SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--PlayFab, Inc., the industry’s most comprehensive Live Game Operations Platform, today announced the launch of a major new feature set, including Game Manager 2.0 and Cloud Script, and an exclusive partnership with Cover Fire, LLC, the leading free-to-play consultancy. Combined with PlayFab’s already best-in-class backend services, these steps represent a giant leap forward for helping developers build, operate, and optimize their live games.
“Building a successful live game is really hard. We want not only to help game developers save time and money, but to help them be more successful, by providing the most comprehensive end-to-end solution, including tools, services, and baked-in best-practices,” said James Gwertzman, founder and CEO of PlayFab.
PlayFab’s new suite of features includes:
Game Manager 2.0: Mission control for the entire live game operations team to configure, launch, monitor, and support live games. Completely redesigned and rebuilt from the ground up, it offers tools for everyone from designers to product managers to customer service reps.
Cloud Script: Developers now have the security and flexibility of using server-side logic without the cost of a full game server. Cloud Script lets developers update games more easily and without going through recertification. Server authentication also helps protect against client-side cheating.
Advanced Analytics: The full power of an advanced analytics package completely integrated into the operations pipeline. Segment players, target push notifications, and analyze game performance with cohorts, funnels, and behaviors.
PlayFab’s exclusive partnership with Cover Fire, LLC is aimed at integrating best practices for live games deep into the PlayFab platform. In addition to helping design operations-related features, the Cover Fire partners will be sharing their extensive knowledge of game optimization and monetization with the wider PlayFab community. In addition, Cover Fire founder Chris Ko will join PlayFab’s advisory board.
“Few game developers have the right tools or technologies to effectively operate their game once it launches,” said Ko. “That's why we're such believers in what PlayFab is trying to do — we could be much more helpful to our clients out of the gate if their games were built on a platform like PlayFab.”
Since launching in August 2014, PlayFab has attracted nearly 1,000 game developers and publishers to its platform. Among the titles expected to go live this year are “Steambirds Forever” from indie-veteran Spry Fox, and collectible card came “Nova Blitz” from former Wizards of the Coast designers, Dragon Foundry.
“We could have built our own backend from scratch, but it would have taken a long time and distracted us from our core focus, which is original game design,” said David Edery, CEO of Spry Fox. “With Playfab, we can concentrate on the things we do best.”
About PlayFab, Inc.
Based in Seattle, WA, PlayFab offers the most complete set of cloud-based backend and operations services built exclusively for live “games-as-a-service,” with player accounts, virtual goods, analytics, leaderboards, multiplayer, in-game messaging and more. PlayFab’s tools are cross-platform and designed to be used by mobile, PC and console developers. For more information, visit PlayFab at www.playfab.com.
About Cover Fire, LLC
Cover Fire is a specialized consultancy company providing product management, live operations and product marketing services to F2P publishers and developers. Based in San Francisco, Cover Fire was founded by Chris Ko, former VP of North American studios for Kabam.