News

October 24, 2006

My Big Fish Games, the First Social Networking Site for Casual Gamers, Experiences Explosive Growth

New member referrals bring more than 80,000 new customers to Big Fish Games in the first 45 days since the service’s introduction

Big Fish Games™, a leading developer and distributor of casual games, today announced the unprecedented success of My Big Fish Games™, with more than 125,000 members signing up for a personal Game Space in the first 45 days since its launch. This early surge in membership has already resulted in more than 80,000 new Big Fish Games customers as a direct result of invitations from these first 125,000 members to visit their new Game Spaces. My Big Fish Games, (http://my.bigfishgames.com) is an innovative destination for casual gamers to create a personal Game Space, write reviews, share favorite games with friends, and earn cash rewards.

Significant financial rewards have already resulted for many My Big Fish Games members. After slightly more than one month in the program, Mark Wegner (http://my.bigfishgames.com/thediamondgames), has generated the most rewards, with earnings now coming in at an annualized rate of more than $33,000.

“This is amazing!” exclaimed Wegner, a recent university graduate. “Big Fish Games has created something that is, and will continue to be, fantastically popular. Especially when users can browse other members’ game pages to see the communities they are creating around themselves and the games. The options are limitless.”

My Big Fish Games was launched last month and is a new social networking service that allows consumers to create their own Game Space and provides the tools to share their favorite games and game reviews with friends. When their friends visit and buy games, members earn commissions. If their friends join the program and invite their friends, everyone in their network shares in the commissions. The service is fun, free to join and has no ongoing costs to participate.

“My Big Fish Games has proven to be lucrative for both our customers and our company,” said Paul Thelen, founder and CEO of Big Fish Games. “More than half of the 80,000 new casual game customers generated by this program visited our site for the first time within the last 15 days, showing the impressive rate of acceleration created by the network effect of friends inviting friends. This model is very powerful; it is changing the value chain of the casual games industry. We enable our customers to share their enthusiasm for casual games and share in the financial upside of this explosively growing industry. Ultimately we are creating a new customer acquisition engine, our customers themselves.”

Big Fish Games’ Momentum Continues

The launch of My Big Fish Games continues to power the company’s annual growth rate of more than 250 percent per year since its inception four and a half years ago, far outpacing the industry’s average annual growth rate of 30 percent.* Big Fish Games is now one of the top two casual game sites in the world with over 500,000 downloads per day on peak days. In early 2007, the company plans to move to new offices, doubling its current office space, with over 23,000 square feet in order to accommodate Big Fish Games’ growing team.

“The incredible momentum of My Big Fish Games has helped spur the company’s revenue by 25 percent from Q2 to Q3 this year,” said Glenn Walcott, CFO, Big Fish Games. “This growth is significant as it occurred during the summer months when the industry historically contracts as casual gamers are drawn out to the golf course or garden instead of playing games on their computer. As the weather turns and casual gamers are once more drawn inside during the fall and winter months, the industry typically experiences a rapid increase in sales. With the growth of My Big Fish Games and two highly anticipated new releases from Big Fish Studios in the coming months, we are well positioned to continue our history of innovation and industry leadership.”

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