‘Pirates of the Burning Sea’ developer adding casual MMO division

“Pirates of the Burning Sea” suffered from many glitches and bugs when it was first released in late January of 2008, but most were fixed in a later patch. By then the damage had already been done, and in April, developer Flying Lab Software shuttered seven of the game’s servers.

No doubt noticing the boom in the casual MMO gamespace, Flying Lab is now launching an entirely new division appropriately named Flying Lab Casual. Russell Williams, the company CEO, said the new division will give both Flying Lab and their partners “the ability to take our vast online experience and apply it to other arenas, in this case a more family-friendly environment.” He added, “This new division not only expands our company and its audience reach, but also gives our developers a chance to work on new genres and different types of games.”

The team’s first project is a family-friendly universe built in partnership with sports trading cards collectibles company, Upper Deck.

According to Williams’ further explanation in a follow-up email, the game will utilize microtransactions as well as subscriptions, and is based off of the Asian MMO model. “One of our major influences in this space is the Asian market,” he wrote, “and it’s where I first became interested in casual games.”