Churchill Downs paid 0 million for social game maker Big Fish Games and the move has been a good one, says the Kentucky racing group’s CEO.
William Carstanjen told Kentucky.com that the company needed a boost over its online operations with Twin Spires and Luckity through a “much bigger platform, much broader scope.”
“Luckity taught us that having a good game isn’t enough,” Carstanjen said. “We learned it’s not enough to have one game. We need to have a portfolio, and the ability to produce and create efficiently, consistently, and regularly. The ability to market and understand if marketing is working.”
Big Fish has around 450 mobile games and another 20 are expected to launch this year.
“Free-to-play is a constantly changing, evolving, dynamic space,” Carstanjen said. “In recent years, gamers have moved away from playing on PCs to mobile, and away from premium games that are paid for up front to those where they can improve their experience as they wish. And within that genre, there are constant changes going on with the types of games they want to play.”
Carstensen also said social gaming increases marketing of other products by attracting players.
“That’s important to Big Fish because we can leverage the portfolio of customers and we constantly introduce to customers of one genre other types of games. And we’ve found pretty consistent success to doing that,” he said. “Many players have very set preferences, but they like to look at new things, like to try new things. There’s plenty of cross pollination that happens and that’s a big advantage with Big Fish.”
