Here is some excellent news for all you gamers out there, particularly for those who love Android games.
Casual games studio Big Fish Games has partnered up with BlueStacks, in a deal that will allow Big Fish players the chance to play Android games on their Macs and PCs. The partnership was first announced at the Casual Connect conference in Kiev on Wednesday.
Basically what this means is that, as of now, everyone will be able to play Android games, even if they do not own an Android device. And, for those that do own one, they will be able to play them on a much bigger screen.
As such, the deal will be mutually benefitical to both Android developers and Big Fish customers.
For the developers, they will be getting access to is a big new revenue stream and to a large network of players who otherwise might not have had access to their games. Big Fish is one of the largest gaming networks out there, with over 80 million players on Mac and PC alone. And all the developers have to do is implement Big Fish's ecommerce APIs to access them.
"This is important for free to play developers who dread supporting more platforms. Free to play content is a service, not a product, and supporting PC was not about a port, it was about iterating and supporting PC with each new update, often at a weekly cadence. This solution allows developers to address this huge audience without the headaches of supporting yet another OS," Paul Thelen, founder and CEO of Big Fish, told me.
As for the benefit to Big Fish players, "it is about bringing the best new Free-to-play content, often now being made for mobile only, to our existing world-wide PC/Mac audience," said Thelen.
"While audiences for Big Fish, and other game companies, are exploding on mobile, there are still more than a billion PC/Mac consumers that have missed out on this latest generation of content. This is a way to deliver the best f2p content to this pent up PC/Mac user demand. Additionally, it is a way for Android phone players to enjoy the larger monitor size of a computer at home with the games they are already playing when on the go."
Founded in 2002, Big Fish, which already has a catalog of over 3,000 unique PC games, says that it has distributed over 2 billion game downloads on PC and mobile combined. It also already has already has more than 140 exclusive partnerships with developers. And this partership will only help to expand that network.
Despite being on its way to 11th straight year of record revenue, Big Fish announced in August that it would be laying off 49 works, closing down its office in Vancouver and discontinuing its premium cloud delivery business.
About BlueStacks
BlueStacks is a company which makes software to help people run Android apps on their Macs and PCs by creating a virtual Android environment on the desktop computers.
By partnering with Big Fish, Android developers will now be able to reach a broader audience "without having to do any work," founder and CEO Rosen Sharma said in a statement.
The BlueStacks Network reaches over 100 million users through direct downloads and mobile and PC integrations with Lenovo, Asus, Intel, AMD, MSI and the Fonelink service.
The company has raised $13 million since it was founded in 2008 by Sharma, including $7.6 million raised from Andreessen Horowitz, Redpoint, Ignition in May of 2011, and $6.4 million in a Series B round of funding, from Citrix and AMD in October 2011.
Any financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
(Image source: https://www.heavy.com)
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BlueStacks enables Android applications to run on Windows machines. BlueStacks’ technology can be integrated into offerings for both the consumer and commercial (enterprise) market segments. Incorporated in March 2008 by leaders in Microsoft Windows, mobility and Android development, BlueStacks is privately held and headquartered in Silicon Valley with global offices in India, Japan and Taiwan.
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Founded in 2002, Big Fish is the leading online marketplace for premium casual games. Through its proprietary, data driven platform, millions of consumers seeking immersive, relaxing entertainment easily discover and purchase premium casual games created by Big Fish’s network of more than 500 development partners and in-house by Big Fish Games Studios. Renowned for offering A New Game Every Day!® on www.bigfishgames.com, the company offers thousands of games on multiple platforms -- PC, Mac, mobile phone, and tablet. 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. The company is headquartered in Seattle, WA, with regional offices in Oakland, CA; Vancouver, Canada; Cork, Ireland; and Luxembourg.
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Founder, Chairman and Chief Strategy Officer of Big Fish Games. He has an MBA from Stanford University and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Washington.
