Big Fish Games now on People.com

Big Fish Games announced a strategic partnership with People.com, the leading celebrity news site that manages to attract 10 million monthly users. Starting today, People.com’s main games page will feature select online and downloadable games in various categories. In addition, visitors will have access to Big Fish Games’ entire catalog of over 2,000 games through its own Web site. People.com will receive a share of the revenues on all game purchases its visitors make from Big Fish Games.

This partnership further illustrates the transition that is occurring with many print publications as they look to strategically partner with media companies to increase traffic to online content and engage their readers in new ways.

LOGIN 2009 Speakers

Evergreen Events has released the official schedule for the 2009 LOGIN Conference, a week-long event dedicated to the business of online gaming - from multiplayer technology to MMOs and all stops in between. Looking through the speakers list on the conference’s official site, there’s a lot of familar names and companies attending including my former colleague from GameSpy Todd “Tungsten” Northcutt (consider that and official shout out, Todd). The annual event takes place in Seattle, Washington May 11 - 14 at the Seattle Marriott Waterfront Hotel.

So who will be at LOGIN? Robin Walker from Valve Software, and reps from such companies as Xbox 360, Atlus Online, Turbine Entertainment, Sony Online Entertainment, Simutronics, Netdevil, Near Death Studios, 38 Studios, VentureBeat, Bohle Company, Funcom, Divide By Zero, GamerDNA, GGL Global Gaming, Wonacott Communications, Gazillion Entertainment, Flying Lab Software, Cryptic, THQ, Big Fish Games and on and on. Over 85 speakers are expected to attend to give speeches, partake in panels and interact in over 60 sessions across three and a half days.

For more information on LOGIN, hit the link above.

Dangerous High School Girls on Steam

If you had the chance to read our recent interview with Mousechief, then you probably know that the developer behind Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble had an unfortunate incident over at Big Fish Games.

The good news is that now that game is available at Steam and is being offered with a 10 percent discount until next week. So some pretty good news for Mousechief and for fans of the game. Indies can sometimes live and die by the portals that take their games on, so landing a new deal is a life line. We wish them good luck.

Dangerous Developer in Trouble: Mousechief Interview

For some indie developers, distributing games through large, well-established casual game portals can be a great way to make a bit of money and expose their wares to a wider audience. But that audience apparently isn’t always receptive to edgier and more thought-provoking content – at least if it’s presented as something other than a hidden object game.

It’s a lesson that Mousechief CEO Keith Nemitz learned the hard way after his award-winning Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble! was pulled from Big Fish Games after the portal was flooded with complaints from users who took issue with the game’s alleged “bullying” theme. Rather ironically, at the same time Big Fish was pulling the game, Nemitz was flying to Los Angeles to attend the Writer’s Guild of America awards show, where Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble! was nominated for best writing honors (it later lost to Star Wars: The Force Unleashed). We asked Keith to tell us what the heck went wrong.

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