PopCap veteran Gwertzman wants to help build your backend

James Gwertzman, formerly a PopCap business veteran, has launched a new outfit that aims to help developers organize a more robust back-end architecture for their games. Talking to Geekwire, Gwertzman noted that PopCap found the transition to free-to-play tricky, and that the main problem was building the back-end infrastructure from scratch. With PlayFab, Gwertzman hopes to provide studios with a stable back-end from the get-go. PlayFab is based in Seattle, and provides services like data storage, friend lists, leaderboards, custom game server hosting, and in-game purchasing. The company is looking for anyone, from small indie studios to major publishers, to jump onboard. Notably, the company is a spin-out from Uber Entertainment -- apparently Uber heard Gwertzman's plans for PlayFab and wanted in on the action. PlayFab's back-end tech utilizes Uber's own tech.