Section 03
Portals
Nobody typed a game’s address. Four entries on the sites that did the finding, the hosting and the paying — and on the loading screen that carried the whole business model in a single frame.
The business model, storyboarded: sponsor mark, progress bar, then the game.
oujouer.com collection
4 entries
Where the games were actually found.
- 03.01Newgrounds
A site that hosted whatever people uploaded, which is why so much of what survives from that period survives there.
- 03.02Miniclip
A curated portal that treated browser games as a catalogue rather than a community.
- 03.03Kongregate
A portal that added accounts, scores and a revenue share, and in doing so made browser games something a developer could live on.
- 03.04The preloader
A progress bar with the sponsor's logo on it was the platform's business model in a single screen.