Big Fish Games looks to get lucky, buys Card Ace's Self Aware Games

Casual games publisher Big Fish Games is the next to hop on the casino games bandwagon. VentureBeat reports that the company has acquired Self Aware Games, creator of mobile casino games like Card Ace: Casino, as well as its parent company, Social Concepts. Of course, financial terms of the buyout weren't disclosed, but Self Aware's 23 employees will join Seattle-based Big Fish as the it's first satellite studio in Oakland, Calif.

Self Aware's Card Ace: Casino is the top grossing casino game on Apple's App Store, and likely one of Big Fish's primary motivations for gobbling up the developer. However, the publisher faces immense competition in the likes of Zynga's growing stable of casino games including Zynga Slingo, Zynga Bingo and Zynga Poker. And that's not even the end of it: EA has entered the social casino games world with PopCap's Lucky Gem Casino, along with Caesars and International Game Technology.

Now with Big Fish in the picture, it might be safe to say that the casino game wars have officially begun. That said, VentureBeat reports that Self Aware plans to release a location-based mobile game platform. That could give Big Fish an interesting leg up on the competition, which is poised to take full advantage of what it hopes is an imminent online gambling revival.

That fact, coupled with an HTML5 version of Card Ace: Casino that's in the works for the second quarter, might leave Big Fish with something unique to bring to the increasingly-crowded table. Pun totally intended.

Are you excited for what's to come of the Big Fish-owned Self Aware Games? Is the social and mobile casino games world already over-saturated? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.