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discussed with the Company’s Executive Management and other key stake holders in
the Company. Different from normal procedure, these matters are communicated
publicly now, before they have been discussed and decided by the Supervisory
Board:
i. as they could be relevant for shareholders when considering the mentioned
voluntary offer,
ii. to make sure information received by Tencent during the process of the
voluntary offer is publicly available, and
iii. as the discussions and decisions by the Supervisory Board have been delayed
several times due to the voluntary offer, the change in ownership, and the
change in the Supervisory Board composition.
The Management Board’s recommendation to the Supervisory Board will be to
increase the focus on the Open World Survival segment with Games-as-a-Service
business model. This recommendation is based on the fact that “Conan Exiles”
continues to perform well, with December 2019 having been the third best month
in terms of average number players on PC since Early Access launch in January
2017 and with the Company continuing to develop the game with a paid map DLC
(Downloadable Content) for release this year. The performance of “Conan Exiles”
and similar games indicates that this genre reports strong lifetime revenues.
The recommendation also reflects the belief that both the Dune IP and the
Survival games genre are a good match with a large long-term potential.
The Management Board is of the opinion that these factors justify a more
ambitious Dune project to launch after around two years of production time. Such
increased focus would require a redirection of resources from other initiatives,
the most significant being the co-op shooter game, initially scheduled for
release during 2020 that has been impacted by scope changes due to
external/market pressures with increasingly strong competition and internal
delays.
The Management Board believes that the scope and ambition level for the Dune
game should be larger than “Conan Exiles” to allow the game the best possible
chance of maximizing its very large potential. If these proposed changes are
approved by the Supervisory Board, it is likely that the Company will need
additional financing to supplement the revenue generated from current
operations.
In summary, the Management Board believes delaying the abovementioned co-op
shooter game until after the release of the Dune game and securing the necessary
funding to support this plan will lead to the best long-term success for the
Company and will bring these matters to the Supervisory Board for discussion and
decision as soon as possible considering the restrictions connected to the
voluntary offer by Tencent Cloud Europe B.V…
Funcom SE
Badhoevedorp, the Netherlands, 22 January 2020
On Funcom SE and applicable law:
Funcom SE is a European public limited liability company (Societas Europaea)
with its registered office in the Netherlands and its shares (i.e. depositary
receipts) are admitted to trading on the Oslo Stock Exchange in Norway. The
Company has a two-tier board structure, meaning a Board of Supervisory Directors
that is responsible for supervising the policy of the Management Board and the
general course of affairs in the company, and a Management Board that is
responsible for the management of the company’s affairs.
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