The economic crisis has hit Funcom hard, as the Age of Conan developer today announced a fourth quarter loss of $23 million, with an overall 2008 net loss of $33.8 million.

In even more bad news for the company, Olav Sandnes, its chief financial officer, has resigned.

The worst news is yet to come: Age of Conan boasted 700,000 subscribers following its May 2008 release, but Norwegian financial group DnB NOR Markets now estimates that subscriptions to the game have fallen below 100,000. This is in line with previous word that Funcom had shut down 63% of the MMO’s servers in January, reducing the game’s worlds from 49 to 18.