Big Fish Acquires MMO Developer Thinglefin

Casual game developer and distributor Big Fish Games has announced its acquisition of Thinglefin, an MMO developer founded by design and infrastructure vets who worked on The Matrix Online and Asheron's Call. Earlier this year, Thinglefin announced it had completed a Series A financing round led by California Technology Ventures to self-fund development of its free-to-play, browser-based MMO. At the time, founder Toby Ragaini, lead designer for Matrix Online and Asheron's Call, said Thinglefin is developing a casual game -- meaning accessibility, as Ragaini explained, "Accessible refers to the fact that you don’t need to purchase, download, or install any software. You can play it in a browser whenever you’re interested enough to come check it out." Thinglefin co-founders Jeremy Friesen and Ryan O'Rourke, who worked on MMOs for Monolith and Sony Online Entertainment, will join Ragaini and a fourth Thinglefin employee at Big Fish Games. Big Fish Games President and CEO Jeremy Lewis commented, “The Thinglefin team and product vision are best in class among emerging MMOs. Toby and his colleagues fit incredibly well within our ecosystem of creative freedom and forward thinking innovation, and they represent an important part of our long term strategy.”