PlayHaven is a new community-building site geared towards iPhone game developers. What the company is hoping to do is bridge the gap between game developers and their fans. As their fans are their most valuable resource, access to them is a way for developers to better invest into their business.

On the consumer side, PlayHaven has a platform for gamers to discuss the various aspects of their favorite iPhone games. The Apple platform is an increasingly powerful distribution tool for participating applications, specifically games. The iPhone device is now being compared to game consoles such as the Nintendo Wii when considering future projections for gaming platforms.

PlayHaven places itself in the center of the action, gathering important data that can be used as feedback for game developers. This in turn supports the Apple platform and acts as an extension of the iPhone marketplace as it is experienced by consumers.

Below is an interview with PlayHaven co-founder Raymond Lau, who speaks about the concept and expectations behind the company.

Kristen Nicole: What’s the concept behind PlayHaven?

Raymond Lau: The concept behind PlayHaven is that passionate fans are the cornerstone of any successful game, and we want to empower the developers to establish a relationship with them as a critical step towards turning their games into a lasting franchise.

Isn’t it ironic that apps and games are what make the iPhone very successful, yet the developers have absolutely no way of actually knowing who their customers are or interacting with them? The App Store is a black box, and the developers are flying blind in there.

How are you appealing to game and iPhone developers?

Game developers are very aware of the importance of a passionate fan following in that their fans are the ones who spread the word about the game. Yet most developers have limited resources and want to spend their time building their killer games; not figuring out how to identify their fans and motivating them to generate buzz. We provide a vibrant destination to facilitate buzz generation — a community where fans can interact, share strategies, and create other cool content.

Additionally, we make it extremely easy and quick for game developers to take ownership of their communities. We have already pre-populated over 15,000 game communities, so each developers can simply “click to claim” their community in just a few seconds. Furthermore, they can bring the entire community into the game itself in a few minutes. We do not require any SDK integration so the linking of the community into the game is trivial. Our in-game community is actually a web application that runs inside the game itself, and as far as I know, we are the first one who has ever done this.

Where do you see the value in creating communities around mobile games?

Having passionate fans is the cornerstone of any successful game. This was true in the traditional gaming space, and it’s just as true in the new mobile gaming era.

A recent survey from AdMob found that 46% of all iPhone users discover new applications based on word-of-mouth recommendations. Yet most iPhone game developers have no way to reach their fans directly to encourage word-of-mouth buzz or even to announce their next title. We want to do what the App Store does not — create a connection between game developers and their fans, so the developers can rely on their passionate fans to be the rocket fuel that grows the popularity of their current and future games.

How is PlayHaven integrated with other social networks?

We are seamlessly integrated with other social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Users have the option to broadcast many of the actions they take in the community to the rest of their network (e.g. asking a question, writing a guide). This allows developers to leverage their fans’ networks to drive word-of-mouth buzz around their games.

From a marketing and revenue-generation standpoint, what does PlayHaven have planned for its clients and itself?

We are currently focused on building our developer network so we support as many games as possible with active, in-game fan communities. We will turn on revenue next year with premium services in our platform among other things.

You’re looking to achieve something that neither Facebook nor Apple has done with their own respective platforms. In connecting gamers in this way, what is your ultimate goal and what are your biggest concerns with existing Facebook and Apple platforms?

Many of the game platforms have not made it easy for developers to have a direct relationship with their fans. It is no accident that they keep this divide in place, and we don’t see them changing their approach any time soon. We’re glad to serve in the role of community builder, and by doing so, we look to become an obvious step in the process that every developer follows to launch their game.

Facebook incidentally has made it straightforward to build a fan community and to spread word across your network easily. With this in mind, we’ve leveraged Facebook Connect to make the activities across our own communities more viral.

How do you stack up against companies like Raptr, which also combine social, recommendation and marketing aspects of game play?

We don’t view Raptr as a competitor. They’ve done a great job of making games more social with an in-game IM service that crosses all games. However, they don’t try to empower developers by supporting their own in-game fan communities. I think in many ways we are actually complementary to each other.