IBM and PlayFab are teaming up to deliver better insights about gamers based on analysis from IBM's Watson artificial intelligence platform. Seattle-based PlayFab provides backend services for connected games on mobile devices and PCs. It provides things game developers need to run their games -- like player data storage, player relationship management, tournaments, in-game commerce, and leaderboards. IBM will take that data, crunch it, and come up with insights that help developers run their games better. It's a new way for IBM to participate in what market researcher Newzoo says is a $91 billion market.

Computing giant IBM and backend service provider PlayFab have formed a joint initiative to give game developers deeper insights into player behavior. The program will let developers feed data into IBM's Watson artificial intelligence platform for analysis, with the system capable of building models from structured and unstructured data, as well as open machine learning libraries. Watson will use that information to deliver lessons and feedback directly to devs through PlayFab, allowing them to make meaningful changes to their games in a bid to boost engagement by better understanding players. "Modern connected games offer immense artistic and commercial potential, but to realize that potential, developers need tools to analyze and act in real-time on the massive amounts of data these games-as-services continuously generate," said PlayFab CEO, James Gwertzman. Atari is one of the first game companies to make use of the fledgling initiative, and has been talking up the practicalities of Watson's data-crunching capabilities in the fast-moving, fluctuating world of mobile games.

IBM and PlayFab are teaming up to deliver better insights about gamers based on analysis from IBM's Watson artificial intelligence platform. Seattle-based PlayFab provides backend services for connected games on mobile devices and PCs. It provides things game developers need to run their games -- like player data storage, player relationship management, tournaments, in-game commerce, and leaderboards. IBM will take that data, crunch it, and come up with insights that help developers run their games better. It's a new way for IBM to participate in what market researcher Newzoo says is a $91 billion market.