The Company
Playfish is one of the largest and fastest growing social gaming companies, creating games for people to play together using social sites like Facebook as its platform. Playfish has over 50 million registered players today, out of which around 4 million play every day and 25 million played in the last month. It currently has five of the top ten games on Facebook and its players spend altogether more than two billion minutes playing every month. Playfish is backed by Accel Partners and Index Ventures and has offices in London, San Francisco, Beijing and Norway. It was founded by a team of four entrepreneurs with experience in mobile games.
Facebook is the next generation gaming platform. It allows us to create social games - games that are even more fun when you play them with your real-life friends. The quality of Facebook's social graph enables our users to compete, collaborate and engage with their friends.
– Kristian Segerstrale, CEO and Co-Founder, Playfish
We see the new Facebook as safeguarding the user experience, making it a great place for users to hang out. We're supportive of regulation to ensure users have the best experience possible.
– Sebastien deHalleux, COO and Co-Founder, Playfish
How Facebook is helping to change gaming
The $40B video game industry is going through a massive transformation. In the traditional model, gamers buy a game created for a particular console, and then look for local friends or new friends online who also enjoy the game. Generally only the most dedicated gamers do this. Today, social platforms with low barriers to entry like Facebook Platform are making casual gaming easier and more accessible for all users.
Playfish believes social games are a big part of the future of the video game industry, and by leveraging Facebook Platform they are working hard to be the leading company in this emerging sector. Playfish invests in developing high quality games (spending 3-6 months on development), and is planning to launch more games in the next several months on Facebook.
Developing on Facebook
Playfish found developing for the Facebook Platform to be very straightforward. "Who Has the Biggest Brain?" was developed in three months, and is now in the top five games on Facebook.
Our development experience showed us that the Platform is extremely developer-friendly, and easy to integrate into creatively
–Sebastien deHalleux, COO and Co-Founder, Playfish
The Facebook Platform has been built by a team I've enjoyed working with, they've made great APIs available, and I'm very satisifed with the technical performance of the Platform.
–Sebastien deHalleux, COO and Co-Founder, Playfish
Making money on Facebook
Since launching their applications, Playfish has utilized several different business models to monetize their games. In "Who Has The Biggest Brain?" and "Word Challenge?" users have the opportunty to access additional content by "Going Pro" payable either via payment methods like PayPal, PayMo or PayByCash, or by using affiliate programs such as Trial Pay.
In "Pet Society," "Bowling Buddies" and their newest game, "Minigolf Party," users buy virtual goods for in-game play – for example, better premium outfits for their characters to wear, or gifts to give friends' Pets. One of Playfish's key successes in generating user demand for these goods is by creating a lot of new goods for users to buy (like seasonal virtual goods for in-game play.) Finally, in addition to their in-game transactions Playfish also runs text and premium video ads inside their games, as well as high profile integrated campaigns with companies like Procter & Gamble, eSurance and NBC.
Although Playfish is a private company and does not publicly share their financial results, they raised a $17M second round of financing in October of 2008. Investor Ben Holmes of Index Ventures shared, "We are immensely impressed by the creativity of the Playfish team and also by the methodical and disciplined approach to development and commercialization they have adopted."