamasutra, the developer stated, “It's very hard for a new IP to stand out in a landscape of sequels and big-name franchises. From a business perspective, the challenge is to get more copies of the game into the hands of players. From a development perspective, the challenges are more about settling the development team into a good rhythm going forward.”

Despite of the problems that The Secret World has had on launch, the developers working on it at Funcom are ready to persevere and deliver more content that’s designed to show off the unique design and mechanics of the MMO.

The main aim of the team is to make sure that they expand on the modern fantasy setting of the game and give gamers reasons to return to it.

Bylos added, “I think most of our players are very aware of the nature of MMOs as constant works in progress. They definitely have a lot of patience and that's reflected in our user scores, which are consistently high. The players, in general, are happy with the game, and they're happy with what we're doing on an ongoing basis to make The Secret World an even better and more engaging experience.”

The most recent sales numbers for The Secret World show that the game has sold about 200,000 copies in one month after its July launch.

The pace probably slowed down even more since then, as Blizzard launched the Mists of Pandaria expansion for World of Warcraft.

Funcom says that it is now on track to launch monthly new content for The Secret World, even after the layoffs which have affected the company.