Just got a chance to talk to stop by the booth of San Diego-based developer The Behemoth to check out how Battleblock Theater is coming along, as well as grab an interview with anyone who was willing from the team.  Most fortunately, ‘moth’s Project Manager and one of the original five team members, Emil Ayoubkhan was able to pull himself away from the constant transactions of the developer’s merch to throngs of eager Comic-Con fans and answer a few questions.

In the process, I ended up with a boat load of good stuff that fans of the developer definitely will want to hear. While we’ll save most of what’s happening with BBT for Ken’s preview, I wanted to pass along some info Emil shared that may be lesser known or even not known at all. Well, for all I know at least.

The first thing I noted was the upgrade in size and appearance of the developer’s booth compared to their set-up last year. As you can imagine, they’ve seen some significant growth over the past several years as a company. Emil told me (at current) the company has two offices located in San Diego, along with a satellite office in Philidelphia where a lot of the Newgrounds stuff is handled. They are now employing 19 staff, most of which were on hand to show-off the custom built Castle Crashers and Battleblock Theater arcade cabinets and, of course, sell lots of different stuff to an onslaught of fans both young and old who are looking to show their love for the team’s IPs.

So what are all the team members working on at the moment? BBT first and foremost, but they are diving much deeper into the iOS space after dipping toes with a port of Alien Hominid’s retro-fun and simple mini-game Super Soviet Missile Master. No solid information as of yet, but I was told to expect several new efforts from the developer for both iPhone and iPad over the next year or so, with initial announcement details coming soon.

He also confirmed that Castle Crashers PSN has been a huge financial boost for the company this past year and that the game in general continues to sell at rate that seemed to take him beyond words. Nothing particular on the hard numbers, but it can be deduced that the company is doing very well because of the well crafted and hilarious multiplayer beat ‘em up.

Oh, and I should mention that a title update is planned for the XBLA version to catch it up to PSN’s added content. When pressed whether the new update would contain any new content beyond what the PSN version brought, Emil simply told me that nothing has been announced as of yet, and that there will be an announcement coming soon regarding that potential goodie. Look at for that possibly as soon as PAX Prime; we’ll see ourselves when we head up to Seattle for next month’s event.

Which leads me into the next topic I bothered Emil with: Are we ever going to see The Behemoth’s games come to PC?

It turns out that Valve’s Steam contingent had paid Emil and the rest of the crew a visit no less than an hour or two before I popped in. Great news, as it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to understand Steam’s interest in their titles. Especially when you throw in the fact that one of those happens to be the top selling digitally distributed XBLA game ever. That fact is apparently drawing constant attention from publishers who would like nothing more than to assimilate; but The Behemoth likes itself just the way it is, and all things considered, why the hell wouldn’t they?

He did admit that a lot of what many consider their indie status had dissolved over the past few years with the great commercial successes they’ve had, along with a few forms of backing from Microsoft (specifically with general level of exposure.) However, when I asked if they still had full control of their schedule and IPs the answer was an emphatic yes, which was enough for me to decide they are still quite relevant for DIYGamer’s coverage. Regardless, here’s a good example of why they don’t need much exposure help from the likes of us at the moment: