Big Fish Games will no longer be developing new titles and is being restructured to run its live titles with “significantly reduced investment”.
The maker of Gummy Drop, EverMerge and Cooking Craze is also effectively being absorbed into Product Madness as parent company Aristocrat retires its ‘Pixel United’ brand after the sale of Plarium to MTG for $620m.
Aristocrat did not mention layoffs in the trading update that confirmed the move. We have asked Aristocrat to confirm whether there will be redundancies and the number of staff affected, or if employees will be moved to other projects. We will update this story if or when we get a response.
The company stated that Big Fish will now be “solely focused on the continued, efficient, and profitable operation of its evergreen titles” going forwards. Under the new structure there will be “no new game development” and it will operate with “significantly reduced investment”.
Aristocrat will also be retiring its ‘Pixel United’ casual and midcore games brand following the sale of Plarium to MTG. Big Fish will now be rolled into Aristocrat’s other remaining mobile game vertical, Product Madness. Aristocrat’s chief strategy officer Superna Kalle will be responsible for the new-look Product Madness division.
The Big Fish restructure concludes the strategic review Aristocrat began in May 2024, when it announced its retreat from the casual and midcore games business. As we reported at the time, Aristocrat effectively put Plarium and Big Fish up for sale, but only the former found a buyer – MTG stepped in to buy the Raid: Shadow Legends maker for $620m in a deal completed last week.
