First, a Message from Emily Greer, Co-Founder and CEO of Kongregate

It hasn’t been long since our last big announcement, but we’re ready to share more exciting news: Kongregate is creating a new community-driven, developer-centric PC platform --

Kartridge.

Kartridge is designed to be rich in social and community features and will allow us to provide more games and features to our playerbase (full screen mode! retail games!).

Kartridge will allow us to elevate the experiences of both players and developers alike, without the technology constraints of web browsers. Some Kartridge features will be directly connected to Kongregate.com, while many are brand new to Kartridge. The platform will also further our premium games initiative; developer-controlled price points and a downloadable platform means more games, more developers, & more options.

Kartridge is a direct result of the hard work, culture, and engagement that went into Kongregate.com. It’s designed to be community and developer focused, so we hope you sign up to participate in our Beta program. If you are a developer interested in early involvement and testing, please visit www.kartridge.com/developers for more information.

Kongregate.com remains a successful and healthy platform. HTML5 is here and not only was 2017 full of activity for Kongregate.com, but revenue increased year over year. It’s a primary focus for us alongside our publishing business. We will continue to support Kongregate.com and features from all aspects of our business will continue to influence each other and evolve our company and brand.

Again, another big THANK YOU to all the gamers, developers, and staff who have helped make Kartridge possible through the many contributions to Kongregate over the last eleven years. We are excited to start a whole new adventure with you and continue bringing you the very best games no matter where you play.

The Official Kartridge Press Release

San Francisco (March 6th, 2018) - Kongregate today announced the next step in gaming with the launch of Kartridge, coming this summer to PCs. Kartridge will be a community-driven, downloadable games platform offering consumers a wide range of titles, with a focus on premium games. The platform is designed to help game developers of all sizes find success, offering them full control over their games, including deciding their own pricing model and customizing the user experience within the Kartridge ecosystem.

Playing on Kartridge will immerse gamers in a deeply social world; they'll earn rewards for playing their favorite games, collect customized achievements, and connect with other gamers through chat, forums, and additional social features. They’ll share tips and strategies within newfound communities as they level up their accounts, earning rewards along the way. The Kartridge platform was designed to be a unique and robust experience for players to enjoy, with the end goal of making the platform as fun as the games people are playing.

For game developers, Kartridge will be open to developers big and small, with no upload fees. Content will be technology and monetization agnostic -- giving developers the freedom to make the games they want, how they want. In addition to premium games, the platform will support free-to-play, pay what you want, and ad supported titles, allowing developers to decide what's best for their games. Developers will be given tools to easily upload and create enticing store pages for their games, communicate their personality and brand, and speak directly to their players through the platform. On Kartridge developers have control.

“Kartridge is more than just a platform,” said Emily Greer, CEO and co-founder of Kongregate. “It’s a culmination of more than 10 years in the gaming industry. We’ve combined our experience building and running a thriving web gaming portal at Kongregate.com with the knowledge and relationships we’ve built through our publishing program to bring something to both players and developers that was missing in the market.”

"Through a combination of editorial curation and algorithm-focused game surfacing, our goal is to show the right game to the right player at the right time. This approach will help surface titles that are getting lost in other marketplaces and will help players find new content they didn't know they'd love."

Greer continued, “Kartridge is not a replacement for Kongregate.com; it is an evolution,” noting that Kongregate will continue to run its popular web gaming destination along with its mobile publishing business. “Kartridge will allow us to elevate the experiences of both gamers and developers alike, without the technology constraints of web browsers. The Kartridge platform will also enable us to introduce a new variety of games we've not previously offered on Kongregate.com and will, along with our premium publishing initiative, allow us to support the broad group of independent developers focused on games for the PC market,” Greer concluded.

Players can sign up to join the Kartridge beta at www.kartridge.com and get the latest news on the official Facebook and Twitter accounts. Developers interested in learning more about Kartridge can visit www.kartridge.com/developers for more information.