Microsoft acquires backend services provider PlayFab

Microsoft has acquired backend-as-a-service provider PlayFab for an undisclosed fee.

PlayFab is a backend platform for games that offers services such as player relationship management, content management, tournaments, leaderboards and other automation tools that it claims help reduce player churn and boost engagement and monetisation.

The platform has served more than 700 million players, processes more than 1.5 billion transactions a day and currently powers more than 1,200 games across all platforms, including mobile, PC and console.

"Extensive opportunity"

A Microsoft press release said PlayFab’s platform is a “natural complement” to its own cloud-based Azure platform.

“We’re mobilising to pursue our extensive opportunity in a 100-plus-billion gaming market,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

“This means broadening our approach to how we think about gaming end to end, about starting with games and how they’re creating and distributed, and how they’re played and viewed.”

PlayFab CEO James Gwertzman added: “From the start, PlayFab has been driven by the desire to help our customers unlock their creativity.

“We are humbled by the trust developers place in us when they depend on our services to run their games, and look forward to rewarding that trust with the entirely new level of features, resources, and support that this acquisition is going to enable. The entire team is as excited as I am to continue on this journey with Microsoft."

In July last year, rival backend-as-a-service provider GameSparks was bought by Amazon.