It’s hard to say just how popular Miniclip is or was. On one hand, it got over a billion downloads which is clearly massive, but at the same time, it seems no one is talking about it that much. It’s similar to Pokemon GO, only Miniclip was never hyped as much as this app and was never regarded as a cultural phenomenon. Here we will have a brief overview of Miniclip, what it offered and why it was popular, and we will also talk about why it is no longer such a big deal. 

Humble Beginnings

Miniclip started as a small gaming website back in 2001. The idea was to make fun and accessible games that anyone can easily jump in and play. The focus was on mechanics and making multiple games that are all easy to play and almost addictive. It was a massive success as in 2008  it was valued at over 270 million pounds. In a way, it showed the world the true potential of mobile games and how there are way more people who would be interested in casual games. 

Why Was Miniclip so Popular 

One of the main appeals behind Miniclip was the overall accessibility. All you need is a wi-fi connection in order to play interesting games. Additionally, it was easy to use to create an online multiplayer experience and the games were quite intuitive. In other words, anyone could join in the fun and play for a few minutes to kill some time. That made it ideal for playing during lunch breakers at work or school. Moreover, there were other online games that had longer queue time, and players needed to do something while they were waiting for the match to start. 

What Happened? 

Miniclip games are just as fun today, and there are other platforms or apps that adopted a similar model. These are simple games that cater to pretty much anyone, but at the same time that is the problem behind them. It gets old pretty quickly, and people move on to the next thing. Moreover, there are way more impressive mobile games that target a niche audience, but players choose to allocate more of their time to playing those niche games. At the time when Miniclip was a thing, there was no PUBG mobile or Call of Duty. 

Another reason is competition. There are more similar apps and platforms and they offer unique and somewhat different content. So, more casual players migrated to those games. Miniclip still has a solid player base, but it doesn’t look like something that can withstand a test of time.