Microsoft has acquired PlayFab, a Seattle game development startup with offers tools to making cloud-connected gaming easier developers. Angry Birds: Seasons and Roller Coaster Tycoon Touch are two popular games that have used PlayFab tools.
Microsoft will integrate PlayFab’s tools into its Azure cloud service to keep devs from using Amazon’s tool set for Amazon Web Services.
PlayFab CEO James Gwertzman formed the Seattle-based company in 2014. In a blog post he said:
“We are humbled by the trust developers place in us when they depend on our services to run their games, and look forward to rewarding that trust with the entirely new level of features, resources, and support that this acquisition is going to enable.”
Kareem Choudhry, vice president of gaming at Microsoft, noted in a blog post that more than 1 billion people are gaming, and as such the industry is moving into the cloud, largely because it improves security and gives dev easier access to the multibillion-dollar gaming market. But this brings additional challenges for developers, who are then expected to provide extra game content — such as tournaments and analytics — long after a game has launched.
“The cost and complexity of achieving this through custom-built, server-side tools and technologies is high”
The terms of the deal haven’t been disclosed.
