they got rid of some games. why.

Many games have been removed from the Big Fish website over the years and the reasons are numerous. I am sure the same thing applies to Playfirst.

Big Fish had a lot of Playfirst games years ago and now they have none; it was Playfirst's decision to remove them, I believe.

Maybe the games use Flash and / or just don't play on newer systems.

now no one can play their games.

Those are possibilities too, oldbroad. Sometimes it's a licensing agreement that has expired, or a game changing ownership - there are just all kinds of reasons. Plagiarism happens sometimes too, although it is usually inadvertent. There are also copyright issues at times.

On October 8, 2012, PlayFirst emailed its subscribers informing them that the company will cease the production of PC and Mac games and move to a new website since November 12, 2012. found this.

Yes, that is around the time that the Playfirst games were removed from the Big Fish website.

that is terrible, lost games forever.

I have most of those old Playfirst games in my Purchase History, thankfully, so I can play them whenever I want. Their games were awfully good and I am so glad that they are not gone forever for me.

Many of their games were sold on CD, too. Some, but not all.

got 3 by zylon, dinertown detective agency could not find.

I have a good number of their games and I know at least some of them won't work for me, but the biggest disappointment is Emerald City Confidential which Play First published. I'd like to replay the game but cannot.

Is it because of Flash Player? Mine works fine, so I am thinking that's probably what it is.

Family, DinerTown Detective Agency is on Steam here. However, I see people complaining that the game does not work properly without Flash Player, so be warned.

I still haven't tried Lightspark as a substitute for Flash Player, but it might just work for these issues. I haven't had any need for it and therefore haven't tried it yet.

No Marian. I don't remember what the problem was but I remember even Dave Gilbert had written somewhere that the game was not supported by PlayFirst anymore. I have the game from Steam. I see there are some fairly current reviews and discussions on Steam now so maybe I will try it again and see what happens. It was probably a few years ago that I tried to replay it. Maybe something has changed??

Interesting. Let me take a look-see and see if it loads up for me. I have it installed right now.

Just tried it. I got the game from Big Fish. No problems whatsoever.

If only it were still available there...

I never thought the game was released on a CD, but I did find this compilation pack here. The game is included.



Valerie Porter is another Playfirst game which I have in my Purchase History. Avenue Flo is another good one. There were two Avenue Flo games and they are both entertaining.

Anyway, good to know that Emerald City Confidential was released on a CD. I do not think it was ever released on a CD all by itself. I used to spend a lot of time on eBay and I never saw one at least.

Thank you for this link Marian. I'll keep it in mind. I do remember something about a disc. I actually just tried the game again and Norton blocked the executable file. This apparently is a false positive that happens not only with Norton. I took a chance and excluded it and the game does open and looks like it will play though I didn't start it yet. I did not think this was the problem when I tried it a few years ago but maybe I just didn't understand what this meant back then about the missing executable. I do remember looking on Wadjet Eye site though and that other people had a problem with the game also and that is where I read about it not being supported anymore. The Wadjet Eye forum is no longer there so I can't look to see what exactly it was that I might have read. I did note in my games list though about what Dave Gilbert had said. I will be trying the game out in a short while and hopefully replaying it!

I bought a disk version of Emerald City Confidential many, many years ago and played it twice but a long time afterwards, to my surprise, it suddenly appeared in my Purchase History at Big Fish !!
How or why I don't know. (But I've never downloaded or played THAT version.)

The same thing happened with The Hound of the Baskervilles which I originally bought direct from Frogwares.
IT also suddenly appeared in my Big Fish games history some time later.

look what playfirst is putting us throught.

That is great news, ob! I saw a comment somewhere about someone's antivirus preventing the game from starting and wondered if possibly that was what you had encountered.

Mad, that is odd. I have a few CD versions of Big Fish games and they never appeared in my Purchase History after installing them.

Family, Playfirst can do anything they want with their games. I don't really see that they are putting us through anything. Big Fish has removed games from their website over the years (many, in fact), and if you don't already have them in your Purchase History then you will have to find them somewhere else. I do agree that it is a shame that they are no longer available on Big Fish, though.

it is a shame, they are still there but when you click, you get this, http://forums.bigfishgames.com/forums/show/1555.page and this, https://www.bigfishgames.com/us/en.html, you can figure it out.

"Mad, that is odd. I have a few CD versions of Big Fish games and they never appeared in my Purchase History after installing them."

I have never understood it either, Marian !!

already email big fish, waiting on reply.

It takes time for those old outdated links to go away. It is not Big Fish's fault that the Playfirst games are gone; as I recall this was a decision of Playfirst.

This also happened with old Sandlot games like Cake Mania and the Westward series, which were all great games.

i guess i bother them for nothing.