Ingrid is a TechCrunch reporter, joining February 2012, based in London. She comes from paidContent.org, where she was a staff writer and has in the past also written freelance regularly for other publications such as the Financial Times. Ingrid covers mobile, digital media, advertising and the spaces where they intersect. When it comes to work, it feels more... ? Learn more
Playdemic, developer of social games, based in the United Kingdom announced a $4 million round of funding from a group of investors, with 3 million $ of the Watson - the grandchildren of IBM founder Thomas Watson family. Funding, it is said, will be used to develop his idea of "second generation social games"-i.e. the cross-platform games that will be interoperable between TVs, tablets, smartphones, web, and Facebook - with at least four new games coming this year. This can be taken as a sign that, while the largest company of social games in the world could have hit the market after his last disappointing earnings, social game still attracts the attention of investors, when developers bring something new to the table.
Under the agreement, David Watson became a non-Executive Director at the Playdemic.
As with other developers of social games, Playdemic made his debut on Facebook with titles such as Gourmet Ranch, which currently has 700,000 monthly active users and friends of crossword. However, now the company is intensely on the concept of entertainment cross-platform, with some regular players of 10 million of its games on the PC, the web and mobile platforms, she says. This is a key area, because in most cases, games - even in social games - are always partitioned on different platforms.
"Social games presents a tremendous opportunity for companies like Playdemic who understand that social is more than a platform or destination," Playdemic founder Paul Gouge said in a statement. "This not only valid funding where we believe that we can draw from this company, but it us provides vital resources to accelerate our roadmap and continue to grow our community of players of Playdemic." The future of social games potential a distance where we are today. »
And there is another reason to watch the platforms beyond Facebook: the social network is just too damn crowded.
"While the barriers to entry may have increased when it comes to obtain traction through Facebook, smart companies realize that the potential of social games is in its infancy," reported Watson in a statement. "Paul and the team at Playdemic are no doubt a company who understands this, and who is right for which we invest in them so that they can hopefully achieve their potential."
Part of the interest in Playdemic may be regarding user numbers and cross-platform game social current vision, but he is also on the backup of a successful entrepreneur who had previously worked on different platforms.
The company was founded in 2010 by the Gouge, who had created the online game Battlemail massively multiplayer, as well as Rockpool, which developed games for mobile licensing titles that had been successful in other formats. Two of these companies were sold to Eidos, where Paul became Chief of the division of casual games until he left to found Playdemic.
Playdemic is a social games company based in Manchester, England. They are focused on the creation of the market leader in games and brands to the mass public market mainly publish their Facebook and MySpace titles.
? Learn more jQuery (function () {jQuery("#tabs-crunchbase").tabs ()});
