http://www.gamezebo.com/news/2012/10/08/playfirst-discontinues-pcmac-development

If you bought any games from them i suggest you to download and archive the installer and the serial key now . https://www.playfirst.com/secure/unlockkeys.html

Bizarre choice to stop selling/hosting them. The only game they have that I'm interested in is Wadjet Eye's Emerald City Confidential, but I haven't bought it on account of the DRM. They won't let Dave sell it DRM-free on his own site, but hopefully now they will.

>The company intends to launch a new website on November 12, and those who wish to keep their games are encouraged to visit this page now and download the installer files/unlock keys for each of them.

Does that mean the installer is now offline-activation?

Did PlayFirst make any popular games? The name doesn't ring a bell and the mentioned "dash" series is completely unknown to me.

No idea who they are. probably jumping on the iOS bandwagon and expect to make a killing i guess ;)

Casual games. They had a lot of games on the now defunct Reflexive Arcade.

Far as I remember I didn't buy anything from them directly. I have some of the games from Big Fish Games, and the Gamezebo news item says that third-party retailers will continue to sell them, so I guess I'm safe.

Thanks for the heads up. It's a pity that's the case, but I guess that financially it makes sense for them.

"and enter the Android market sometime in the near future."

Which is amazingly profitable compared to the PC / Mac market!

/s

It might be, where casual games are concerned. No casual gamer I know plays installable/offline PC games on the PC anymore, just facebook stuff. On the other hand, app sales keep rising, and there will be demand for mobile games playable without an internet connection for the near future.

Indeed. Most casual games have simple point'n'click control schemes with no right-click functionality, so they are generally well suited to touchscreens. They also tend to have large colorful graphics, well suited to small screens.

With AMD offering ARM on their chips, it wouldn't surprise me if some of these studios effectively stop targeting the PC and just release a unified build that runs on Android and PC.

But, I'm guessing that's more complicated than I suspect as I'm not sure what the AMD implementation is going to be compatible with in terms of instruction set.

- Reflexive Games ( bought by Amazon )
- PlayFirst ( in partnership ? with Big Fish Games )
- Sandlot Games ( bought by Digital Chocolate )
- PopCap Games ( bought by EA )