Funcom Establishes SweetRobot Branch For Casual MMOs

Norwegian developer and publisher Funcom (Age of Conan, Anarchy Online) established SweetRobot, a subsidiary that will focus on producing massively multiplayer online games for social and casual markets. "SweetRobot will be focusing on publishing games outside the traditional high-end MMO-segment which Funcom has been focusing on the last years," says Funcom CEO Trond Arne Aas. "This will allow us to explore new market opportunities that differ from what we have been doing before while still retaining Funcom’s familiar profile. This definitely marks a new and exciting direction for us." The branch's first project, Pets vs. Monsters, has been in the works for nearly two years, supported by a team of 15 employees. Along with developing the title, the group has created a game engine designed for future customizations to work with multiple concepts. SweetRobot plans to use the MMO as an opportunity to experiment with different gameplay ideas and business models. Though Pets vs. Monsters targets children aged between eight and twelve years, it includes familiar role-playing mechanics like statistics, equipment, and loot to keep "incentivize progress". Players are accompanied by a pet they can ride into battles with, and they can chat with others players around the world and explore different settings like deserts and jungles. SweetRobot hasn't announced a release date for the free-to-play kids MMO but promises that a public beta for Pets vs. Monsters will open later this month. The studio hopes that the beta will help it gather valuable feedback from its target audience that will be taken into account with the game's direction and development. While Funcom says it will continue to keep "high-end online games" like Age of Conan and The Secret World as its primary focus, it's eager to explore the opportunities that the social gaming segment brings. The company believes its experience with creating online worlds and communities make this expansion into the space a natural step. "Pets vs. Monsters is very much an exciting project for us, our first attempt at creating an online game for a younger target audience with gameplay mechanics and production values that differ from what we have done before," says Aas. "The fact that these productions require significantly lower budgets and smaller teams to develop is very attractive to us, as it allows us to try out several concepts instead of placing all our resources into one single bet.”