Playdom takes over Triple Town publishing on Facebook

Looking to invigorate the relatively small usercount for its critically acclaimed Facebook game, indie developer Spry Fox has partnered with Playdom to publish Triple Trown. Triple Town launched on Facebook last October, and has received much praise since, but the puzzler isn't getting anywhere near the same audience numbers as social games from major publishers. As of last week, it had around 150,000 monthly active users. That's partly why Spry Fox is working with Disney-subsidiary Playdom (Gardens of Time), which will take over promotional and marketing activities for Triple Town, cross-promoting the title through its network of 15 million monthly players across dozens of social games. Spry Fox also says Playdom will be able to handle the scaling issues that come with bringing in more users, like major service interruptions. The publisher will provide advanced tools for analyzing user activity, allowing Spry Fox to update the game appropriately, too. The Seattle-based studio will retain creative control over Triple Town, and will continue to manage the Google+ and Kindle versions of the game. Spry Fox intends to release the title to smartphones soon with iOS and Android editions, too "We want to create great original games," said Spry Fox in a statement posted online. "We do not wish to spend our time creating a massive company with a huge operational arm, with all the overhead that entails. ... Playdom takes care of the many important operational and marketing responsibilities that Spry Fox is not well positioned to manage." Playdom GM John Spinale added, "[We] recognize that there are a lot of independent social game developers creating amazing new experiences. We don't have to develop every great social game, but we want to bring as many of them as possible to our users. And that's why you can expect us to partner with independent developers like Spry Fox."