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| Screenshot File:Miniclip screenshot.pngScreenshot of the Miniclip homepage as of August 2010 | |
| Type of site | Online games |
|---|---|
| Available in | English, French, Spanish, German, Portuguese Brazilian, Italian, Polish, Khmer, Romanian, Hungarian, Korean, Chinese,Turkish, and Japanese |
| Founded | 2001 |
| Headquarters | Neuchâtel, Switzerland |
| Key people | Robert Small: CEO Tihan Presbie: President |
| URL | www.miniclip.com |
| Registration | Optional |
| Current status | Active |
Miniclip is a popular website famed for its browser-based casual games. It was started in 2001 by Robert Small and Tihan Presbie on a budget of £40,000 and quickly grew to become a leader in its respective market. As of 2008, the company has been valued at over £200 million, having been profitable for six of its seven years, with turnovers exceeding £20 million in the past two years. As well as publishing exclusive games, the website also provides more widely known titles such as Club Penguin, RuneScape, Clone Wars Adventures, Free Realms and Webosaurs.
History
When launched in 2001, Miniclip generated a huge amount of traffic to its first game Dancing Bush, which featured company founder Tihan Presbie dancing with a superimposed image of then-current US president George W Bush's face over his own. The game allowed users to control the dance moves performed by the president.
In 2006 the website received a complete redesign, and has kept roughly the same look to this day. The new website added features such as eCards and Cartoons syndicated from content providers such as Warner Brothers, however these services have now been discontinued. Club Penguin was added to Miniclip, an MMO game that was later acquired by Disney. Club Penguin is still a major feature of the Miniclip website.
2008 saw Miniclip take a step into social networking as it launched its 'Players' service. This allowed users to create a cartoon avatar called a YoMe, formerly MiniMe, and store game high score data for most games on the website. The service also offers users awards for achievements in games, which are displayed on the users profile page.
In 2008 Miniclip also launched an animation tool, Sketch Star. This became an instant hit with users and later in the year would be scaled up to form its own channel within the site, before a premium service was launched in 2009, offering users extra features for a monthly fee.
From 2009 Miniclip have embraced the mobile gaming market, launching numerous paid and free games on the Apple iPhone and Google Android operating systems, the latter thanks to an alliance with Amsterdam’s Holland9 firm.
Popular games
Disney's Club Penguin has been on Miniclip since 2006. It is a massively multiplayer online role-play game involving a virtual world containing a range of online games and activities, developed by Club Penguin Entertainment (formerly New Horizon Interactive now owned by the Walt Disney Company). Using cartoon penguins as avatars, players waddle around, chat, play minigames and participate in other activities with one another in a snow-covered virtual world.
Spineworld was a free to play virtual world that was for a time the number one game on Miniclip.com. It includes adventures and places for users to visit. Users can customize their avatar, have their own room and have options to upgrade by paying for digital goods. It has since been renamed to Migo Land and is only free to play for a trial period of 7 days. After this period the user must become a member to play.
Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates is a massively multiplayer online game developed by Three Rings Design. The player takes the role of a pirate, adventuring on the high seas and pillaging money from roaming enemy ships (human or computer-controlled). The mechanics of Puzzle Pirates are driven by puzzles. For example, to effectively sail a ship, crewmates must play puzzles representing work at the sails for speed, pumping bilge water to remove it from the ship, and carpentry to fix any damage the ship may take. Puzzle Pirates is open-ended and community-driven. Over time, pirates can join a crew, progress in rank within that crew, buy and run sailing vessels and "shoppes", and perhaps even become captain of their own pirate crew, royalty within a flag (an alliance of crews), or governor of an island. Islands are governed and shoppes are managed exclusively by players. From time to time, players are also called upon to help expand the game, whether it be new puzzles (developed on Game Gardens), island objects to be used on new oceans (servers), or artwork used for a variety of purposes in-game.
RuneScape is a Java based massively multiplayer online role playing game developed by Jagex that has been available through Miniclip since 2004.
Free Realms was originally launched with the exclusive online beta on Miniclip. It is a Massively Multiplayer Online Game Adventure game developed by Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) set in a whimsical, family-friendly, fantasy-themed world for the PC. The game was released on April 29, 2009 for the PC.
Dofus is a Flash based massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed and published by Ankama Games, a French computer game manufacturer. It is primarily a pay-to-play game, though it still offers a limited amount of free content. Its success has led to the marketing of spin-off products, such as books, art and comics. It has also led to the development of two continuations: Dofus Arena, released at the beginning of 2006, which is an alternative "tournament" version of Doofus; and Wakfu, a continuation of Doofus, which is currently in the process of beta testing. The game has attracted over ten million players worldwide and is especially well-known in France.
Habbo Hotel was added to miniclip in the fall of 2010
Fragger is one of Miniclips biggest most profitable games because of the hugely successful iOS version with hundreds of levels.
Game players
Miniclip has an social system with registered "game players" who play games with each other and play in custom friend leagues together. Players have their own game player pages with their games, statistics, awards, friends, news feed and applications.
- Player Profile Pages: Game players have their own game profile pages where their games, high scores, friends and other game related information is stored.
- Awards & Achievements: Awards are earned by achieving objectives in certain levels of award enabled games. Once awards are won they are displayed in a players league and are displayed on a player's profile page.
- Friends: Friends can be invited to the service, and can be included in a player's custom friends game league.
- Game Leagues: Players can set up their own custom game leagues with their chosen friends and play for wards and rankings across many different games.
- Challenges: Players can challenge other players in their leagues or challenge other registered players in many different games.
- Leader boards: The worldwide daily, weekly and monthly leader boards are displayed in games.
- Game Ranking Bar system: Players are ranked worldwide with a special color coded, percentile based worldwide ranking bar system developed by Miniclip that is found next to their games on their profile page.
- Games News Feed: Players have a games news feed on their profile pages which give them information on the winning or losing of challenges, friend invites, announcements etc.
- Matchmaking: For certain new live multiplayer games there is a real time matchmaking system to match up players to other players of similar ability or for players to choose the ability of others to play against or for players to play against their friends in real time.
- Game Avatars: Avatars are called YoMe's and can be customized to include many different looks and styles. The avatars have their own rooms that can be personalized with objects and accessories. The avatars enter certain games and carry game player statistics and awards.
Software and hardware
Game developer API's
Miniclip offers game developers a number of API services that allow them to integrate Miniclip branded features into their games, for example these allow third party developers to create games that can contribute high scores to a user's high score ranking on the Players service.
iPhone and Android games
Miniclip distributes iPhone and Android games. These games are marketed from the Miniclip.com website and from within the online version of the games.
Sketch Star
Sketch is found on the Sketch Star tab and is a Miniclip product which allows users to create and share art, cartoons and animations and be part of an online community. Artists compete to create the best animations in many topics and attain recognition from their peers with voting, views and being followed. Artists can also send their animations into various contests and win awards, and if any animations are outstanding, the animation is awarded an editor's pick. Sketch Star is used by beginners to advanced animators. Sketch Star allows users to create animation, post it online and also to share on other websites such as social networks, your friends and the newer feature, YouTube. Artists on Sketch Star, can pay for a membership, either 1, 3 or 6 months.
Nintendo Wii
In 2010 Miniclip made Nintendo Wii playable games on their website. It can be accessed through the Wii internet portal.
Security issues
Several security firms reported in 2005 that some Miniclip users had installed a "miniclipgameloader.dll" which contains the hostile code identified as "Trojan DownLoader 3069". Removal tools are available. Reports in 2006 from the same security vendors show the same file as not containing hostile code. In 2006, the security firm Sunbelt Software reported that Miniclip installed "high risk" malware called "Trojan-Downloader.CR64Loader". On September 1, 2006, the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team issued an advisory concerning Miniclip:
The Retro64 / Miniclip CR64 Loader ActiveX control contains a buffer overflow vulnerability. This may allow a remote, unauthenticated attacker to execute an arbitrary code on a vulnerable system.... Although the ActiveX control is no longer in use by either retro64.com or miniclip.com, any system that has used certain pages of these web sites in the past (prior to September, 2006) may be vulnerable.
References
- "Miniclip.com - Site Information from Alexa". Retrieved 2011-02-08.
- "FT.com - Game Plan Keeps It Simple".
- "FT.com - Game Plan Keeps It Simple".
- Takahashi, Dean (September 17, 2009). "Casual game firm Miniclip moves into Android games with Holland9".
- "Trojan.DownLoader.3069 / MINICLIPGAMELOADER.DLL". Prevx. July 15, 2005. Archived from the original on 2007-02-15.
{{cite web}}:|archive-date=/|archive-url=timestamp mismatch; 2007-12-15 suggested (help) - "Threat Details - Trojan-Downloader.CR64Loader". Sunbelt Software. September 14, 2006. Archived from the original on 2007-12-16.
- "Vulnerability Note VU#649289, Retro64 / Miniclip CR64Loader ActiveX control buffer overflow". United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team, Department of Homeland Security. 2006-09-01.
See old versions of http://www.miniclip.com on http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.miniclip.com