Funcom today announced the establishment of a new subsidiary, SweetRobot, who will be publishing Funcom’s ventures into the social and casual MMO-gaming markets. The first project to be made available through SweetRobot is the upcoming MMO-game `Pets vs. Monsters’ which will go into public beta testing later this month. The game is a massively multiplayer online game aimed at a younger demographic, specifically children aged eight to twelve.

A team of fifteen people have been working on `Pets vs. Monsters’ for almost two years, during which time the team has also focused on developing a highly flexible game engine that can easily be customized to work with multiple concepts. `Pets vs. Monsters’ is the company’s first venture into the more casual, social gaming segment, and SweetRobot will use this as an opportunity to experiment with different concepts, gameplay mechanisms and business models. No release date has been set for `Pets vs. Monsters’, and the upcoming public beta is intended to help the developers gather early, but valuable feedback from the target audience that will prove important to the game’s direction and development.

`Pets vs. Monsters’ is a massively multiplayer online game intended for children between eight and twelve years of age. The user is treated to a quick download and will be logged in and playing in no time due to the game’s streaming technology. Players will adventure through numerous different `worlds’ – from deserts to jungles – accompanied by their trusted pet which they ride into exciting battles. It is also possible to chat and play with other players from all over the world, and the game employs typical role-playing mechanics such as statistics, equipment and loot to incentivize progress.