Who are they?
Founded in 2002, Big Fish Games is the world’s largest producer and distributor of casual games and is also a top-grossing mobile publisher worldwide. The company has its headquarters in Seattle, USA, but it has offices in Oakland, USA as well as in Luxembourg.

Big Fish Games has a rapidly expanding catalog of games, including an impressive 3500+ PC games and over 450 unique mobile games. The company also supports up to 13 languages, including English (of course), Spanish, German, French, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Russian and many more!

Through both its mobile and online distribution platforms, Big Fish has sold more than 2.5 billion games to customers from 150 countries from around the world! In fact, its transition from being a PC-centric company to a mobile-centric company is immensely successful, particularly due to its number 1 mobile social casino game, Big Fish Casino.

The almost meteoric rise of Big Fish Games from a humble game development studio into a major distributor and developer of some of the most popular casual games in the world is indeed impressive. Surely you’ll be wondering... what is their secret to success? I do too, so let’s find out together!

What do they do?
Since its foundation by Paul Thelen, Big Fish Games have been churning out casual games in quick succession. Among the earliest games, Mahjong Towers, their first number 1 hit, have skyrocketed this unassuming company into recognition and established Big Fish Games as a great source of casual games.

Due to their increasing player base, Big Fish Games started accepting quality games from external independent developers to be distributed, alongside games produced by themselves, on the Big Fish Games website. Within merely a year, the company enjoyed huge success and has emerged as a top sales channel for game developers. Game developers of casual games flock to Big Fish Games by droves in hopes of getting their games out to the swelling number of registered players on the website.

In 2005, a mere 3 years since the establishment of the company, Big Fish Games began offering their trademark “A New Game Every Day!®” to its players. It is also in this year where Big Fish Games releases the first game of the award-winning hidden object game series, Mystery Case Files: Huntsville.

The company also implemented its subscription-based Game Club service in 2006 and launched its affiliate program in 2007. Due to the potential in the mobile market, Big Fish Games went into it with the game, Hidden Expedition: Everest. The company hits its first billion downloads milestone in 2010 and subsequently 1.5 billion downloads 1 year later.

Big Fish Games released games for both Android and Kindle Touch in 2011. It has also targeted consoles and launches its first game, Mystery Case Files: The Malgrave Incident on Nintendo Wii as well. The rise of free-to-play games has not gone unnoticed by Big Fish Games too. Thus, in 2012, they have released their first free-to-play game, Fairway Solitaire.

So, now that you know about what they do, let’s get right down to business then! Big Fish Games’ success, I believe, can be attributed to several factors, but the most important one is definitely the games that they produce and distribute. If you have played any of Big Fish Games’ games you would know that all of their games, somehow, perfectly blend the fun of gaming along with the not-too-demanding aspect of casual gaming. If may be challenging, but there will always be a way for you to bypass those that are too difficult for you without missing out on the story or suffering in-game penalties.

It is also great that the company provides free 1-hour demos for all of their games in addition to plenty of screenshots and even a video gameplay trailer. Their efforts and transparency in helping their players get an idea of the game before buying the games shows that Big Fish Games is a games company that puts their players first.

Not to mention, the company also recognizes the potential of a new platform before everybody else. For instance, Big Fish Games joined the mobile (iOS) platform in 2008 with the game, Hidden Expedition: Everest. It also launches its first game on iPad on the day of the device’s release. Granted that Big Fish Games is a tad bit slow in entering the Android, Kindle Touch or even the free-to-play market, being a reputable and well-established games company, they can easily grow any foothold they can get in these markets.
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What does the future hold?
Big Fish Games will be strengthening their foothold in the mobile market, mainly in iOS, with more exciting games. What about PC gamers, you may wonder? Well, not to worry! They are also currently porting many of their popular mobile games to their website, including the recently ported popular, free-to-play match-3 game, Gummy Drop.

Big Fish has also set their eyes on the new Apple Watch (smartwatch) and has released 2 new games for the device. You can be certain that the company will be releasing a couple more before the end of the year.

If you’re interested to take a look at the list of games that Big Fish Games has published over the years, you can take a look at our Big Fish Games List to find out more!