Why Flash game portals mattered
A Flash game was a single file, and anyone could host it. In practice almost nobody found games by searching for them one by one. They found them on portals: big sites that collected hundreds or thousands of games, sorted them into categories like action, puzzle, sports and multiplayer, and paid for the whole operation with advertising.
Portals also paid creators. Sponsorship deals, where a portal paid to put its logo and a link inside a game, funded a generation of small developers through the late 2000s. When Flash ended, each portal had to decide what to do with a library built on a dead plug-in. Their answers were very different.
The status board: Flash game portals then and now
| Portal | Started | Then | Now |
|---|---|---|---|
| Newgrounds | 1995 | Flash games and cartoons, user uploads | Still running, old Flash content plays through Ruffle |
| Miniclip | 2001 | Large Flash and Shockwave game library | Mobile games company, Flash library retired |
| AddictingGames | 2002 | Broad casual game portal | Still running with HTML5 games |
| Armor Games | 2005 | Curated Flash games, sponsorships | Still running, also publishes downloadable games |
| Kongregate | 2006 | Flash games with badges and revenue sharing | Stopped taking new web games in 2020 |
| Candystand | late 1990s | Branded sports and arcade advergames | The original arcade is gone |
| Shockwave.com | 1999 | Macromedia's games and animation site | No longer the Shockwave-era portal it was |
Newgrounds and Armor Games: the ones that kept their libraries
Newgrounds, founded by Tom Fulp in 1995, was always more community than store. Users uploaded games and cartoons and voted on them. When Flash ended, Newgrounds was one of the first big sites to build the Ruffle emulator into its pages, and most of its old Flash portal plays in a modern browser without anything to install.
Armor Games, founded in 2005, was known for picking and sponsoring good games instead of taking everything. It still runs a web portal with browser games, and it publishes downloadable games for PC and consoles under its own label.
Miniclip and Kongregate: the ones that moved on
Miniclip started in London in 2001 and became one of the most visited game sites in Europe, with Flash and Shockwave titles alike. Its later success came from phones, especially 8 Ball Pool, and the company now works mainly on mobile games. The Flash library was retired when the plug-in ended.
Kongregate launched in 2006 and gave Flash developers a share of ad revenue, plus badges and achievements for players, an early version of what console platforms offer today. It was bought by GameStop in 2010 and later sold to the Swedish company MTG. In 2020 it stopped accepting new web games and shifted its attention to mobile and PC titles.
Candystand, Shockwave.com and the advergame era
Candystand was the best known of the advergame portals. Built around Life Savers and other Nabisco brands, it offered free sports games such as wiffle ball, mini golf and bowling, many in Shockwave with surprisingly good 3D. A lot of people still search for those titles by name. The original arcade no longer exists, and few of its games turn up in archives, because many depended on Candystand's own servers.
Shockwave.com was Macromedia's own showcase, launched in 1999 with games and animated series. Under later owners it became a casual-game store, and it no longer resembles the Shockwave-era portal of the early 2000s.
How Flash game portals paid developers
Portals were also the business model for Flash games. Three kinds of money kept the scene running.
Sponsorships were the biggest. A portal paid a developer a fixed fee, from a few hundred to tens of thousands of dollars for a strong game, to add its logo, an intro screen and "more games" links. The game then spread across the web and sent traffic back to the sponsor. Marketplaces such as FlashGameLicense, launched in 2008, matched developers with sponsors.
Ad revenue sharing came next. Kongregate paid creators a share of the advertising shown around their games, and ad networks built for Flash games, Mochi Media being the best known, placed ads directly inside them until Mochi closed in 2014.
Licensing let portals pay for a version of a game hosted only on their own site. As phones took over casual play, all three income sources shrank, and many developers moved to mobile and Steam.
Finding games from a closed Flash game portal
Games from closed portals are often still around under the same title. Flashpoint lists the original portal for many entries, and Ruffle-based sites carry many more. Searching by the exact game name works better than searching by portal. The step-by-step version is in how to play Flash games today, and some of the best-known titles from these sites are in the classic Flash games list.
Common questions
Is Miniclip still around?
Yes, as a games company focused on mobile, best known for 8 Ball Pool. Its old Flash games are no longer on its site.
What happened to Candystand?
The branded Candystand arcade of Flash and Shockwave sports games closed, and many of its games relied on its servers. Some can be found in preservation archives.
Does Newgrounds still have Flash games?
Yes. Newgrounds kept its Flash library online and uses the Ruffle emulator to play it in modern browsers.
Can Kongregate games still be played?
Many older Kongregate games are still on the site or in Flashpoint, but Kongregate stopped accepting new web games in 2020.