Runes of Magic will be heading to Facebook with RoM: The Challenge

When it comes to Facebook games, some MMO players look at them as being a scourge; a strange offshoot of a genre they know and love. To others, it seems the next logical step in gaming. And nobody can doubt the revenues involved are sweet for companies who manage to hook casual gamers into their games. But now, we have a heads-up from the team at Frogster Interactive that they plan on trying to cross their successful Runes of Magic IP into the Facebook casual gaming market.

Dubbed Runes of Magic: The Challenge, this new social media game (currently under development) will use the lore from Runes of Magic in a whole new casual game. The Facebook game is said to use networked gaming and viral communications and will give players "adventure, exploration, and strategy elements." Through playing the casual game, people will gain cards with key codes that work inside Runes of Magic -- thereby potentially drawing some new players off of Facebook and into the full MMO.

Our team at GDC has an interview with the Frogster Interactive and Runewaker Entertainment teams coming up later today, where we're sure we'll hear far more about this interesting new gaming development. We'll bring you all the details as soon as we have them!