Over the past year video games have begun invading every computing platform, from social networks to mobile devices. They’ve also been picked up in the portfolios of a number of firms.
London based Playfish has just raised a $17 million series B round led by Accel Partners and Index Ventures. Kevin Comolli, from Accel Partners and Ben Holmes from Index Ventures, will both join its board of directors. The company plans on putting the funds toward hiring for their 4 international offices and expanding their reach to other platforms.
The new round combined with a $3 million seed and $1 million bridge financing, makes Playfish one of three social gaming startups to take in $20 million or more in financing (Zynga - $39M, SGN - $20M). Playfish differs most from these competitors in its highly polished in-house game development. I’d call it the Wii of social gaming companies.
So why all the excitement? In uncertain economic times, social games have shown serious traction across platforms and a straight-forward revenue model. It’s also made social gaming an increasingly competitive space on social networks like Facebook. Playfish alone has grown to over 10 million monthly active users (around 1.7 million daily) and two billion monthly minutes of play time in under a year. Each of these users can be monetized through a combination of advertising, incentivized offers, or direct payments into the virtual economies on their applications. [Update: TechCrunch UK speculated it was the million-dollar Facebook app only last month].
While CEO Kristian Segerstrale would not mention any money metrics, he instead emphasized the growth opportunity in what many see as the frontier of video games, casual gaming for the common man. Unlike traditional video gaming, “people play our games with the same people that they would play cards, play board games or go bowling with in the real world”.
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Finally,.. a game that’s created for girls. Playfish looks like a cutesy kind of a Sims. Something that my nieces would like
- but doubt it’ll appeal to adults
playfish rules–do YOU have the biggest brain?
Not a very intellectual comment, but I had to throw it in there.
looking forward to playfish games on the iphone and playstation network and wii ware!! i wonder if they can nickel and dime gamers to Nexon levels.
nick gonzalez! nice to see your name around here again.
I love playing the “Who Has The Biggest Brain” on Facebook. Fun and addictive
Yeah, I had to pick up some of the slack for that so called “company” you run out of your house.
$17 million??
wow..thats a lot of money for a company less than 1 year old
http://www.livbit.com
$17 Millions?
They planed to develop a MMO or what?
Sound way much money for the kind of game they do, don’t tell me they really need that much to create games like Who Has the Biggest Brain or Bowling Challenge.
Anyway good for them, but i’m still curious of what they gonna do with $17 Million …
Yeah, how much could it cost to develop some Flash games?
Rocking now