The Tragic, Greedy Death of Fisch

[00:02] gaining hundreds of thousands of concurrent players only 2 months after its release and quickly gaining over three billion total visits, becoming one of the most visited Roblox games of all time and cementing itself as a Roblox

[00:15] legend. Fish was a unique game in the Roblox landscape, serving as a more fun and engaging simulator game compared to other RNG based games like Souls RNG, attention incredibly quickly and becoming a mainstay. However, Fish also

[00:29] seemed to decline just as quickly, going from its peak concurrent player count of half a million players to just 10,000 in only a few months, getting various complaints such as, "It's boring ASF, repetitive, and is way too overrated.

[00:43] The amount of microtransactions in this game is scary. There's no way to revive this game." You may be wondering how everything fell apart so fast. To find that out, we must go back to the beginning. The creator of this game,

[00:56] WooNate, initially conceived of this fishing game when he first realized there wasn't much engagement on any of the existing one and wanted to improve on the current simulator games out there, which were, in his opinion, rinse

[01:08] simulator-l like game. In order to set his game apart, he aimed to create a simple and calmer approach and took inspiration from other games such as Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley. And the name of the game itself was chosen

[01:21] word for fish, as well as it being a reference to the actor for Pam in the TV series The Office, who is named Jenna Fisher. The game was developed in only modeling, and building were all being handled by only Woo. Fish was also open

[01:37] for early testing for about a day in August 10th, 2024. The game, of course, soon found immediate success after its official release and was curated on The gameplay of Fish was relatively simple. Players can begin fishing simply

[01:52] by equipping their rod and standing near water and could be cast by holding left click and then releasing. Once a fish bites, a small miniame starts where the player must hold and release left click in order to stay inside the moving

[02:04] rectangle. Once you've done it for long enough, the fish is successfully caught. Every fish will be put inside the beastiary and can be sold to merchants. mutations and can be sold for good money

[02:16] rod. Looking at this simple gameplay loop, it's pretty obvious why Fish was such a success. It solved the often boring RNG aspect by giving players a as well as giving players multiple reasons to keep playing the game, such

[02:31] as wanting to collect all the fish, getting all the best stats, and even wanting to compete against other players. Essentially, Fish kept giving a reason to keep coming back to the game. However, there's one very special event

[02:43] that happened that inevitably doomed such a seemingly perfect game to its ultimate downfall. On November 2nd, 2024, Fish was acquired by an infamous studio called Do Big Studios, who had acquired other Roblox games such as A

[02:57] Dusty Trip, Baddies, and Grow a Garden. This studio is especially well known for filling the games they buy with many different microtransactions in order to squeeze as much money out of it as possible, usually killing the game and

[03:09] supposed reason why Wooate sold his game was because of the unexpected massive prepared for at all. In order to provide developers to satisfy the growing demands of the game, Nate ended up

[03:22] selling it. Needless to say, this did not go well for the game. The first most glaring problem with the game is the amount of microtransactions that have been forced into the game. Constant ways to spend Robux such as buying eggs,

[03:34] skin, and XP boosts have quickly appeared. For example, a part of the which among other things tends to be incredibly rare. But those who are able to spend Robux will be able to get the rare fish much easier than otherwise.

[03:47] How this happens is Fish now often sells bundles where you can buy significant luck boost among other items, which will allow you to obtain the fish much more easily, sell it for lots of in-game cash, and gain a large advantage over

[03:59] done every time a new fish of that type is added. They also lock items that the player behind quests that would normally be incredibly difficult and time-conuming for a normal player to obtain. For example, in order to obtain

[04:13] the glimmer suit boots, which give you a faster walk speed, you have to catch three exotic fish, which are very rare to get, and sell them to one of the NPCs. But if you have Robux, you can easily get a much higher luck boost,

[04:25] these boots, even though they have a function that does not justify its difficulty to obtain. One of the worst parts of these pay to- win problems used to lie with the egg salesman NPC, which has since been removed. This NPC sold

[04:39] you a Furge egg that gave you a much higher chance than normal to obtain normally high tier items for Robux. Items that would take normal players a significant amount of time to obtain without money. For example, from free

[04:51] eggs, the king of the Kraken boat would have a 04% chance to obtain, which could take you up to tens of thousands of hours to get. But with the FBurge eggs, you can obtain it with a 1.5 chance, much higher than normal, further giving

[05:05] players who pay money a much higher advantage compared to everyone else. To go more in depth about the luck multiplication, the server constantly sells luck boosts that can be multiplied to egregious amounts. For example, a

[05:17] bundle can sell server luck of up to 32 times to 64 times the normal amount and server luck to reach heights much farther than even that. Yet another aspect of Fish's pay to win problems are its introduction of limited items. Fish

[05:31] limited skin drops, which can be sold for thousands of Robux, often costing you tens of dollars in real life for one skin alone and giving it a certain amount of limited stock, where if it ran out, it would disappear forever. This

[05:44] seems more tame than the other examples, but it is worth noting that this is just a blatant attempt to sell you something that is very obviously worthless, considering you cannot trade or resell these skins, giving it very little use.

[05:56] Overall, it seems that Fish's purchases doomed the game that could have been a truly game-breaking and long-lasting game to obscurity less than a year since its release. But to come back is always possible. Time will tell what will

[06:08] possible. Time will tell what will ultimately happen to