PCH Games (formerly Candystand.com) is a casual game portal owned by

Publishers Clearing House Publishers Clearing House (PCH) is an American company founded in 1953 by Harold Mertz. It was originally founded as an alternative to door-to-door subscription business model, magazine subscription sales by offering bulk mail direct marketin ...

and based in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. Launched in 1997 as The Candystand, by LifeSavers Company, a division of

Nabisco Nabisco (, abbreviated from the earlier name National Biscuit Company) is an American manufacturer of cookies and snacks headquartered in East Hanover, New Jersey. The company is a subsidiary of Illinois-based Mondelēz International. Nabisco' ...

, Inc., it was the first major

advergame An advergame (portmanteau of "advertisement" and "video game") is a form of advertising in video games, in which the video game is developed by or in close collaboration with a corporate entity for purposes of advertising a brand-name product. Whil ...

portal available on the World Wide Web. The site was created for LifeSavers by Skyworks Technologies, an online video game company founded in 1996 by Activision veterans Garry Kitchen and David Crane. In August 2007, Candystand was acquired by Funtank from the

Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company, also known as Wrigley Company or simply Wrigley's, is an American multinational candy and chewing gum company, based in the Global Innovation Center (GIC) in Goose Island, Chicago, Illinois. Wrigley's is a subsidiary ...

. In December 2010, Publishers Clearing House acquired Candystand.com from Funtank and retained executives Scott Tannen and

James Baker James Addison Baker III (born April 28, 1930) is an American attorney, diplomat and statesman. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 10th White House chief of staff and 67th United States secretary ...

. Candystand was regarded for having a catalog of over 100+

Flash Flash, flashes, or FLASH may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional aliases * The Flash, several DC Comics superheroes with super speed: ** Flash (Jay Garrick) ** Barry Allen ** Wally West, the first Kid Flash and third adult Flash ...

and

Shockwave In physics, a shock wave (also spelled shockwave), or shock, is a type of propagating disturbance that moves faster than the local speed of sound in the medium. Like an ordinary wave, a shock wave carries energy and can propagate through a me ...

games. Some of its most popular games included Candystand Billiards, Candystand MiniGolf, Monster Trucks Unleashed, Vector Tower Defense (Vector TD), Slipstream, and Fancy Pants Adventure 2. In February 2016, PCH revamped the site, removing most of the games and emphasizing the lottery aspects over the games. In March 2016, Candystand.com was discontinued by PCH.

Key events

December 10, 1997:

, managed through its

Life Savers Life Savers (stylized as LifeSavers) is an American brand of ring-shaped hard and soft candy. Its range of mints and fruit-flavored candies is known for its distinctive packaging, coming in paper-wrapped aluminum foil rolls. Candy manufacturer ...

portfolio, launches Candystand.com. 2001: Nabisco is acquired by

Kraft Foods Kraft Foods Group, Inc. was an American food manufacturing and processing conglomerate (company), conglomerate, split from Kraft Foods Inc. on October 1, 2012, and was headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. It became part of Kraft Heinz on July ...

. After Kraft's acquisition of Nabisco, the tagline "The Hottest Games Online" is introduced. Spring 2003: Candystand.com conducts a poll to determine 5 new flavors for the

Five Flavor variety pack. February 2007: Candystand.com became one of the first free game portals to offer an interface for the

Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America, and in December 2006 for most other regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major home game console, f ...

at Wii.Candystand.com November 2008: Candystand.com launched its first iPhone game, Blackbeard's Assault for iPhone January 12, 2009: Candystand.com launched Slipstream 2 a sequel to one of the site's most popular games, created by Silent Bay Studios. June 2009: Candystand rebranded their website with a new layout and the new title "The Sweetest Games Online". July 1, 2009: Candystand.com launched Let's Dance a rhythm-dance game built in collaboration with

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Di ...

and featuring

Hannah Montana ''Hannah Montana'' is an American teen sitcom created by Michael Poryes, Rich Correll, and Barry O'Brien that aired on Disney Channel for four seasons between March2006 and January2011. The series centers on Miley Stewart (played by Miley Cy ...

. August 2009: Candystand becomes first major game portal to integrate

Facebook Connect The Facebook Platform is the set of services, tools, and products provided by the social networking service Facebook for third-party developers to create their own applications and services that access data in Facebook. The current Facebook Pla ...

. January 2010: several Candystand games are made available on the PSP as well as the

iPhone The iPhone is a line of smartphones developed and marketed by Apple that run iOS, the company's own mobile operating system. The first-generation iPhone was announced by then–Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, at ...

. Ported titles include

Vector TD Vector TD (including Vector TD 2, Vector TDx) was a popular flash game from 2007, ported to PSP in 2010 (the price was $3.99), PlayStation 3, iPhone that was developed by David Scott and published by PCH Games. Visual creates a Tron atmosphere. S ...

, Virble,

Electric Box Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter possessing an electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by Maxwel ...

and

Match Maker A match is a tool for starting a fire. Typically, matches are made of small wooden sticks or stiff paper. One end is coated with a material that can be ignited by friction generated by striking the match against a suitable surface. Wooden matc ...

. March 2010: Candystand partners with

The Walt Disney Company The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was founded on October 16 ...

to integrate

Pixie Hollow Pixie Hollow is a character meet and greet attraction at Disneyland and Hong Kong Disneyland Hong Kong Disneyland () (abbreviated HKDL; also known as HK Disneyland or Disneyland Hong Kong) is a theme park located on reclaimed land in Penny's ...

, a virtual world based on the

Disney Fairies ''Disney Fairies'' is a The Walt Disney Company, Disney Media franchise, franchise created in 2005. The franchise is built around the character of Tinker Bell (Disney character), Tinker Bell from Walt Disney Animation Studios, Disney's 1953 anima ...

and

Tinker Bell Tinker Bell is a fictional character from J. M. Barrie's 1904 play '' Peter Pan'' and its 1911 novelisation '' Peter and Wendy''. She has appeared in a variety of film and television adaptations of the Peter Pan stories, in particular the 1953 ...

, directly on the Candystand.com website. May 2010: In partnership with Trident gum, Candystand.com created and launched a new game titled Trident Layers Factory. This game marks the first of several new games being developed for

Cadbury Adams Cadbury, formerly Cadbury's and Cadbury Schweppes, is a British multinational confectionery company owned by Mondelez International (spun off from Kraft Foods) since 2010. It is the second-largest confectionery brand in the world, after Mars. ...

brands in 2010. March 2016: Candystand.com has been discontinued and has been replaced by Publishers Clearing House Games.

References

{{reflist

External links

Candystand.com
Web portals Browser-based game websites Internet properties established in 1997