Playfish expands with new San Francisco studio

Social gaming company Playfish is to open a new game development studio in San Francisco. With the new studio, which will be the company's fourth, the developer hopes to target the Bay Area's considerable talent resources in order to create more original social games for platforms such as Facebook, MySpace and iPhone.

"Playfish and the Bay Area are both known for their cultures of excellence, attracting the best and brightest talent, and a San Francisco studio enables us to benefit from the region's skilled workforce," commented Kristian Segerstrale, CEO and co-founder of Playfish.

"Through our new team in San Francisco we plan to extend Playfish's creative and collaborative culture and find new sources of inspiration in our mission to change the way the world plays games."

Playfish currently has development studios in London, Beijing and Norway. The latest studio joins the company's existing business focused office in San Francisco, established in 2008.

The company itself was founded in late 2007 and has quickly become a success within the social gaming sector. Its three most popular Facebook games - Pet Society, Restaurant City and Country Story, attracted player numbers of 32 million in August alone.