Playfish's Segerstrale Talks Quality, Player Focus After The Facebook Gold Rush

The social gaming space is its own frontier, but to some extent it is seeing the same lifecycle trends that any emerging industry endures -- and that includes major consolidation: Electronic Arts purchased Playfish, Disney acquired Playdom, and DeNA's takeover of Ngmoco came just after EA's pickup of Angry Birds mobile publisher Chillingo. It's moves like these that help determine who's the biggest fish in the sea. Only market leader Zynga remains unchallenged, but industry-watchers seem to think that Playfish aims to become the top company on Facebook, passing the FarmVille and FrontierVille maker. "I'd refute that," Playfish VP and general manager Kristian Segerstrale tells CNBC. However, he had an important note on the social gaming market to share: "Companies without franchises will be in an increasingly precarious position," he suggested. As part of EA, Playfish plays a role in leveraging Facebook as part of an overall digital strategy, not as a singular goal. And investing heavily in a platform in flux is something of a risky move; as Facebook has evolved its viral channels, it's become more and more challenging for top games to retain their users. Even the most popular titles have seen massive attrition. "It's more than plateaued, I think it's declined a little bit," says Segerstrale, accusing Facebook of having "poured petrol on" the digital transition that's currently so central to the games business. "They've gone from nothing to 200 million active players in two and a half years. The fact that they're dampening it down a little bit is neither here nor there." But while clicks and traditional metrics decline, Facebook's measures "[force] much better quality product and in my mind it's a far more sustainable way of growing the market," Segerstrale says. Still, he adds: "The era when Facebook provided the opportunity to grow enormously is over. The winner overall -- the company that's going to be remembered for forging this market -- will be the one that creates a truly inspirational product for social interaction, competition, cooperation and exchange across a lot of platforms. It's a green field, and creating that company that's the most loved and respected by players is really what we're after."