Playdom, a popular social gaming developer on MySpace, is moving to a studio model, similar to the model of competitor Zynga. Playdom has largely flown under our radar until now, but they’ve built up some very popular social networking apps on MySpace, and are also moving to Facebook as well.
Adopting the studio model means that Playdom will have multiple independent teams working on different games. To head up the two studios, Playdom has brought in substantial talent from successful gaming companies. Former Director of Game Design at Zynga, Dave Rohrl, will oversee a studio focused on new intellectual property and former Studio Director at Pogoa/Electronic Arts, Sean Clark will head a studio focused on role-playing games or RPGs.
The Mountain View, Calif.-based company first made a name for itself on MySpace, creating the most popular game on the social network, Mobsters. The startup has 9 of the top 25 games on MySpace. Playdom also made waves on Facebook’s gaming community, creating the popular game Poker Palace.