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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 and exciting 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 Clone Wars Adventures, Club Penguin, Free Realms, RuneScape, and Webosaurs.
Yesterday miniclip had to go to the potty
Game players
Miniclip has a 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 awards 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 gives 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. These games include Fragger, Gravity Guy and iStunt.
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, their 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".
- "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