Miniclip is a Swiss

mobile game A mobile game is a video game that is typically played on a mobile phone. The term also refers to all games that are played on any Mobile device, portable device, including from mobile phone (feature phone or smartphone), tablet computer, table ...

publisher and former

browser game A browser game is a video game that is played on the internet using a web browser. They are sometimes referred to more specifically by their format, such as Flash games or HTML5 games. They are generally free-to-play and can be either single-pl ...

website A website (also written as a web site) is any web page whose content is identified by a common domain name and is published on at least one web server. Websites are typically dedicated to a particular topic or purpose, such as news, educatio ...

that was first launched on 30 March 2001. It was started by Robert Small and Tihan Presbie with a budget of £40,000. In 2008, Miniclip was valued at over £275 million. In 2018, the company gained over $400 million in revenue through its mobile gaming hit, ''8 Ball Pool''.

History

As of July 2009, over 400

applications Application may refer to: Mathematics and computing * Application software, computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks ** Application layer, an abstraction layer that specifies protocols and interface methods used in a ...

were hosted on its own website. In 2010, they released Robo Rampage. In February 2015,

Tencent Tencent Holdings Ltd. ( zh, s=腾讯, p=Téngxùn) is a Chinese Multinational corporation, multinational technology Conglomerate (company), conglomerate and holding company headquartered in Shenzhen. It is one of the highest grossing multimed ...

acquired majority stakes of Miniclip. In December 2016, Miniclip surpassed 1 billion downloads across its published mobile games on

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

-based, Android-based, and

Windows Phone Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued mobile operating system developed by Microsoft Mobile for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design languag ...

-based devices. In March 2022, Miniclip announced that it had reached 4 billion downloads worldwide with ''8 Ball Pool'' alone accounting for 1 billion of them. In April 2021, Miniclip had celebrated its 21st anniversary. In response, the CEO of Miniclip claimed that it would be keeping away from developing

browser-based games A browser game is a video game that is played on the internet using a web browser. They are sometimes referred to more specifically by their format, such as Flash games or HTML5 games. They are generally free-to-play and can be either single-play ...

to prioritize its mobile gaming products, including ''

Agar.io ''Agar.io'' is a Massive multiplayer online game, massive multiplayer online action game created by Brazilian developer Matheus Valadares and published by Miniclip. Players control one or more circular Cell (biology), cells in a map representin ...

'', ''8 Ball Pool'', '' Mini Militia'', ''Ludo Party'' and more. In April 2022, Miniclip announced that it would begin prioritizing its mobile games. As a result, the browser game portal was shut down in July 2022 and the website lost all but its two most popular games of the time, ''

'' and ''8 Ball Pool''. In June 2022, Miniclip agreed to acquire SYBO, the co-publisher and co-developer of '' Subway Surfers'', in an undisclosed deal. The deal with SYBO went through in July 2022. In November 2024,

Embracer Group Embracer Group AB (formerly Nordic Games Licensing AB and THQ Nordic AB) is a Swedish video game and media holding company based in Karlstad. The company comprises 8 operative groups: Amplifier Game Invest, CDE Entertainment, Coffee Stain Studi ...

announced that they would divest Easybrain to Miniclip for a consideration of $1.2 billion, with the transaction expected to close in early 2025.

Studios

Mobile games

Miniclip has developed and published numerous mobile games for

, Android,

Symbian Symbian is a discontinued mobile operating system (OS) and computing platform designed for smartphones. It was originally developed as a proprietary software OS for personal digital assistants in 1998 by the Symbian Ltd. consortium. Symbian OS ...

, and

. This includes ''8 Ball Pool'', ''Golf Battle'', '' Gravity Guy'', '' Bloons Tower Defense'', ''On The Run'', ''

Plague Inc. ''Plague Inc.'' is a real-time strategy simulation game developed and published by Ndemic Creations. The game was inspired by the 2011 film '' Contagion'' and the 2008 browser game ''Pandemic 2''. The player creates and evolves a pathogen to an ...

'' for Android, ''Berry Rush'', ''

'', '' Diep.io'', ''Mini Militia'', '' Robo Rampage'', ''Ludo Party'' and ''Head Ball 2 an
Cricket League
'

Other platforms

In September 2012,

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

announced on the

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

blog on 31 August 2012 (see also

List of Xbox games on Windows This is a list of Xbox Live enabled games on Windows 10 currently planned or released on Windows 10 operating systems through the Windows Store application. The first wave of Windows 10 Xbox Live games were announced on Xbox Wire in March 2015. All ...

) that Miniclip games would be able to distribute their games on the

Xbox Xbox is a video gaming brand that consists of four main home video game console lines, as well as application software, applications (games), the streaming media, streaming service Xbox Cloud Gaming, and online services such as the Xbox networ ...

division of

Windows 8 Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012, made available for download via Microsoft ...

. Miniclip games that are supported by

for

include '' Gravity Guy'', ''iStunt 2'', and ''Monster Island''. '' Gravity Guy'' was released on

Windows Store The Microsoft Store (formerly known as the Windows Store) is a digital distribution platform operated by Microsoft. It was created as an app store for Windows 8 as the primary means of distributing Universal Windows Platform apps. With ...

on 29 November 2010. In April 2013, most Miniclip games for

and

were distributed for free for one year. On 14 February 2017, Miniclip released their first mobile racer game which was compatible with

Xbox One The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third console in the Xbox#Consoles, Xbox series. It was first released in North America, parts of Europe, Austra ...

, PC, and

PlayStation 4 The PlayStation 4 (PS4) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 3 in February 2013, it was launched on November 15, 2013, in North America, November 29, 2013, in ...

, titled ''MX Nitro''.

Malicious software issues

On 1 September 2005, the

United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) was a team under the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency of the Department of Homeland Security. On February 24, 2023, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agen ...

issued an advisory concerning Miniclip: In 2006, several security firms reported that some Miniclip users had installed a "miniclipgameloader.dll" which contained the hostile code identified as "Trojan Downloader 3069.” In the same year, another download related to Miniclip installed "High Risk"

malware Malware (a portmanteau of ''malicious software'')Tahir, R. (2018)A study on malware and malware detection techniques . ''International Journal of Education and Management Engineering'', ''8''(2), 20. is any software intentionally designed to caus ...

called "Trojan-Downloader.CR64Loader.”

References

External links

* {{Tencent Browser-based game websites Swiss websites Mobile content Internet properties established in 2001 Mobile game companies Tencent Games 2001 establishments in Switzerland 2015 mergers and acquisitions 2019 mergers and acquisitions 2021 mergers and acquisitions 2022 mergers and acquisitions