Big Fish appoints exec to oversee free-to-play business

Casual games maker Big Fish announced today the appointment of Chris Williams as its vice president and general manager of its newly formed free-to-play division. He will oversee the company's growth in F2P both in the mobile marketplace and Big Fish's PC and Mac app store.

Williams comes to Big Fish from another casual publisher, PlayFirst, where he was vice president of products and strategy, and helped grow PlayFirst's mobile business through new platforms, F2P games, and strategic partnerships. He also spearheaded PlayFirst's dive into iOS, emphasizing mobile as a core business. Williams began his career at LucasArts Entertainment, where he was the project lead for an Indiana Jones game and contributed to numerous Star Wars titles.

"With the explosion of mobile and social games over the last 4 years, new gaming styles and player behaviors are starting to emerge. F2P games are at the forefront of that growth and Big Fish is extremely well positioned to take advantage of this with its huge total global audience of more than 70 Million casual gamers and its portfolio of more than 3000 games," said Williams. "I am excited to be working with such a content-rich company, and look forward to working with its network of more than 550 developers, as well as its in-house teams, to help create the most playable and fun F2P games in the market."

Big Fish is launching its first F2P mobile hidden object game, Found: A Hidden Object Adventure, today, and the company said it will launch several new F2P games on its PC and Mac app store and on mobile devices during the next year.