Miniclip is a Swiss
mobile game publisher and former
browser gamewebsite that was first launched on 30 March 2001.[2] It was started by Robert Small and Tihan Presbie with a budget of £40,000.[3] In 2008, Miniclip was valued at over £275 million.[4] In 2018, the company gained over $400 million in revenue through its mobile gaming hit, 8 Ball Pool.[5][6]
History
As of July 2009, over 400
applications were hosted on its own website.[7]
In February 2015,
Tencent acquired majority stakes of Miniclip.[8][1] In December 2016, Miniclip surpassed 1 billion downloads across its published mobile games on
iOS-based,
Android-based, and
Windows Phone-based devices. In March 2022, Miniclip announced that it had reached 4 billion downloads worldwide with 8 Ball Pool alone accounting for 1 billion downloaded times.[9][10][11]
In April 2021, Miniclip had celebrated its 21st anniversary. In response, the CEO of Miniclip claimed that it would be keeping away from developing
browser-based games to prioritize its mobile gaming products, including Agar.io, 8 Ball Pool, Mini Militia, Ludo Party and more.[12]
In April 2022, Miniclip officially announced that it would begin prioritizing its mobile games. As a result, the browser game portal was shut down in July 2022 and the website lost all but its two most popular games of the time, Agar.io and 8 Ball Pool.[13][14][15]
In June 2022, Miniclip agreed to acquire
SYBO, the co-publisher and co-developer of Subway Surfers, in an undisclosed deal.[16][17] The deal with SYBO went through in July 2022.[18]
Studios
List of studios acquired by Miniclip (as of 1 August 2024)
In April 2013, most Miniclip games for
Windows 8 and
Windows Phone were distributed for free for one year.[25]
On 14 February 2017, Miniclip released their first mobile racer game which was compatible with
Xbox One,
PC, and
PlayStation 4, titled MX Nitro.[26][27]
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 websites in the past (prior to September 2005) may be vulnerable.[28]
In 2006, several security firms reported that some Miniclip users had installed a "miniclipgameloader.dll" which contained the hostile code identified as "Trojan Downloader 3069.”[29] In the same year, another download related to Miniclip installed "High Risk"
malware called "Trojan-Downloader.CR64Loader.”[30]