Play First

Play First

PlayFirst is a San Francisco-based publisher of casual games founded in 2004 by industry veterans. PlayFirst’s biggest commercial success to date has been its award-winning Diner Dash series, which has seen over 550 million downloads, and is the gold standard of time management games. The popularity of Diner Dash series prompted many spin-off series like Wedding Dash, Cooking Dash, and more. The company’s game portfolio also includes the retro-style strategy-based Chocolatier series, and the popular adventure/hidden object-mixing Dream Chronicles series.

PlayFirst has published games across multiple platforms, including PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Facebook; consoles like the DS, Xbox, and Wii. PlayFirst games are available in major retailers and on more than 500 sites in 20 languages. In October 2010, it announced a focus on the mobile and social market after raising $9.2 million from investors, also cancelled releasing new casual games in the near future since Hotel Dash 2: Lost Luxuries. PlayFirst's forays into the social gaming market have proven unsuccessful, as low user counts forced the company to cancel all of its Facebook games, Diner Dash and Chocolatier, not long after launching them. As of late 2010, the company employed more than 100 workers, but laid off an unspecified number of its employees in early December 2011 due to "restructuring". Other social games veterans who joined the company in late 2010 from Playdom and Zynga have also left; however, PlayFirst claims the layoffs will not change its emphasis on the mobile market.

From 2005 to mid-2011, PlayFirst have released 72 casual games for PC and Mac, counting extra 7 Collector's Editions and Strategy Guides, thus they have 79 games in total in their game categories.