Microsoft accelerates game development innovation in cloud, acquires PlayFab

Tech giant Microsoft has announced the acquisition of PlayFab, a complete backend platform provider of services to build, launch and grow cloud-connected games.

With this, Microsoft aims to accelerate its game development innovation in the cloud platform, and extends the investments and work done on Microsoft Azure to provide a world-class cloud platform for the gaming industry.

Over one billion people play games, fueling a thriving industry whose ecosystem is evolving and growing quickly. Many industries are moving to the intelligent cloud, and this trend is true in gaming as well.

This means an increasing number of developers are looking to create connected games for mobile, PC and console devices that have a significant emphasis on post-launch operations.

However, the cost and complexity of achieving this through custom-built, server-side tools and technologies is high, and PlayFab offers developers a compelling model that scales naturally with their games' players.

PlayFab's backend services reduce the barriers to launch for game developers, offering both large and small studios cost-effective development solutions that scale with their games and help them engage, retain and monetize players. It enables developers to use the intelligent cloud to build and operate games, analyse gaming data and improve overall gaming experiences.

"The PlayFab platform is a natural complement to Azure for gaming (Visit azure.com/gaming for more info). Azure, with locations in 42 regions worldwide, provides world-class server infrastructure, allowing creators to focus on building great games with best-available global reach. For gamers, this leads to a higher, faster degree of innovation and better experiences," Kareem Choudhry, Corporate Vice President of Gaming at Microsoft wrote in a blog post.

"Incorporating PlayFab's experience, growing network of game developers and powerful gaming-as-a-service platform into our product offering is an important step forward for gaming at Microsoft. PlayFab has served more than 700 million gamers and is currently powering more than 1,200 games with companies like Disney, Rovio and Atari. Its gaming platform powers some of the most prominent titles in the industry, such as Idle Miner Tycoon, Angry Birds: Seasons and Roller Coaster Tycoon Touch," he added.

With the acquisition, Microsoft, through Azure and PlayFab, aims to unlock the power of the intelligent cloud for the gaming industry, enabling game developers and delighting gamers around the world.