pets-vs-monsters posts

Funcom has been hinting about making casual MMOs for some time in its financial reports but today the makers of Anarchy Online and Age of Conan have finally announced their plans for their first such casual MMO game; a children's themed title called Pets Vs Monsters.

The game is being made specifically for children aged 8 to 12. Players explore the game's fantasy world, collect powerful pets and have them battle monsters in that world. The game has been under development for two years at Funcom's subsidiary SweetRobot. The game is expected to go into beta later in December. A preliminary web site has already launched for Pets Vs Monsters which has more info on the game itself.

MMO game developer Funcom continues to have financial problems as shown in their latest economic press release today. The company announced that it had a loss of $9.6 million for the quarter that ended on September 30 compared to a profit of $3.3 million last year. Revenues were down to just $5.7 million for the quarter which is a nearly 69 percent decrease from the same period a year ago.

Nearly two months ago, Funcom cut their work force by 20 percent and announced a delay in the release of their next major MMO project The Secret World. Today they announced that their first free-to-play casual MMO, Pets Vs Monsters, would go into beta testing in December with an official launch in 2010. They also stated that their first major commercial expansion for Age of Conan would launch in the first half of 2010.