Big Fish Games Inc. has acquired mobile social game developer Self Aware Games and its parent company Social Concepts, a strategic move to dive deeper into the rapidly growing ocean of free-to-play games and one that expands its physical presence to an additional city.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. All 25 employees of Self Aware Games will remain in Oakland, Calif. as Big Fish’s first U.S. office besides its Seattle headquarters. Big Fish also has offices in Vancouver, Canada; Cork, Ireland; and Luxembourg.
Self Aware Games was founded by entrepreneur Colin Liotta and game designer Seppo Helava. It is best known for Card Ace: Casino, the mobile social casino game that combines Texas Hold ‘Em poker, blackjack, slots, video poker, roulette and more into a single top-ten selling app on iOS and Android. Among other games, the studio currently has in beta Fleck Touch, a massively multiplayer online world in which participants can do things like plant gardens, buy restaurants, interact with others, join scavenger hunts, and – most importantly – defend their neighborhoods from the zombie hordes.
In this deal, Big Fish acquires design and development talent and an extensible virtual goods technology platform in addition to Self Aware Games’ mobile social brands.
“We are delighted to integrate one of the most talented mobile-social game development teams into Big Fish, and to extend our mainstream consumer reach to include the booming market of casino games,” said Paul Thelen, founder and chief strategy officer of Big Fish Games.
“We are incredibly excited to be a part of the Big Fish culture and team,” said Colin Liotta, co-founder and lead technologist of Self Aware Games. “Big Fish has everything we were looking for in a partner – an outstanding positive corporate culture, extensive analytics infrastructure, and an established 10-year track record of building trusted and enduring relationships with hundreds of developers all over the world.”
Big Fish also announced 2011 year-over-year organic growth of 30 percent, stemming from digital sales of its largely proprietary 2500 game catalog across PC, Mac, smartphone and tablet platforms. Big Fish’s websites, games, and customer service are available in ten languages – Danish, Dutch, English, German, French, Italian, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish – and its games are sold in more than 150 countries.
Related links:
Press release – http://tinyurl.com/787fbc6
Photo below shows Paul Thelen, founder and chief strategy officer of Big Fish Games, and Carey DiJulio, director of Product Management at Big Fish Games, visiting Self Aware Games in California:
