Funcom plans a more casual direction for future games
by Rubi Bayer 
Jan 5th 2010 at 1:00PM
Filed under: MMO industry, New titles, News items, Casual, Kids, Pets vs Monsters
Back in December, we talked a bit about Funcom's new studio SweetRobot, which will be designing games for a much younger market than the Age of Conan crowd. Pets vs. Monsters is the first offering from the studio, with the promise of more to come. Funcom CEO Trond Arne Aas took some time to sit down with gameindustry.biz and discuss where the company stands now, and how that has influenced their decision to explore this new opportunity. Of course, Funcom had to employ some cost-cutting measures in 2009: "...it's become almost a default thing for businesses in the last year it seems." Tapping into the vast tween market could be a very lucrative move in the face of those measures -- while their cash reserves are more than comfortable, gaining new subscribers is the way to keep the company moving forward.
Make no mistake - the grownup side of Funcom isn't going anywhere. Age of Conan is here to stay and The Secret World is still coming, but Funcom is also giving plenty of attention to their more casual new studio as well. The full interview can be read here.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Aganazer said on 1:19PM 1-05-2010
Yeah, leave all that innovative risk taking to the naive and innocent younger companies that still have money to spend and an untarnished reputation.
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Dude said on 2:01PM 1-05-2010
Boobies losing them subs I guess.
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BaronJuJu said on 2:56PM 1-05-2010
Smart move really, folks are looking more and more to casual games to fill in during work and family times. I'm also glad to see that they are staying with the Secret World, I'm really looking forward to see how it pans out.
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Kaamos said on 3:32PM 1-05-2010
Funcom stop messing around and just make Anarchy Online 2
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Neurasthenic said on 4:34PM 1-05-2010
Well, I guess The Secret World will probably be the last Funcom MMO I play.
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crsh said on 4:50PM 1-05-2010
I don't think AoC was so hardcore that it hurt/hampered the game's success, there were much bigger issues with it than being too hard/time-consuming.
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CindyL said on 7:54PM 1-05-2010
I don't think that's what anyone is saying either.
There's an overuse of the term 'casual' in my opinion, in this case they just want to widen their market to cater to the young socialites and their mini games.