CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · History & Society

Funcom

Norwegian game company

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 15, 2026
Entity authorityQ918638 ↗
Source-derived summary

Funcom Oslo AS (formerly Funcom N.V. and Funcom Productions AS) is a Norwegian video game developer and publisher that specializes in online games. It is best known for the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) titles Conan Exiles, Age of Conan, Anarchy Online, The Secret World – and The Longest Journey series of adventure games. The company has offices in Oslo, Norway; North Carolina, US; Lisbon, Portugal; Bucharest, Romania; and Stockholm, Sweden. It also had offices in Beijing, Dublin, and Montreal previously. It is now owned by the Chinese media conglomerate Tencent.

History

Founded in 1993 by Erik Gloersen, Tyr Neilsen, Andre Backen, Gaute Godager and Olav Mørkrid, the company started as an independent game developer and publisher. It focuses mainly on PC games but have also released games on other platforms, including mobile phones and tablets. Funcom's console releases includes titles on Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, Super NES, Sega Saturn, Xbox, Xbox One and PS4.

In 1994, Funcom Dublin was set up to concentrate on console games. It originally had 20 employees.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Funcom” as norwegian game company. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Funcom, Norwegian and game.

Editorial reviewMost valuable as an event-and-institution map that identifies actors, dates and record creators for deeper historical inquiry. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1993, 1994—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1994-01-01. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Funcom, Norwegian and game providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Funcom”, the useful work is to connect “norwegian game company” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q918638. VIAF identifies the subject as 151530923. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1993 and 1994.

Critical limits

Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Funcom”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Funcom primary sources, Funcom archive and Funcom research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Funcom”?
  2. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
  3. What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Funcom” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.