Fish It: How a Simplified Copycat Became One of Roblox's Biggest Hits
- Stephen Dypiangco
- 3 days ago
- 6 min read
Join 2.5K+ business leaders (at Roblox, Epic Games, Xbox) subscribed to the #1 Roblox newsletter: sign up here
By Ken Bryan
Another incremental simulator game has been rapidly climbing the Roblox charts. We’ve seen a few hits in this genre break out over the past year or two like Bubblegum Simulator Infinity (which we covered previously), Pet Simulator 99!, Sol’s RNG, but nothing on the level of Fish It, which has suddenly positioned itself as one of the top games on the platform.
The growth curve is stunning. After spending months hovering in the low thousands, the game suddenly surged to 50K average CCUs (concurrent users) in August of 2025, then 186K in September, 389K in October, and 839K in November. As of early December, it has now crossed 1 million average CCUs. In roughly four months, Fish It has scaled its player base by more than 20x.
It’s also now #6 all-time in Roblox peak CCU (highest number of players simultaneously online in a game), crossing 2.7 million concurrent players, joining a very small group of games (16 currently) that have ever broken the 1 million CCU mark. (per Rolimons).
And yet, despite this meteoric rise, Fish It isn’t built on a groundbreaking new idea. It’s essentially a simplified, streamlined, kid-friendly version of Fisch, the fishing game that dominated Roblox in late 2024 before its momentum suddenly collapsed under heavy monetization and ownership changes. Fish It stepped into that void, lowered the complexity, and somehow became even bigger than the original ever was.
Fish It Gameplay Deep Dive
The basic game loop is familiar and instantly understandable:
Catch fish to earn cash
Use cash to upgrade rods, lures, and gear
Buy boats
Reach new islands and unlock new types of fish
Complete quests and participate in timed events along the way
Repeat
The gameplay itself is as straightforward as it gets. Cast your line, complete a very forgiving mini-game, reel the fish, sell, upgrade, and progress. New rods increase fishing ability. Boats unlock new zones. Everything pushes the player forward with minimal friction and clear direction.
What stands out is how quickly Fish It pushes players into the fun part. Within minutes, players are upgrading rods, catching bigger fish, unlocking new biomes, and seeing visible progress. The game wastes no time engaging you in the core loop in an attempt to hook you (no pun intended), which is an enormous advantage on a platform with high churn.
Like many other simulation titles, Fish It includes a built-in AFK fishing mode. Once unlocked, players can toggle auto-fish and let the game run on its own. This dramatically boosts engagement time and explains the game’s 30-minute average session length, an astonishing number for Roblox, where anything above 10-15 minutes is strong. It also explains the extremely high in-game stats that would otherwise require thousands of manual hours.
A Simplified Copycat of Fisch
Fisch is the original game that Fish It builds upon. Fisch dominated Roblox during late 2024 and early 2025 and hit the 1M CCU milestone itself. But after being sold to DoBig Studios and loaded with aggressive microtransactions, its player base collapsed.
Fish It launched during Fisch’s lowest point, overtook it almost instantly, and then rocketed far beyond it.
Interestingly, Fisch has now seen a resurgence, likely driven by:
Renewed attention on fishing games
The original creator regaining ownership
The removal of overly aggressive monetization
Spillover from Fish It players seeking a deeper challenge
In other words, Fish It is a rare case where a copycat doesn’t kill the original; it actually helped revived it.
Key Differences Between Fish It and Fisch
Fish It's auto-clicker style fishing with virtually zero fail conditions
Fisch implements a much more difficult mechanic where you must balance a scale while reeling or you lose the fish
This is a why Fish It is labeled as an incremental simulator (since you basically click until you get the fish) category while Fisch isn’t
More guided navigation, with labeled points of interest and tightly spaced islands
Frictionless systems, such as auto-equipped items and infinite bobbers (gear that doesn’t run out or need to be replaced)
Rarity displayed as “1 in X” odds (e.g., 1 in 50 seashell, 1 in 350 frog), which is easier for kids to understand
Fisch uses a weight-based rarity
Fish It's odds-based system boosts excitement around RNG (the Megaladon is the rarest I could find, with a 1 in 4 million chance)
Constant quest arrows and objectives guiding players
Fisch is more open and less guided
Fisch’s complexity appeals to older or more invested players, but Fish It’s streamlined approach casts a much wider net and is more aligned with current Roblox mechanics, especially after the viral success of Grow a Garden where simplicity is king.
Rumors of Black Market and Botted Accounts
A surprising part of Fish It’s rapid rise is the growing speculation around whether its numbers are completely organic. While none of this is confirmed, the rumors were widespread enough to address in this article.
Reddit threads, YouTube comments and several popular Roblox content creators have questioned the legitimacy of Fish It’s breakout
YouTuber Holygrail75 posted a viral analysis (1M+ views) asking whether the CCUs behind the hype are real
Many note that despite consistently ranking in the Top 10, the game has comparatively little social media buzz for its size
Unlike most top games on Roblox, Fish It shows minimal weekend spikes, with a much flatter CCU curve (a pattern often associated with AFK-heavy or botted activity)
The game’s extremely long average playtime also contributed to the speculation.
Holygrail75 found that on Discord, nearly two-thirds of messages appear to come from Indonesian accounts, and social posts suggest the game is being used to sell black-market items
Some players reportedly run multiple botted accounts to AFK and farm items for resale, an issue many Roblox titles face.
However, the story has evolved since the video has posted. November CCU data shows clear weekend spikes forming, a sign of real player activity.
My take: Even if some amount of botting is occurring, Fish It clearly generated enough genuine curiosity and discovery momentum that a huge number of real players are now checking it out. And looking at the chart below, we actually see large weekend spikes forming in November.
Conclusion
Fish It’s rise is one of the fastest and most dramatic jumps we have seen on Roblox this year. The game went from ranking fifth in October with an average of 389K CCUs to becoming the number three game in November with more than 838K average CCUs. By early December it has already passed one million average CCUs and is now competing directly with Steal a Brainrot and 99 Nights at the top of the platform.
Fisch, meanwhile, followed a very different arc throughout 2024. After being sold and overloaded with aggressive monetization, its CCUs fell sharply and the game drifted downward. Once the original creator regained ownership and stripped out the microtransactions, Fisch began repairing its reputation and climbing again. As Fish It surged, it brought renewed attention to the fishing genre, and that rising tide helped Fisch recover. Fisch now sits inside the top twenty and is benefiting from the wave of new players entering the category.
Ultimately, Fish It and Fisch now operate in a symbiotic cycle:
• Fish It casts a wide, accessible net.
• Fisch catches players who want something more demanding.
This dynamic is unusual for Roblox. Most copycats either cannibalize the original or fade quickly once the hype settles. Instead, Fish It expanded the category to a much broader audience while Fisch reestablished itself as the deeper alternative. There is still some overlap in their player bases, but both titles are clearly benefiting from the overall surge in interest around fishing games.
Whether Fish It remains a dominant force on Roblox or eventually fades, it has already reshaped the fishing simulator genre on Roblox more than any game before it.
And with Steal a Brainrot now adding its own fishing update, one thing is clear: fishing is taking over Roblox right now.
Want more Roblox insights like this?
Join 2.5K+ subscribers to our weekly Roblox newsletter,
read by business leaders at Roblox, Epic Games, Xbox, and Disney.