Norwegian developer Funcom (Age of Conan) has established a new subsidiary in SweetRobot studios, a publishing front that will push Funcom’s products in the casual/social MMO market. The first product from the new subsidiary will be the upcoming Pets vs. Monsters, an MMO aimed at the 8-12 demographic, which is currently experimenting with multiple possible gameplay formats in its beta stage.

“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.”

“Our passion and dedication for high-end online games remains the same, and Age of Conan and The Secret World are still our primary focus,” Aas continues. “But we are also eager to explore new opportunities within the industry, and it felt natural for us to step into the social gaming segment especially considering our outstanding experience with making online worlds and communities. 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. 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.”