''Gamezebo'' (sometimes stylized ''GameZebo'') is a website which reports on and reviews

video games A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

. Founded in 2005 by Joel Brodie, it was billed as the first website to solely cover

casual games A casual game is a video game targeted at a mass market audience, as opposed to a Hardcore gamer, hardcore game, which is targeted at Gamer#Dedication spectrum, hobbyist gamers. Casual games may exhibit any type of gameplay and genre. They genera ...

and expanded its scope to social games in 2009. After being acquired by the causal game company iWin in 2016, ''Gamezebo'' was redesigned and expanded its coverage to

PC games ''PC Games'' is a monthly-released PC gaming magazine published by the Computec Media GmbH in Germany. History ''PC Games'' was founded in 1992 and included a 3½-in floppy disk, which was changed to a CD-ROM in 1995. By 1999 it became the ...

. ''Gamezebo'' is based in

Walnut Creek, California Walnut Creek is a city in Contra Costa County, California, United States, located in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, about east of the city of Oakland, California, Oakland. Walnut Creek has a total population of 70,127 per t ...

History

''Gamezebo'' was launched in 2005. It was founded by Joel Brodie, the former head of business development at Yahoo! Games. Brodie found that many video game publications "looked down" on

and started the website to review and cover news on the genre. It was billed as the first website which solely covered casual games. ''Gamezebo'' and the Casual Games Association launched the Zeebys in 2007, which were awarded to casual games. Voting was open to members of the public. In 2008, it held another installment of the Zebbys which was aired on Lifetime, and was nominated for a

Webby Award The Webby Awards (colloquially referred to as the Webbys) are awards for excellence on the Internet presented annually by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a judging body composed of over three thousand industry experts a ...

for 'Games-Related' websites. ''Gamezebo'' used

RSS RSS ( RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format. Subscribing to RSS feeds can allow a user to keep track of many ...

for its content feed. In 2009, ''Gamezebo'' expanded its scope with the growing popularity of social games such as

FarmVille ''FarmVille'' is a series of agriculture-simulation social network games developed and published by Zynga in 2009. It is similar to '' Happy Farm'' and ''Farm Town''. Its gameplay involves various aspects of farmland management, such as plo ...

(2009). By February 2010, it had a staff and twenty freelance journalists. The website was redesigned in 2014. In 2015, editor-in-chief Jim Squires told ''

MacRumors ''MacRumors'' is an American website that reports and aggregates Apple Inc.- and Mac (computer), Mac-related news, rumors, and information. The website is updated on a daily basis with new articles. It also provides a selection of other content ...

'' that ''Gamezebo'' was struggling as larger mobile developers shifted away from traditional advertising. In March 2016, ''Gamezebo'' was acquired by casual game company iWin. It launched another redesign shortly after, improving navigation and expanding its coverage to

Content

An article in '' Games and Culture'' found that ''Gamezebo'' catered to a broader audience than other video game news sites. Unlike websites aimed at "core gamers" like ''

Kotaku ''Kotaku'' is a video game website and blog that was originally launched in 2004 as part of the Gawker Media network. Notable former contributors to the site include Luke Smith, Cecilia D'Anastasio, Tim Rogers, and Jason Schreier. History ...

'' and ''

TouchArcade ''TouchArcade'' (stylized as toucharcade) is a mobile games journalism website. It was launched in 2008 as a sister site of ''MacRumors'' by its founder Arnold Kim and Blake Patterson. ''TouchArcade'' also hosts a forum and a weekly podcast. ...

'', which also exclusively covers mobile games, ''Gamezebo'' did not marginalize mobile games in its coverage.

Organization

Gamezebo, Inc. is based in

. Its editor-in-chief is Jim Squires.

Notable contributors

* Justin McElroy, podcaster and co-founder of ''

Polygon In geometry, a polygon () is a plane figure made up of line segments connected to form a closed polygonal chain. The segments of a closed polygonal chain are called its '' edges'' or ''sides''. The points where two edges meet are the polygon ...

References

External links