u/RoamerMonkey

Let's face it, it's not a secret that the HOPA genre has not been in a good state in a while. They're essentially non-existent in mainstream culture, the hundreds of HOPAs out there are almost always called "cookie-cutter" for having very identical art style and gameplay formula from almost the same companies for over a decade, and there's only quite a few HOPA developers left (e.g. Elephant Games, Five-BN Games, Friendly Fox Studios, Domini Games) compared to just a few years ago, all of whom have worked under Big Fish Games' direction and have openly resorted to generative AI to produce their graphics (look up any playthrough of their recent games to see that for yourself). There also seems to be a broad consensus about enjoying early-mid 2010s HOPAs more than later HOPAs, and I would not be surprised if later HOPAs have been much less profitable given how little HOPA developers there are now.

In contrast, from what I've seen, pure hidden object games themselves seem to be doing relatively fine and at least has been in a new era with more solo or indie developers creating them without Big Fish's direct influence, whether on PC or mobile (e.g. Hidden Folks, Little Things, Finding Hannah, Lost and Found Co., Fantastic Findings, etc.), although many of them do copy Hidden Folks' style.

With all that being said, how do you think HOPAs should change, improve, and/or evolve to meet 2026's standards? I think the challenge with HOPAs is that they essentially are full-on point-and-click adventures that happen to feature hidden object scenes and also full-on puzzles, so they inherently take more time to design and develop than a pure hidden object game on paper, but I'd still like to hear some suggestions. Here's mine:

• No AI-generated images and no greedy mobile game mechanics (e.g. energy systems, micro-transactions, etc.).
• More variety in art direction. This could include full-on 3D models for the locations to be more unique-looking (e.g. the Nancy Drew PC games). Some people don't like a cartoon-y art style because they think it makes the game for kids only, but depending on how it's executed, I think it's perfectly fine on its own, especially to deviate from the same 2D-realistic-aiming art direction that already exists across hundreds of games.
  • If we're still sticking with the same 2D-realistic-aiming art direction, then at least make sure to give it the depth and texture detail it needs to be fully immersive.
• More variety in how the player observes the locations. I basically just mean more games from a 3rd-person perspective like the LucasArts adventure games, which only a few HOPAs have done (e.g. A Tale for Anna, My Brother Rabbit). I also mean games that let you freely look around the current location in 360 degrees from a 1st-person perspective more, like how Myst III did it. I can only think of the Travelogue 360 games that did this as a pure hidden object game. I'd also like to see an option for more HOPAs to have the location slightly pan depending on where the cursor is for a cool parallax effect, akin to Drawn 3 and briefly Mystery Case Files: The Harbinger, although there always should be an option for players with motion sickness to disable it.
• More logic to all of the player's actions in the game (e.g. don't be as absurd as this, or don't have random items fall out of nowhere as a reward for something). I don't need the protagonist to verbally hand-hold the player on what to do next as part of the story, but a little more common sense would be nice. This admittedly could apply to some traditional point and click adventure games too.
• More involved, more emotional, and frankly better story writing. That's not to say that there aren't HOPAs with good and unique stories (e.g. True Fear), and I don't need every HOPA to be a dramatic masterpiece or a full-on visual novel or interactive movie, but I'd like to see more HOPAs with a earnest and complete effort to flesh out their characters much more (besides only villains, and beyond just leaving many notes for the player to read about the characters and lore), and have more impactful themes beyond just "stop the bad guy". I understand some players just want to get to the gameplay without any dialogue, but to me, while a good game design is of course important and connected, the legacy of a released HOPA is determined by whether its characters and story were actually memorable and enjoyable, and I sincerely believe better writing alone can help elevate HOPAs to be more mainstream.
• More lively, less stiff, and not weirdly compressed character animation. From the HOPAs I've played, characters always stay in the same pose and never gesture with their arms and hands at all. Their faces at times (e.g. 9 Clues 2) are animated almost like it was motion captured on someone's face rather than hand-animated, which for a 2D character looks more uncanny than anything. I think I was most impressed by how Phantasmat 2 and Dark Parables 14 animated its characters (not perfect by any means, but the characters are actually moving their arms and showing more expression on their face).
  • I'd also be open to more games with live-action actors as long as the acting and integration of the actors in the games look good.
• More variety in HUD styles. Most HOPAs have the HUD be at the bottom; I'd like to see different ways of positioning and shaping it and what features it had, since earlier hidden object games were more experimental in how it looked and what it had (e.g. Mortimer Beckett, Nancy Drew Dossier, Shadow Shelter, etc.). I'd love the feature to be able to make the HUD disappear when the cursor isn't hovering over it for complete immersion, like how Mountains of Madness did.
• More experimentation with the game's runtime, which can include making them longer than the usual few hours it takes to beat them (as much as I like needing only one session to finish a HOPA) and just having more episodic content, like how Adam Wolfe and I believe Charlaine Harris: Dying for Daylight did it.
• Have an actual safe file system, where players can manually save and load their saved files or the game's own auto-saved files to return to these files' save points in the game, again like the Nancy Drew PC games. I cannot emphasize how this alone would prevent so much anxiety from running into a game breaking crash and having to restart the game from the start. I also cannot believe that no hidden object game besides Arcana: Sands of Destiny has ever implemented this.
• Don't fully reuse puzzles completely from other games, at least switch them up to be noticeably different or follow slightly different rules.
• Don't just limit the player to explore 2-3 location areas at a time like a guided escape room, create a more immersive world where players can reasonably go back and forth between more distant locations to progress the game. For example, the Mystery Case Files games by GrandMA Studios follows the former format (which I felt was too constrained and got too predictable), while the Mystery Case Files games by Big Fish Studios (e.g. 13th Skull) felt more open with a completely explorable world map while still being intentional in where the player goes between the locations.
• Add more side content, secret content, and more extra details to HOPAs. Most HOPAs I've played always are stripped down such that you can only do actions that progress the game further. I'm always surprised to encounter any actual optional tasks to do to flesh out the game's world more, like how Mystery Case Files: Dire Grove did with its easter eggs. I understand the need to respect the player's time, but I also think giving the player a little more freedom to do actions that don't necessarily progress the game would be a breath of fresh air.
• This might be a hot take: get rid of collectibles entirely, or at least have an option to not show them until after the main game is completed and then the collectibles can be collected in a post-game campaign. This is just how my brain works, I get less immersed in whatever is happening because I get too distracted over finding the current location's collectible on the off chance that finding all the collectibles unlocks something story-related.
• Another possible hot take: don't be afraid to include entirely new gameplay mechanics or combine with other genres in HOPAs. I know certain mobile hidden object games have ruined the reputation of combining per say hidden object, match-3, and home decoration gameplay due to their greedy mobile game mechanics, but I still think how PC hidden object games like Playrix's original PC games (e.g. Gardenscapes, 4 Elements), Gourmania, and Elementals: The Magic Key at the time uniquely combined hidden object gameplay with other genres entirely (like cooking and turn-based combat) in a smooth and enjoyable way. I'd like to see the same with HOPAs beyond just the option to replace hidden object scenes with match-3 games (like how Domini Games does it), especially with combat.

Feel free to also suggest unique HOPAs I haven't heard that fit my suggestions. This all isn't to say I hate HOPAs, there's plenty that even the most formulaic HOPAs do that I like over what some other games of other genres do: they generally are actually optimized to work on and not take up much space at all on low-end computers, their difficulty settings are usually pretty customizable, any tutorials can be quickly skipped entirely without padding the game out, they almost always start on the main menu before the actual game, and their hint buttons are still a simple but effective and entirely optional pointer to the player on what to do next. I just think HOPAs have a lot of catching up to do in other areas.

Due to Reddit’s character limit, the full 30-page analysis is on Google Docs. This comparatively 6-page Reddit post just lists the main takeaways from this new update to the lawsuit by BFG Entertainment (Big Fish Games’ new owner) against Elephant Games since I last posted about this, with reference to GrandMA Studios’ lawsuit against BFGE that I also posted about.

The gist is:

• Elephant has “removed” the lawsuit case to escalate from a state court (the King County Superior Court) to a federal court (the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington). To those not in the U.S., this means the case has been relocated to a court of higher legal authority. This means all new legal documents submitted for this case are now under the official government website PACER, under the new case number 2:26-cv-02251 for the aforementioned federal court.
• Elephant has requested a temporary restraining order and then a preliminary injunction against BFGE to force them to retract their copyright claims on Elephant’s self-published games on Google Play and the App Store before the court case has even reached its decision. Both Elephant and BFGE have submitted so far at least 20 exhibits (e.g. evidence) as proof of their claims and counter-claims against each other in relation to Elephant’s requests to revoke BFGE’s copyright claims. You may view all submitted documents and exhibits for Elephant and GrandMA’s cases in this Google Drive folder.
• I will elaborate on the crux of these new submitted documents. For now, just know that these new submitted documents primarily include:
  • 1. the original 2018 contract between Big Fish and Elephant that dictated the specific rights, development schedule, and amounts paid between Big Fish and Elephant. Although this is Elephant’s copy, other developers like GrandMA are known to follow the 2018 contract.
  • 2. an exchange on Slack dating Oct.16, 2025 between Big Fish’s then-Director of Business Development and Elephant’s CEO talking about their thoughts on BFGE’s new ownership of Big Fish (which had started by Oct. 4, 2025).
  • 3. the many emails sent between BFGE and Elephant over the termination of Elephant’s 2018 contract, and BFGE’s bad-faith behavior against Elephant. This includes BFGE’s initial Dec. 3, 2025 termination notice of the 2018 contract, BFGE’s Dec. 11, 2025 follow-up email, BFGE’s second Dec. 15, 2025 termination notice, Elephant’s Dec. 16, 2025 response to these termination notices, BFGE’s Mar. 12, 2026 notice of breach against Elephant, Elephant’s own Mar. 20, 2026 termination notice of the 2018 contract, BFGE’s third Apr. 28, 2026 termination notice, and Elephant’s final May 4, 2026 response before BFGE sued them 2 weeks later.
  • 4. the defendants’ official responses to their respective lawsuits, including BFGE’s June 16, 2026 answer to GrandMA’s lawsuit, and Elephant’s July 23, 2026 answer to BFGE’s lawsuit.
  1. The 2018 contract, briefly analyzed.
  • The 2018 contract establishes Big Fish as effectively the signed developers’ boss, near-exclusively owning the IP rights of all of the developers’ Big Fish-published games and having the final say on whether a developer can make, publish, and distribute a non-free-to-play game on their own or for a different publisher. Big Fish required a Windows and Mac version of a developer’s game, and could mandate the developer to also produce the Collector’s Edition version, the iOS version, the Android version, and/or localized non-English versions of their game. The developers could self-publish their developed games for Big Fish on mobile starting roughly around 2017.
  • The 2018 contract’s section 2(b) emphasizes the importance of time in the developers’ pace of developing games. The same section also requires that the developers develop games of “equal or greater quality” to their most recently developed game or prequels in the same series. I will leave it up to you to decide whether newer HOPAs are of “equal or greater quality” to older HOPAs.
  • The 2018 contract also establishes that Big Fish is obligated to pay the developers two types of payment for each game. The amounts of these payments vary over the years.
    • The first type of payment is pre-release advance payments for each milestone that the developer accomplishes, submits, and gets approved by Big Fish for in the development of their game. These milestones typically include a game’s concept proposal, its alpha, its beta, its final PC version, its Mac version, its translated versions, its Collector’s Edition version, its iOS version, and its Android version.
    • Based on the contract’s list of Elephant’s released and planned hidden object games between 2009 and mid-2019 and their associated advance payments, and knowing that the advance payments for each of Elephant’s hidden object games in the 2020s have stayed fixed since 2018 (source), my calculations show that for Elephant’s 197 listed, fully released, and English games between Mar. 2009 and Feb. 2026, Elephant was paid in total at least $33 million dollars in advances alone, being paid $1.7 million to $3.6 million dollars for Elephant’s at least 10 premium HOPAs per year by Big Fish between 2012 and 2025. You may view my spreadsheet on Google Sheets to view these calculations. This post’s attached graphs illustrate how Big Fish’s advance payments to Elephant greatly increased within 2011-2013 (roughly $200K per game), peaked and stayed consistent during 2013-2017 (roughly $240K per game), and then tanked since 2017 and up to 2025 (roughly $135K per game).
    • This data alone seems to back up why certain regular developers like Blue Tea Games left around the early 2010s (they only made 2-4 games per year and thus were paid much less in total), why other certain regular developers like Elephant and Eipix stuck around for a long time (they made 10-20 games per year and thus were paid literal millions more in total), and why some certain regular developers like Eipix and AMAX left more or less around 2020 (they were paid much less in advance since 2017).
    • The other second type of payment is post-release revenue shares (aka royalties) that are fixed percentages of the revenue earned from the developer’s game monthly across the multiple platforms Big Fish publishes them on. Importantly, Big Fish only sent out a game’s revenue shares once Big Fish had earned enough money from that game’s revenue to recoup the advance payments they sent to the developer for that game and that game only.
    • The attached bar graph shows that while developers only earned 10% of revenue earned from their Big-Fish published games on websites and iOS devices released between 2011-2017, they did earn 40% of revenue earned from their games on such websites and even 50% of revenue via mobile platforms for games released since 2017. The omission of revenue percentages since 2018 is due to Elephant beginning to self-publish their mobile games, which they would get 100% of their revenue from.
    • Big Fish no longer mandating and paying in advance for mobile versions of the developers’ games since around 2017-2018 would explain why developers like Eipix and GrandMA stopped making mobile versions of their HOPAs around this time.
  • The 2018 contract also establishes specific term expiration and termination clauses that would be repeatedly cited in BFGE, Elephant, and GrandMA’s correspondence to each other over the developers’ suddenly terminated contracts. I will briefly note them later.
• 2. The Oct. 16, 2025 Slack messages, briefly analyzed.
  • The messages are between Big Fish’s then-Director of Business Development Jeremy Fair and Elephant’s CEO Nikita Shamakov, discussing a recent meeting with Elephant’s co-founder Dmitry Kuklin, BFGE’s CEO Lasse Jensen, and BFGE’s co-founder Tim C.. Note that Lasse and Tim are former but recent executives of iWin, another casual games publisher. Also note that Jeremy has worked for Big Fish since 2007.
  • Jeremy and Nikita express being “excited” for a “new age of partnership with Big Fish” at the time, which I presume might partially have to do with BFGE refocusing Big Fish to only focus on their premium and mobile casual games business; Big Fish’s previous owner, Aristocrat Leisure, still owns Big Fish’s previous casino games via their subsidiary Product Madness (source). However, Jeremy admits being confused by BFGE’s executives’ future plans (including one to take back Elephant’s current self-publishing mobile game rights), saying “they didn't use the most clear words when speaking”. Jeremy also opines that Elephant is not obligated to return these rights to BFGE, stating “if I personally had mobile rights to games and someone wanted them badly enough... I'd charge them a pretty penny for it”.
  • Jeremy Fair suddenly stopped working for Big Fish by June 2026 after 19 years of working for Big Fish. He has not officially clarified why he left Big Fish. It is not hard to imagine that BFGE played some role in his leave, especially given that his Slack message is now publicized. BFGE’s lawsuit against Elephant after all is looking to remove Elephant’s self-published games from mobile platforms.
• 3. The correspondence on Elephant’s contract termination (and also Elephant’s answer to BFGE’s lawsuit), briefly analyzed. I’m including details from Elephant’s answer because they help further contextualize the correspondence.
  • I will only do broad takeaways in this post, you may view a full timeline stitching together all of the emails on my Google Doc.
  • BFGE sent notices to Elephant and GrandMA around Dec. 3 and Dec. 4, 2025 terminating their contracts, revenue payments, and any distribution and licensing rights “effective immediately”. Both developers correctly point out that this is in blatant violation of the 2018 contract’s section 6(b) explicitly laying out that in the event of a termination, BFGE is meant to give a 30-day notice letting the developer cure whatever breach they apparently committed. There is no right to “immediately” terminate said contract.
  • BFGE in their Dec. 3 and Dec. 11 letters cite Elephant apparently “breaching their obligation to provide services exclusively to Big Fish Games, Inc. during the term of the Original Agreements”; they don’t elaborate on this nor give Elephant an explicit chance to cure this at all, and the breach they later cite against Elephant in all future documents pertain to Elephant apparently failing to deliver their games’ assets and source code to BFGE once BFGE acquired Big Fish, which is different wording entirely.
  • For at least Elephant, BFGE backtracked from their “effective immediately” termination notice in Dec. 3, stating in their Dec. 11 letter that they “clearly reference” the 2018 contract’s section 6(a) letting its current term naturally expire by Apr. 20, 2026. This is in spite of the fact that the Dec. 3 notice only broadly references section 6 and verbatim notified the “immediate termination”, not eventual expiration of the 2018 contract.
  • The 2018 contract obligates BFGE to send to Elephant on-time advance payments, revenue shares, royalty reports (e.g. reports that detail the statistics on said revenue shares), and operation cost payments to maintain Elephant’s live-service HOG Midnight Castle. These deliverables remain owed at least as long as Elephant’s contracts are still active (whether they’re still owed after the contracts expire is unknown to me), although revenue shares are not paid if the developer is found in breach. Elephant claims that BFGE was months-late for multiple games’ advance payments both before and after their contracts were “terminated”, still hasn’t delivered Elephant their owed monthly royalty reports, and still hasn’t paid Elephant their owed $30K milestone payment for Grim Tales 27 (Elephant’s last Big Fish-published game), their owed $85K operation cost payments for Midnight Castle for Nov. and Dec. 2025, and their owed revenue shares for all of Elephant’s Big Fish-published games on all platforms earned since Oct. 2025.
  • In terms of premium hidden object games, BFGE reasons that they no longer need to pay these games’ revenue shares to Elephant because Elephant has “$6.5 million in unrecouped advances” for all of their games. This does not hold when the 2018 contract explicitly requires BFGE to perpetually individually, NOT cumulatively, recoup the advances of a developer’s games with their revenue on a game-by-game basis; BFGE is meant to continuously pay the revenue share earned from a developer’s games who advances are already recouped (unless the developer is found to have committed a breach). BFGE claims in their Dec. 11 letter that recouping all advances in total would take “maybe 100 years at current revenue levels” for Elephant’s Big Fish-published games. If this answer is serious, Elephant’s at least 197 Big Fish-published HOGs are apparently only making roughly $5,416 in revenue per month, while Elephant’s at least 121 self-published mobile ports of their HOGs are reportedly making $17,423 in revenue per month, more than 50% of Elephant’s total revenue (this claim comes from Elephant’s CEO, paragraphs 19-20). This would explain why BFGE’s lawsuit demands the removal of Elephant’s self-published mobile games: they want these games’ higher revenue for themselves.
  • The 2018 contract also already contractually obligates Elephant to deliver the assets and source code of all versions of their developed games for Big Fish, otherwise Elephant would not have been paid in the first place. Despite this, BFGE somehow never received such assets and source code from the previous Big Fish at all, and even claims that the previous Big Fish somehow never received such items. This led to BFGE’s request to Elephant to re-submit their entire catalog of games in a Google Drive folder, sweeping “across approximately 18 years and more than a hundred projects” all while identifying “no specific game, version, file, or deliverable” (per Elephant’s answer to BFGE’s lawsuit, paragraph 31). The 2018 contract does not explicitly authorize BFGE to require Elephant to re-deliver their already delivered items to BFGE, although it also does not explicitly allow Elephant to have deleted these items after Elephant already delivered them to the previous Big Fish.
• 4. BFGE’s answer to GrandMA’s lawsuit, briefly analyzed.
  • BFGE’s answer is relatively much more lackluster in detail: the majority of it denies each paragraph of GrandMA’s lawsuit without elaborating. The most noteworthy observation is that they accuse GrandMA of committing “breaches of contract” without elaborating on what they are. I presume this relates to GrandMA’s refusal to sign BFGE’s contract replacing the 2018 contract with no other alternative (this is mentioned in GrandMA’s main complaint document for their lawsuit). If so, BFGE still did not follow the 2018 contract’s section 1(e)(iv)’s obligated “good faith negotiations” to continue GrandMA’s licenses once the contract would end.

Again, feel free to check out the Google Doc version of this post for the much, much longer and more detailed version of this update on the lawsuits surrounding BFGE.

On a more miscellaneous note, BFGE’s new internal studio (besides updating the previous Big Fish’s remaining mobile games Midnight Castle, Fairway Solitaire, Cooking Craze, and Cascade) has so far developed only one completely new mobile game called Puzzle Deck (see playthrough), a jigsaw-like puzzle game featuring artwork from Big Fish’s published HOPAs, including the previous internal studio Big Fish Studios’ artwork of the original Hidden Expedition and Mystery Case Files games, and interestingly Elephant’s, Eipix’s, and GrandMA’s artwork of the later Mystery Case Files games, in spite of BFGE’s litigation with two of three of these developers.

I still haven't gotten to playing the original 2015 Tormentum game, but I still vividly remember it from a playthrough several years ago, along with the fact that its sequel has been in development for a while. I decided to search the game up today and turns out Tormentum II is finally releasing very soon, this July 23. I haven't seen anyone post about this in this subreddit, so I might as well share about it.

You can check out the game's steam page here (and play its free demo that launched just a month ago): https://store.steampowered.com/app/931060/Tormentum_II/

Please read the documents in the below sources section for the full, original details. I am not a lawyer. I would've done both lawsuits in one post, but I didn't anticipate another one so soon.

Just 7 days after HOPA developer GrandMA Studios filed a lawsuit against BFG Entertainment (new owners of Big Fish Games) for the alleged illegality of terminating GrandMA's contracts, royalties, and distribution and licensing rights, BFG Entertainment also filed another lawsuit against Elephant Games (another HOPA developer) over Elephant allegedly refusing to provide the source code and game assets of Elephant's developed games.

TLDR: While Elephant claims to have already provided the source code to the original Big Fish pre-BFG Entertainment and claims to not have been paid royalties since November 2025, BFG Entertainment still seeks said source code and disputes Elephant's legal ownership of their self-published games on mobile, thus demanding Elephant to remove these games on these platforms. This seems to contradict GrandMA's lawsuit claiming BFG themselves admitted in writing that a studio like GrandMA still had self-publishing mobile rights even after their contracts was terminated per Big Fish's original agreements.

The following is my more lengthy takeaways from BFG Entertainment's 13-page complaint document.

• Pages 2-6 detail the agreements of Big Fish Games (pre-BFG Entertainment) legally owning "any Game object code and related source code" by Elephant Games as part of Big Fish's "intellectual property".
• Pages 7-9 detail the months-long back-and-forth exchanges between BFG Entertainment and Elephant Games over Elephant's source code since BFG Entertainment acquired Big Fish Games in October 2025 (the lawsuit dates the acquisition to November 2025 for some reason despite other sources).
  • Paragraphs 17-22: When BFG acquired Big Fish, they made a request to Elephant's owed materials that were considered Big Fish's intellectual property. Elephant complied, but BFG allegedly determined that Elephant did not provide all game assets (e.g. "all artwork, images, sounds/sound recordings, and graphical assets"), and the source code of "thirteen (13) Android Versions, twenty-one (21) mobile versions, and ninety-eight (98) additional game builds and related configurations". BFG requested the listed missing material from Elephant, to which Elephant responded that they had already delivered all of the materials to the original Big Fish. BFG allegedly inquired and confirmed that "no code source was ever transferred to Big Fish by Elephant Games".
  • Paragraphs 22-27: BFG requested for the missing material from Elephant again, with Elephant apparently responding (in the lawsuit's words, not Elephant's words) "even if they wanted to, they had deleted all related code source". Because of Elephant alleged breach of contract, BFG terminated their contracts and obligations to Elephant on December 3. The lawsuit states that "BFG attempted to terminate the agreements faith", meaning Elephant was still allowed to have "continued development activities and milestone payments". Elephant later terminated their 2025 and then 2014 agreements over BFG not paying Elephant their royalties in November to December 2025.
    • BFG not paying enough royalties is in alignment with similar reports by GrandMA Studios, Puzzles by Joe, and other developers. Elephant continuing to develop for BFG even after their original contracts were terminated explains how Elephant still released Grim Tales 27 post-December 2025, and why Grim Tales 27 had a delayed release in February after being meant to release earlier. I still don't know why Elephant was offered this opportunity while GrandMA wasn't.
    • BFG later explains in paragraph 41 that due to Elephant not providing the source code, "BFG justifiably mitigated its damages by permanently ceasing to pay royalties as allowed by the Agreements". There is no mention of any similar justification of why BFG immediately did the same for GrandMA (and other developers) despite GrandMA apparently having already provided the source code per GrandMA's complaint document, paragraph 48.
  • Paragraphs 28-33: March 2026 saw BFG again requesting the source code from Elephant, to which Elephant again allegedly refused to provide (paragraph 47 has Elephant allegedly claim "no contracts were entered into between the parties that imposed a duty to produce or store the source codes"; again, in the lawsuit's words, not in Elephant's words). Elephant then terminated the 2018 agreement and requested the owed royalties since November 2025. BFG mutually terminated the 2018 agreement by April 2026 and requested Elephant to "cease all use and distribution of any of BFG’s licensed games", characterizing Elephant continuing to self-publish "BFG’s games on relevant Apple and Google platforms" as "without justification".
• Pages 9-12: Besides asking the court to order Elephant guilty of breaching contract, order BFG not guilty of breaching contract, and order Elephant to provide the requested source code and/or pay owed damages to BFG (BFG themselves estimates $1 million), BFG asks the court to order Elephant to "immediately remove all of BFG’s games from Apple and Google platforms, and any other platforms under Defendant’s control". BFG also asks the court that even if they sided with Elephant, Elephant would be still liable for "damages under the theories of unjust enrichment and quantum meruit"; because BFG views Elephant's source code as owed intellectual property, BFG argues that even if it is determined that this intellectual property cannot be owed to them, then Big Fish's royalties and development fees paid to fund the source code were not deserving in the first place, and thus BFG is owed this money given to Elephant.
  • BFG's insistence over being the absolute owner of Elephant's self-published games on mobile seems to contradict their own apparent writing reported in GrandMA's complaint document in paragraphs 44-45, which states "BFGE later confirmed in writing, on February 24, 2026, that GrandMA holds exclusive mobile distribution rights for the legacy and modern title sets identified above—contradicting BFGE’s earlier “no rights whatsoever” posture." (this is in spite of GrandMA's contracts being terminated). Paragraph 43 has GrandMA also note that Big Fish's original agreements granted contractual rights for relatively free self-publishing of their developed games on mobile, and that such rights could only be taken away specifically by a "threatened or actual intellectual-property infringement claim" from a third party. Assuming Elephant was under the same agreements as GrandMA, this means BFG's ownership over Elephant's mobile-ported games are not as absolute as BFG claims.

BFG Entertainment is represented by H. Troy Romero from the Seattle, Washington-based law firm Romero Park. A trial is scheduled for next year, May 24, 2027. Elephant made the following response to the author of the Law360 article reporting on this lawsuit: "Prior to the last few months, it had a 15-year partnership with Big Fish under which it fulfilled contractural obligations in good faith." (in the article's words) "Elephant Games has not yet been served with the complaint, but, based on a preliminary review, considers the allegations meritless and will vigorously defend against them. As a result, Elephant Games is currently preparing a counterclaim to protect its rights and recover outstanding amounts owed." (in Elephant's words)

Side note: for some reason, the lawsuit lacks has sections I, II, III, V, and VI, but not section IV.

Sources:

• Law360's article. Requires signing up for an account with a non-free email domain to fully view; I used my university email. The Google Drive links to a PDF version of the article is here, and to the attached complaint by BFG Entertainment's lawyer is here (this is a public record, so it is legal to share).
• The official government King County Superior Court website in Washington. Search up the civil case with the case number 26-2-16333-2, and you'll see the case "BFG ENTERTAINMENT INC VS ELEPHANT GAMES AR LLC". Viewing basic details is free; viewing other court documents requires signing up for an account and paying $8, which I opted to not do.

Please read the documents in the below sources section for the full, original details. I needed to repost this because I accidentally showed my personal info in one of the screenshots.

A few days ago (May 11, 2026), the HOPA game developer GrandMA Studios has officially filed a lawsuit against BFG Entertainment (Big Fish Games' new owners) for allegedly illegally terminating their royalties, contracts, and distribution and licensing rights, threatening to remove GrandMA's games from online and mobile stores if GrandMA continued distributing their games, and having "gross negligence" in months-late communication to outdated or non-existent addresses, and less detailed royalty reports that made "independent verification mathematically impossible". I attached screenshots of a few excerpts detailing this.

GrandMA is represented by Mark P. Walters, a lawyer from the intellectual property law firm Lowe Graham Jones based in Seattle, Washington (like Big Fish Games was before BFG Entertainment bought it). A trial is scheduled by next year, May 17, 2027. An extra note: GrandMA is stated to be incorporated in the Republic of Cyprus. While the documents don't explicitly mention this, I believe GrandMA at some recent point moved from Ukraine to Cyprus due to the Ukraine war (similar to Domini Games), which is verified by GrandMA's website's terms and conditions.

It is currently unknown if and how will the eventual verdict of this case will decide GrandMA and Big Fish's future in the HOPA game industry; GrandMA's layoffs seem to be irreversible regardless, but who knows.

Sources:

• Law360's article. Requires signing up for an account with a non-free email domain to fully view; I used my university email. The Google Drive links to a PDF version of the article is here, and to the attached complaint by GrandMA's lawyer is here (this is a public record, so it is legal to share).
• The official government King County Superior Court website in Washington. Search up the civil case with the case number 26-2-15547-0, and you'll see the case "GRANDMA STUDIOS LIMITED VS BFG ENTERTAINMENT INC". Viewing basic details is free; viewing other court documents requires signing up for an account and paying $8, which I opted to not do.

Not my game at all, but just wanted to share this in case this is someone else's cup of tea.

Some of you may remember that Little Things first released on Big Fish Games all the way back in 2009. It was then ported to and remains on the App Store and Google Play. There's also a 2013 sequel called Little Things Forever also on the App Store and Google Play.

As very recently as early April this year, the developer has decided to release a remastered version of Little Things. It is available as a a new release on Steam (just the first game) and an update to the mobile versions and the Itch.io version (includes the second game that's also remastered).

Check it out if you're interested!