Funcom Responds To Wednesday's Raid

We heard back late last night from Funcom regarding its being raided by the Norwegian National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime. Here is what we were told via e-mail:

Yesterday, the company received a visit from Økokrim (the Norwegian National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime) who is conducting an investigation on the suspicion of infringement of the provisions of the Securities Trading Act with regards to financial information given to the market surrounding the launch of The Secret World. Funcom is of course fully cooperating with Økokrim and the company is providing them with all necessary information to make sure the situation can be clarified and resolved as soon as possible.

Production on all Funcom games continues as normal, and the company remains fully committed to games in development as well as the continued operation and updating of existing live games. Yesterday's events is not expected to have any impact on the company's continued operation or the development on future releases. Funcom's key priorities are the development of the upcoming LEGO® Minifigures Online, as well as supporting and expanding on the live games Age of Conan, The Secret World and Anarchy Online with new and exciting content. In terms of The Secret World, developers are currently in the process of finalizing its ninth content update, which will send players on a grand adventure through Tokyo, and Funcom will be releasing new information and screenshots from this update soon.

Please also note that trading in the company stock was only suspended temporarily yesterday, and trading was back to normal shortly thereafter. We were also happy to see that the way we handled the communication to the market after the events was well received, and the stock climbed throughout today.

So for the most part, it sounds like "business as usual" for Funcom, which is good news for the company and all of its fans. Here's hoping that the legal proceedings are as quick as painless as can be.