What happened to all the Big Fish Games?
Big Fish Games, once a towering pillar of casual gaming, has essentially ceased operations when it comes to their classic downloadable and hidden object games. In 2018, owner Churchill Downs sold Big Fish to Aristocrat Leisure, signalling the end of an era.
While Big Fish continues on in the mobile space, releasing titles like EverMerge, their bread and butter downloadable games have all but disappeared. So what happened to all those great Big Fish Games many of us grew up loving?
The Adobe Flash Factor
Most Big Fish Games relied heavily on Adobe Flash to operate. As support for Flash has waned and now been completely dropped by all major browsers, it essentially made the majority of the Big Fish Games catalog inaccessible going forward.
Without the ability to build and run Flash games anymore, Big Fish likely saw the writing on the wall that their most popular games would no longer be viable. This was definitely a factor in their eventual sale and shift to purely mobile gaming.
The Aristocrat Acquisition
In 2018, Churchill Downs sold Big Fish Games to Aristocrat Leisure, an Australian gambling machine manufacturer, for nearly $1 billion. This acquisition signalled a strategic shift for Big Fish.
Aristocrat is focused heavily on the gambling industry, while Big Fish made its name in casual gaming. It‘s presumed that Aristocrat saw potential synergies between the gambling industry and games like Big Fish Casino.
However, the classic catalog of games didn‘t align with Aristocrat‘s vision going forward. As a result, over 300 Big Fish Games have now gone dark.
The Mobile Pivot
With Aristocrat in control, Big Fish has pivoted its entire strategy to be mobile first. Titles like Gummy Drop, EverMerge, and Cooking Craze have found success, amassing over 50 million downloads combined.
Releasing games through the App Store and Google Play provides a clear strategic advantage – no dependency on Flash, easier distribution, and instant access to billions of mobile gamers worldwide.
For Big Fish Games, it‘s been a complete 180 degree shift into the world of mobile freemium games, moving away from their origins. But the numbers show it could be paying off – Gummy Drop alone boasted over 30 million downloads as of February 2022.
Casual Gaming Lives On…for Now
The era of classic Big Fish Games has come to an unfortunate end. But much like water life, as casual gaming continually evolves, new species rise up and thrive.
Though Flash met its demise, marking the sad disappearance of hundreds of incredible casual games, the appetite for accessible and bite-sized gaming continues to show no signs of fading.
For those of us who fondly remember losing countless hours on titles like Sable Maze, the Delicious series, and Mystery Case Files – those good times now reside solidly in our gaming memories.
Thankfully, a new age of casual gaming is upon us with Big Fish continuing its legacy on mobile. Their arsenal of food-based match 3 games and city construction titles keep that same spirit alive…even if Mystery Case Files is nothing more than a distant memory at this point.
So while we mourn the tragedy of 1000+ downloadable casual games going dark forever, the future still looks bright and colorful for the new age of mobile focused Big Fish games to come!
