A browser game is a video game that is played via the internet using a web browser. They are mostly free-to-play and can be single-player or multiplayer. Alternative names for the browser game genre reference their software platform used, with common examples being Flash games, and HTML5 games.
Digital Chocolate, Inc. was a video game developer and publisher headquartered in San Mateo, California. It was founded in 2003 by Trip Hawkins, the founder of video game companies Electronic Arts and The 3DO Company. The company focused on developing games for Java ME-based mobile phones, iOS, and Microsoft Windows, and made some non-entertainment titles. Its marketing motto was Seize the minute.
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 portable device, including from mobile phone, tablet, PDA to handheld game console, portable media player or graphing calculator, with and without network availability. The earliest known game on a mobile phone was a Tetris variant on the Hagenuk MT-2000 device from 1994.
Flixster was an American social-networking movie website for discovering new movies, learning about movies, and meeting others with similar tastes in movies. It is currently owned by Fandango Media. The formerly independent site, allowed users to view movie trailers as well as learn about new and upcoming movies at the box office. It was originally based in San Francisco and was founded by Joe Greenstein and Saran Chari on January 20, 2006. It was also the former parent company of Rotten Tomatoes from January 2010 to February 17, 2016. On February 17, 2016, Flixster, including Rotten Tomatoes, was acquired by Fandango.
PlayFirst, Inc. is a Delaware based American publisher of casual games founded in 2004 by industry veterans. PlayFirst produced the Diner Dash series, which won the 2008 Annual Casual Game Awards. and has seen over 550 million downloads. The popularity of Diner Dash series prompted spin-off series like Wedding Dash and Cooking Dash. The company’s game portfolio also includes the retro-style strategy-based Chocolatier series, and the adventure/hidden object-mixing Dream Chronicles series.
Tagged is a social discovery website based in San Francisco, California, founded in 2004. It allows members to browse the profiles of any other members, and share tags and virtual gifts. Tagged claims it has 300 million members as of 2014. As of September 2011, Quantcast estimates Tagged monthly unique users at 5.9 million in the United States, and 18.6 million globally. Michael Arrington wrote in April 2011 that Tagged is most notable for the ability to grow profitably during the era of Facebook.
Lexulous is an online word game based on the commercial board game Scrabble. It is run by an Indian company of the same name on a dedicated website, and is also available within the social networking site Facebook.
Tap Tap Revenge was a music game created by Nate True, and developed and published by Tapulous for iOS in July 2008. It is the first game in Tapulous' Tap Tap series.
Pocket God is a simulation game developed by Bolt Creative, in which the player manipulates an island and its inhabitants. It was released for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch on January 9, 2009, and released for Verizon Wireless on September 1, 2010, Android on December 1, 2010, and Windows Phone on December 4, 2010. The Facebook version was released December 23, 2010.
Mafia Wars is a defunct freemium multiplayer social network game created by Zynga. Players assume the roles of gangsters while building their own Mafia-type organization. The players fight and "rob" other players online - completing jobs, missions, and operations to gain rewards and strength in an endless game.
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 plowing land, planting, growing, and harvesting crops, harvesting trees and raising livestock. The sequels FarmVille 2 and FarmVille 3 were released in September 2012 and November 2021, respectively.
Playdom was an online social network game developer popular on Facebook, Google+ and Myspace. The company was founded in the San Francisco Bay Area by University of California, Berkeley graduates Ling Xiao and Chris Wang and Swarthmore College graduate Dan Yue. In 2009, the market for games played on social networking sites was valued at $300 million, consisting mostly of online sales of virtual goods.
Gowalla is a location-based social networking service. It originally launched in 2007 and closed in 2012, but was relaunched on March 10, 2023. Users are able to check in at "Spots" in their local vicinity, either through a dedicated mobile application or through the mobile website. Checking-in will sometimes produce virtual "items" for the user, some of which are developed to be promotional tools for the game's partners. As of November 2010 there were approximately 600,000 users. In January 2021, Gowalla made an announcement that the app is coming back in 2022.
Angry Birds was a 2009 physics-based casual puzzle video game developed by Finnish video game developer Rovio Entertainment. Inspired primarily by a sketch of stylized wingless birds, the game was first released for iOS and Maemo devices starting in December 2009. By October 2010, 12 million copies of the game had been purchased from the iOS App Store and Ovi, which prompted the developer to design versions for other touchscreen-based smartphones, most notably Android, Symbian, Windows Phone, and BlackBerry 10 devices. The series has since expanded to include titles for dedicated video game consoles and PCs. A sequel, Angry Birds 2, was released in July 2015 for iOS and Android. Around April 2019, the original game was removed from the App Store. A paid recreation of the game's content from 2012 was released as Rovio Classics: Angry Birds on March 31, 2022, but later on, Rovio mentioned that they were removing it from the Google Play Store on February 23, 2023, and retitling it as Red's First Flight on the iOS App Store.
Call of Duty: Elite was an online service created by the Activision subsidiary Beachhead Studios for the multiplayer portion for the first-person shooter video game series Call of Duty. The service featured lifetime statistics across multiple games as well as a multitude of social-networking options. The service previously had a premium subscription option during Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3; however, following the release of Call of Duty: Black Ops II, the service was made free. As of February 28, 2014 at approximately 10:00 a.m. (PST), Activision shut down the Call of Duty: Elite website in favor of their mobile products.
Mindspark Interactive Network, Inc. was an operating business unit of IAC known for the development and marketing of entertainment and personal computing software, as well as mobile application development. Mindspark's mobile division acquired iOS application developer Apalon in 2014, which was known for popular entertainment applications such as Weather Live, Emoji Keypad, and Calculator Pro.
SongPop is a series of head-to-head music trivia games developed by FreshPlanet and published by Gameloft. The first title in the series was released as a free app in May 2012 and was available for iOS, Android, Windows, and Facebook. By 2015, the app had been downloaded 100 million times.
Angry Birds Friends is a puzzle video game and the fourth game in the Angry Birds series. It is developed and published by Rovio Entertainment. The game was originally an exclusive Facebook game called Angry Birds Facebook that was released on February 13, 2012, and was renamed to the current name on May 23, 2012. The Facebook version introduced power-ups to the Angry Birds game series. Android and iOS versions were released on May 2, 2013. On October 27, 2014, Rovio introduced a global league to allow users from around the world to play against each other.
Angry Birds Blast is a free-to-play tile-matching puzzle game, developed by Bandai Namco Studios and published by Rovio Entertainment in 2016 as a spin-off from the Angry Birds franchise.
Plants vs. Zombies is a video game franchise developed by PopCap Games, a subsidiary of Electronic Arts (EA). The series follows the affiliates of David "Crazy Dave" Blazing as they use his plants to defend against a zombie invasion, led by Dr. Edgar George Zomboss. The first game, Plants vs. Zombies (2009), was developed and released by PopCap before its acquisition by EA. After PopCap Games's acquisition, EA expanded the game into a franchise with games on many different platforms.
