Big Fish Games to lay off 250 employees

The developer and publisher of casual games Big Fish Games has announced the reduction of almost half of its employees. According to the official position, this will allow the company to respond more flexibly to market demands.

The structural changes were announced by Big Fish Presidents Andrew Pedersen and Jason Willig in an email to staff. They stressed that the layoffs will primarily affect employees of the Seattle office.

“We are cutting 250 people and announcing a restructuring. This is a difficult decision, but only in this way will we become a truly great gaming company,” Pedersen and Willig write.

“The current size of the company, which was necessary for it as a multiplatform publisher, made it difficult to lead in the mobile market. Mobile requires more flexibility, as well as more operational and creative capabilities.”

In addition to personnel cuts, the company is going to implement a number of other changes:

• switch to the “unified studio model”;
• expand collaboration with third-party teams such as Neskin, Amber, HypGames and Proteus;
• create one marketing team instead of the current three;
• launch an analytical department that will deal with games-services.

But part of the media, including Venturebeat and GeekWire, names another possible reason for what is happening.

The fact is that one of the gaming areas of Big Fish – social casinos – was equated by the Washington state authorities to illegal gambling. The company has been sued more than once, and in May 2020, Big Fish finally settled the conflicts. The publisher had to pay $155 million and change the game mechanics so that users could leave the casino at any time or continue playing without buying chips.

However, Big Fish itself denies the impact of these costs on the decision to restructure.

Recall that Big Fish has already undergone large reductions. In 2018, 110 people lost their jobs, some of whom were top managers of the company. Then the publisher also explained this by the need to focus on the development of mobile games.

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• Big Fish Games fires 15% of employees, including top managersEnplex Games: after the launch of Population Zero, the team has become smaller
• The head of Lab Zero Games was accused of harassment.
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