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Joystiq

Gamestop acquiring Flash game portal Kongregate

by JC Fletcher on Jul 27th 2010 10:12AM

GameStop just took a huge step into the casual online gaming market, by agreeing to purchase the Flash game portal Kongregate. According to the announcement, the site will remain under the management of founders Jim and Emily Greer following the purchase, which should finalize on August 1.

CEO J. Paul Raines explained the move, saying, "Dolphin Olympics 2 is really, really wonderful." Okay, we made that up (though Dolphin Olympics 2 is really, really wonderful). Raines actually said, "Kongregate advances GameStop's digital strategy by providing a gaming platform for casual, mobile and browser games that can be promoted and played by our existing gamers. We welcome the Kongregate team to the GameStop family."

GameStop has previously experimented with free-to-play online gaming with initiatives including the Legends of Zork browser game and a small "Free2Play" portal on its retail site.

Source: Press release

Tags: casual, flash-games, gamestop, j-paul-raines, kongregate, online-games, pc

Reader Comments (25)

Pyro II > Dolphin Olympics 2

Dolphin Olympics 2 > Everything

@S0lid Sn4ke: Truth

How much can I get if I trade in Epic War 4?

@Ample Salty Only $0.50.

But, if you trade in two other games and pre-order Submarine Mountain 3, you'll get an extra 25% trade in bonus!

I would be sad if they changed the site too much. I happen to like them a lot.

Somehow, I dont see this ending well. Maybe its my distrust of Gamestop, or something

I am a heavy user of Kongregate. Great collection of Flash games with some good community features. I hope the purchase of the site doesn't affect how they've been doing things or the community.

Hey this is kind of unrelated but does anyone know how much store credit I can get at Gamestop for a Xbox 360 with a 20GB hard drive on it and a controller?

And by "kind of", he means "completely".

@kives343 My guess would be 20 dollars.

Hm, never heard of Kongregate

For someone with the name "Themoreyouknow" you really don't know much.

@S0lid Sn4ke
:'(

I am more worried about whether Gamestop has figured out how to sell used digital games.

Kongregate is very popular on Newgrounds. I hope this doesn't negatively affect that flash game portal.

I swear to god, if they add some sort of bullshit subscription service, I'm rioting.

Hopefully, being bought out by GameStop won't change the founder's stance.

Well, this is less then thrilling. i happen to like kongregate. I'm gonna be pretty friggin pissed if they screw it up.

Well there goes shared revenue for game devs...

@(Unverified) -- According to Kongregate's announcement, "We're not making any changes to our uploading process, or to the way our rev share works." There's a good FAQ and video -- http://www.kongregate.com/pages/kongregate-announcement

Blarg. I just can't think of anything positive coming out of this, other than the balance of the founders bank accounts. Which, good for them, always nice to get paid. I would just hate to see a relatively cool service go down the tubes.

I've been a member of Kongregate since the day they released the public beta of the site. Event though I rarely go there anymore, I will be pissed if Gamestop screws it up (like I think they will)

Perhaps Gamestop will try monetizing the website by offering a subscription plan for the games. It's sort of hard to monetize this kind of site since these games are available for free everywhere else. Kongregate already has leaderboards and achievements so I can't see them adding that. Maybe they're doing it for the advertising revenue or something.

Hopefully they don't make too many changes or restrict innovation because I really liked spending time playing Pandemic 2 or the Dragon Age flash game on the site.

I'm happy for Kongregate to make more money. I'm not happy about GameSpot acquiring them though. I have a pessimistic vision of the future of the site now.

@delicatessen lama

Oops I thought it was GameSpot, sorry GameStop.

this is sad news. RIP Kongregate.

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Breaking News

Gamestop acquiring Flash game portal Kongregate

Reader Comments (25)

Posted: Jul 27th 2010 10:17AM Ezio Auditore da Firenze said

Posted: Jul 27th 2010 10:20AM S0lid Sn4ke said

Posted: Jul 27th 2010 10:24AM 216 said

Posted: Jul 27th 2010 10:18AM Ample Salty said

Posted: Jul 27th 2010 10:25AM Ezio Auditore da Firenze said

Posted: Jul 27th 2010 10:18AM GiantGamer said

Posted: Jul 27th 2010 10:24AM 216 said

Posted: Jul 27th 2010 10:38AM cgoodno said

Posted: Jul 27th 2010 10:57AM kives343 said

Posted: Jul 27th 2010 11:11AM ipsum said

Posted: Jul 27th 2010 12:05PM Petebot330 said

Posted: Jul 27th 2010 11:05AM Themoreyouknow said

Posted: Jul 27th 2010 11:29AM S0lid Sn4ke said

Posted: Jul 27th 2010 1:18PM Themoreyouknow said

Posted: Jul 27th 2010 11:20AM Lerkero said

Posted: Jul 27th 2010 12:10PM Cypher FDP said

Posted: Jul 27th 2010 12:41PM Capgun said

Posted: Jul 27th 2010 12:53PM DBuckEye said

Posted: Jul 27th 2010 2:32PM rootyroot said

Posted: Jul 27th 2010 1:05PM Courtney said

Posted: Jul 27th 2010 2:05PM MEMgrizzlies7 said

Posted: Jul 27th 2010 2:17PM finnith said

Posted: Jul 27th 2010 7:11PM delicatessen lama said

Posted: Jul 28th 2010 4:56AM delicatessen lama said

Posted: Jul 27th 2010 9:45PM Swizzler said

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