Big Fish Games is launching a game aimed at women in a partnership with romance novel empire Harlequin Enterprises.
The game from Seattle-based Big Fish Games is Harlequin Presents: Hidden Object of Desire. It is a “hidden object” game, a popular casual game genre where users can find lots of treasures or secrets just by clicking on the landscape of a game. Of course, the game has a romantic storyline.
The game is inspired by The Royal House of Karedes, a series of Harlequin books. It features Allie, a reporter on assignment covering the 30th birthday of the Prince of Aristo. Upon her arrival in the Kingdom of Adamas with her photographer, Allie has to unravel a mystery by finding hidden objects and solving puzzles.
Big Fish Games is a good partner for Harlequin, since most of Big Fish’s audience is female. The partnership will likely lead to more titles. The first game is available for download for $6.99 from the Big Fish site. Players who download the game within its first year will also receive a free digital edition of the first book of the mini series.
Toronto-based Harlequin has been criticized for producing formulaic “bodice ripper” books. But you can’t argue with its success. Harlequin sold 130 million books in 2008, or one every 4.1 seconds. Since its inception, Harlequin has sold more than 5.76 billion books. Big Fish Games, founded in 2002, is a leader in the casual downloadable games space. It raised one of the biggest rounds of funding — $83 million — in game history last year. In addition to Harlequin, Big Fish publishes some of the casual market’s leading brands, such as Mystery Case Files, Hidden Exploration, Drawn and Fairway Solitaire.
In another move targeting women, Big Fish Games is making titles for People.com. And it used a small part of its funds to acquire Grubby Games. Big Fish has been hurt by the recession and the abundance of free games on social networks. That’s one reason it charges $6.99 per game now, rather than $19.99 per game just a few years ago.