Tablets are going to be part of 21st-century childhood, Michael Acton Smith

Michael Acton Smith: 'We don't want kids – or anyone – to be spending all their time with their face in the screen, but I think tablets are going to be part of 21st-century childhood'
With more than 60 million registered users, Moshi Monsters is already one of the most popular children's virtual worlds. Now it's set to go fully mobile before the end of 2012.

However, the full Moshi Monsters experience is set to make the leap from desktop to tablet. Chief executive Michael Acton-Smith talked about the company's plans in a speech at the Children's Media Conference in Sheffield, saying a team is already hard at work on the app.

"We're hopefully going to launch Pocket Moshi or Moshi-on-the-Move or whatever it's called in the next few months," he said. "We're going to make it free, and hopefully have millions of kids playing it."

Acton-Smith admitted that Mind Candy took time to come around to the idea that apps could be a big growth area for children's entertainment

"18 months ago, we were saying like most people 'are kids really going to have mobiles? Are parents going to buy £500 iPads for their kids? And the answer is absolutely yes," he said.

"We really firmly believe at Mind Candy that the tablet device is going to be the dominant form of entertainment for kids over the next few years. As revolutionary and exciting as what Disney did in the 1920s… what Henson did with Sesame Street, and what Pixar did in the film world."

Mind Candy has also considered launching Moshi Monsters on Facebook, although Acton-Smith said the social network's official no-under-13s policy led it to shelve the idea. This may change.

"If Facebook did develop a kids version, which has been whispered about for a while, we would absolutely look at putting our content on there."

Even so, mobile and particularly tablet is the bigger focus for Mind Candy as it continues to build Moshi Monsters in a multi-platform brand.

"If we just focused on desktop, in the next year or two we'd be a dinosaur," said Acton-Smith.

Source: theguardian