Backyard Monsters to scare up mobile devices 'relatively soon'

Facebook real-time strategy game fans could be in for a treat "relatively soon," according to Kixeye CEO Will Harbin. The chief of the Backyard Monsters and War Commander maker revealed during a talk at the recent GamesBeat conference in San Francisco that a mobile version of Backyard Monsters will land shortly.

"We have a mobile version of Backyard Monsters coming out relatively soon. But it's really just dipping our toe in the water," Harbin told VentureBeat. "Part of finding the intersection between accessibility and fidelity relies on creating an immersive experience, and when you have a small form factor device like a cellphone, it's hard to develop a truly immersive experience."

While the mobile version of Backyard Monsters will largely be a test of whether Kixeye (and its existing games) has the chops for mobile, the developer is nevertheless bullish on the area. Harbin also talked up its upcoming 3D role-playing game on Facebook, which is now slated for an October launch, and its imminent games platform heading our way next month. Harbin's words on the state of hardcore gaming on Facebook sum up the CEO's mobile and platform ambitions pretty effectively.

"This isn't a means for us to leave Facebook, but we've definitely discovered that there's a large segment of users that just refuse to play any kind of game on Facebook. They refuse to recognize that there are games worth their while on Facebook," Harbin admitted to VentureBeat. "The waters on Facebook have been tainted a bit for our audience. We will still continue to operate on Facebook, purchase traffic and release our games on Facebook, but we're not expanding that way."

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