Emily Greer, co-founder and CEO of Kongregate, has joined the Board of Directors at Seattle-based backend experts PlayFab.

Greer, whose games-as-a-service expertise is evidenced by the success of Kongregate as a free-to-play online games portal and mobile game publisher, will be taking on an advisory role at PlayFab.

Developers' needs

More specifically, she will be helping PlayFab to recognise the ever-changing needs of game developers, and how it can better tailor its services to their requirements.

"Ongoing live operations are crucial to success in free-to-play games,” said Greer.

“Small and mid-sized developers have been at a huge disadvantage because of the cost and complexity of building and running a backend. PlayFab's backend-as-a-service can help them compete in the tough mobile market."

Greer will be joining Benchmark general partner Mitch Lasky, who invested in Riot Games and NaturalMotion, Envelop VR CEO Bob Berry, and Startup Capital Ventures MD Timothy Dick on a board with no shortage of industry smarts.

New faces

In other hiring news for the firm, PlayFab co-founder Matt Augustine has been appointed as CTO, meaning that his focus will be on building and evolving the existing tool suite to further empower game developers.

Other notable hires include:

• Nick Beckley, director of business development, formerly of RAD Game Tools
• Liz Hunt, director of product, formerly of the mobile team at Starbucks
• Thom Robbins, director of marketing, formerly of Microsoft, Kentico Software, and Socrata
• Scott Willoughby, director of game operations success, formerly of Wizards of the Coast and Popcap

There are also vacancies at the firm's Seattle and Berlin offices right now, details of which you can find via the PlayFab website.