Session: How to Make a Successful Web Game in 2026: What Actually Works - R. Dincer & R. Morgan.

Hello. Hello. Good morning, everybody. Thanks for showing up day two. So, how's [snorts] everybody is a bit hungover, maybe? But, um I mean, we've been doing this for a couple of years now. Um so, [clears throat] we we want to talk a bit about the the web gaming industry.

And Crazy Games, so we'll be sharing some some numbers and some stuff that we're seeing that has been working um well. So, there's older talks that you can see you can find on YouTube where you can see how some of these numbers have changed over the years. Um but, yeah. So, we we're just going to share what we're seeing. And so, um my name is Rafael Morga. I'm the VP of partnership at Crazy Games. I've been working at Crazy Games for 5 years now. And
And my name is Morga. I know it's very funny in Spanish, so please don't mock me or later.
[laughter]
Uh I'm Turkish, that's why. Uh and I I manage the partnerships and also the new games on Crazy Games.
Yeah, so I think, you know, we once I joined Crazy Games 5 years ago, the conversation um here on the show floor used to be very different than what it is today, right? Um the web has been going through a series of changes through different stakeholders really, not just Crazy Games. We're talking about game engines,

publishers, developers. So, there is like a really a lot of change and very positive happening, right? So, some of those numbers that we wanted share with you, I think the the one of the most interesting part is the number of partners that we have. Here we're looking at more than 5,000 people that um have been working with Crazy Games into a different capacity, right? And we're very proud because here we we work really with large publishers. Um if you stay here for the next for the next panel which will be right after, you'll be seeing like Marina from Toon Point as well. Um but I mean we work with Miniclip and a series of other large companies, but we also very proud to work with like young developers. Um and I think that's you know, if you if you're starting today in the game industry, um it's very hard for you to do a mobile game that's successful or even a Steam game that's successful. And we're very proud to have like a a new generation of founders that are kicking off their

career, they're making a living, they're hiring people, um and they are below 25 years old and there's a handful of them. And that makes me very proud um and I think that's something that you know, just here on the show we met a couple of them as well and it's just nice to see it. So, we were we're bringing like new oxygen to the industry. Um that's that's something to celebrate. Um I I think another another part of this the the number that's quite interesting from Crazy Games is the steady growth that we've been having. We're not having like hockey sticks, it's like really nice over the years. Um as I said, if you look back this presentation year ago, the number um was smaller than this, but so we're consistently grow and and adding more players. We're particularly big in the US. So, some of the data that I'm going to share with you are related to the US market in particular. We've been a bit reserved about the data that we share, but we think that the industry needs a little bit more data points in regards to to the web gaming industry. So, we decided to open up this year and share a bit more.

Um So, here you can see the amount of hours that we got in the US in particular, right? We're looking at um 800 Just a second.
I'm sorry.
Yeah. So, so uh just So, it's a large volume of hours. Um just yesterday my CEO shared that we are one of the top, I think, 200 300 We have three, four hundred websites in the world in volume. We are ahead of Nintendo in numbers of hits. We're below Microsoft, but probably next year we we might be bigger than them in in volume of hits. So, so it's it's a really nice um if you never heard about Crazy Games, uh you're totally invited to check it out. You can open your your phone right now and actually visit it. We have a large catalog of games um and we're very proud of it. And and I think we see this also in the numbers of like the engagement that we see from the players. Um we're looking at, you know, very positive ratings. And also I think what what's new that I'm sharing for the first time is is is the large amount of

submissions that we're getting per per month now. We're getting about 2,500 submissions per month. So, that's a lot of developers and companies that actually trust Crazy Games um to, you know, to actually get their game in front of the players. And obviously, we want to help everyone and we've built systems around this. So, just just to um give a little I would say um the little picture about what what a what a session looks like on Crazy Games. We're looking at a half an hour um session time, you know, when the and I wish you all show how the it grows over the the weekdays and when we peak. But obviously, you know, in a we we live in like sort of a attention economy, right? People have an abundance of entertainment everywhere, and for a browser game, um I think that's that's quite remarkable. Um people can come in really fast and enjoy the different the

different type of games that we have, right?
Yeah, and the reality is most of these players, they come in different times of the day. The age group and what they are doing in life, it also depends. But in general, during the daytime, it is hypercasual. I think it's most of the people who are at work or at in the offices that needs this quick dopamine hit during lunchtime, etc., and they they play mainly the hypercasual and casual games that are easy to understand and easy to start. And then at nighttime, I think it's after the homeworks or after putting the kids to bed, it's the their own time, and this is the time it's for mainly for puzzle games. And this is the relaxing games, cozy games with more IAP, and in general, uh
Yeah.
And And if I think about my my journey as a gamer as well, like I used to play Miniclip, like Armor Games back in the days, right? This hasn't changed, right? They They really didn't. So, the kids are there. I have a 12-year-old son. Um

I'm At the moment, I'm the coolest father in the school cuz all of them know Crazy Games. So, I'm just walking around, and so this is nice to see. And they know they're discovering their first games there, sometimes on Crazy Games, right? Obviously, they play Roblox, they play all all the other stuff. But at the same time, they also know um on Crazy Games. So, I get a lot of requests. Can you bring this game? Can you bring that game? Can you do these things? So, it's nice to see that there's this new generation. But at the same time, we also see that the the fastest-growing audience for us are the 35-plus women and male. Um here, we're looking like, you know, at more midcore game. We monetize the game with ads and in-app purchase, and I think this is going really well. Um I touched this in my previous presentations as well. So, definitely it's not just casual games. There's space for for games that have more depth and I think the new generation of web games is actually arriving right now. So, I think some as I as I as I mentioned some of the data that we're sharing is related to the US and some of the numbers here is really related to the user behavior

and this sort of content. Cuz once you're building a platform, the challenge is different than build a game, right? We we actually want to be a platform that that caters to everyone, not just to young kids, not or not just to older people, right? So, imagine Netflix, they have to build a catalog that actually suits to everyone and that's something that we're trying to to do as well on Crazy Games. That's why very often I get the question, what game works on Crazy Games? And I think it's the answer is always a bit like the chicken and the egg. Sometimes we add new stuff that builds and locks a new community and they they keep coming back and playing it. So, we have some really successful more match merge two match three games. Um we also have some MMOs that are going super well and obviously we have a bunch of like hyper casual and online multiplayer game that's doing very well. And for that, I mean we're also very thankful for a lot of the partners that we have on the industry like the the guys from Phantom. They've been doing really they've been very helpful into pushing multiplayer games on the web.

Something that, you know, a couple I would say five, six years ago would have been much harder for a younger developer to be making a multiplayer game on the web.
And I think it's a good case study for anyone who develops games, not only for web, but for only also for mobile or and Steam because web is it's very easy to enter and you don't need the UA marketing costs on your pockets to release your game. So, if there is like a trend, I mean we learn a lot from our developers. All this brain rot and the viral games, etc. I learned from our developers because the games come very quickly like one week after the trends are there. So, we learn about what is trending and what is actually a plate from the users. So, it can be your case study as well.
Yeah. And also another another point, I mean this this is light shows a little bit how our our users fluctuate during the week, right? And I think it it goes kind of like in the opposite of a lot of games where where people will have more time over the weekend and they will play

that and just show how the platform can actually complement your revenue and you're tapping an audience that normally would not be playing your game during during the during the week. So, we see a growth like during the week and also on the week I mean first being like this lowest time of the week. So, and I think you know from all the partners that we have here very often if or I would say more often than not they come and work with us in more than one project and that's something that we're very proud of as well. I think that's also something that we've been noticing. It's you know if you Crazy games around the world, we are probably one of the the best SEO companies in the world. So, if you type games or racing games, we will be the first thing you see, right? So, and you can imagine the volume of new users that you actually you drive by having such a strong SEO. But but I think what's also very interesting right now is that this

behavior has been changing because of you know AI and all the stuff. We talk here in the industry a lot about AI into game creation and into like it's speeding up development and things like this. But I think that AI also play starting playing a major role now discoverability of your games and I think a lot of this stuff is actually happening first on the web as well, right? So, where you will search I mean [snorts] I don't know how much you tell your AI my chat GPT knows a lot about me. But normally if I ask for a recommendation will actually put me into the game that's most suitable to my personality, right? And and we see a growth between this uh the search or the transition to AI recommendation to gameplay. So, this new behavior of like, you know, feeding the AI like a query and then getting a link back and actually starting like a gameplay immediately as well. So, this is a change of behavior that we also observing. And we also see that there's positives on that.

Um which is like we see that the the session for this typical user is twice as longer as a user that would actually come otherwise just through SEO, right? Um which I think is remarkable because AI is actually playing a favorable role to you to to feed you the right content, right? Um and because of the web, you can click a link and play, I think there is there is a big of a a lot of advantage around this. Um I've From here from data from perceptions of the things that we see in the industry, um I'm I brought Rabia who's a specialist in in in all the games that we bring on the port for the portfolio or actually all the crazy games team. But so, we wanted to share a bit what we're seeing in terms of like games. What makes a game successful these days and what doesn't, right? This is what the talk is about. So, maybe you can comment some of the stuff, Rabia.
I mean, it's a sensitive topic because for most people their games are like their babies and it's like very difficult to make any comments. However, most of the time our users they come for

quick fun first and then learn the game and play for a longer time. That's why the most important thing is the loading time because nobody wants to wait. So, even if the game size is bigger, you can use lazy loading and just show the gameplay itself, start onboarding and load everything later on. And the other thing is the first week minutes, which is first week onboarding. So, if they don't understand or if you have a demo, or lots of text, etc.
Length tutorials.
Uh tutorials, please.
[laughter]
We always We understand the mindset behind it, but it's you are going to have a lot of churns if they don't get to play very fast. And then
I think I think like one of the main advantages in the web is like this immediacy, right? That you actually click a link and play. So, anything that you put it on the way actually defeat the purpose of of this. So, this is a a good mindset to have. Like, get the players inside as fast as possible inside your game. And the game engines

have been evolving quite a lot even Unity now like we you know, there's a lot of changes to make the web build more functional since we the Unity 6.0 and so on. So, so I think these are some of the elements. And and the classic like you know, a strong progression in the game and and these are some of the elements. So, we see some some of the games that fail like you know, we see multi-million dollar projects coming to crazy games and they're very large and then you know, the user just drops before it starts. So, you lose half of the users that we bring for you. You you lose them immediately, right? So, considering game sizes I think it's the is the biggest of all. So, and now we talk about what what the good games or like the successful games have in common, right? So,
I mean, the other thing is like if the game is designed for mobile and you had all these amazing controls, etc. Then you need to think of the keyboards, the easy mouse access, etc. because otherwise it's going to be very difficult to play and you are going to lose around 60-70% of the user base that

you are actually aiming for. So,
Yeah, and on Crazy Games you will be surprised that we I'm not sure exactly these days, but it should be something closer to 70% desktop or 65% desktop and and 35% being mobile. So, there's still a lot of desktop players, right? We're talking about like these cool kids they're playing like on Chromebooks, but we're also talking about like, you know, for people that are at work and they are bored and they just want to play like a round of of a card game or something like this. And they're using their desktops. So, um so, think the like think about like how your game can be really cross-device compatible. It's very very important as well.
[snorts]
So, obviously, you start very fast. And the other thing we see in common is that uh if it is like a puzzle game, you are aiming for, I don't know, 35 plus female audience Then your art style needs to reflect that because you need to bring the right audience to the game. And when it comes to marketing in the whole uh platform, it's just one image that you

are showing. So, you need to focus on easy to understand. If it's the racing game, you want to have a like a clear car, clear character, clear clear emotions. That's why uh in general, the most successful games are the ones like sports games, puzzle games that are very easy to show just with one image, and then it will get the most clicks.
And also like multiplayer games, I think that they're we're seeing like as I mentioned, um it's probably the web is the best place to play a multiplayer game, right? Like if I would tell you like let's play a game here out together and then just go to this link, we'll be playing together within 10 seconds. No install, nothing. Like this is really really powerful, right? So, that's something for for us as well to consider. We have We've built some some really cool tools on the platform like from logging, from friends invite, um that makes this our accessible and also very easy for for people to play together. And I think that that's something we're very proud of as well. Um I would just want to touch a little

bit um I'm I think I've been very vocal over the years about this, but we we're seeing this coming very close now to life to production writing to a lot of these game engines. And I think here's where where whenever we go on a conference like this, I'm always looking to like what's the opportunity? What's the change that, you know, if I actually would be the first one to take a look I would I would actually get an edge, right? And I think like what we're looking at WebGPU and what this really means and I think this will change the industry for quite for for quite for quite a bit and we talk about WebGPU which is like you know, this new technology that's coming where you'll be able to to actually serve games that are console like quality you know, like very high fidelity graphics and and they will be able to perform in the browser in a very in a in a very lightweight and I think this is this is some of a lot of those game engines they're taking a look at us they're in different stages. We talked to all of them as well and but I've seen some really crazy

stuff. There's a lot of demos at the moment as well, but soon I would say in the next couple of months we'll be starting like more production ready start and I think in a year or two we might see a big hit coming out of it where we we'll make a lot of people say like wow, this runs on the browser and I think that's where the industry's heading right now. So we we want to just finish the presentation now we've like you know, how can you actually win? How can you make a successful game? Again, some of the points that we touched but I will rather
I mean on top of everything we have said when you are designing the game think of how and when they are going to play. Obviously loading time it's very important instant play it's important but also when it comes to the retention you need to give some replayability and some features to make sure that they can actually come back because what we are saying is that yes ads are monetizing really well, but if you really want them to come back you need to put this extra layer where they can actually spend

inside the game and make sure that they stick inside. And also come and talk to us. I mean we receive thousands hundreds of games and then it's always discovered it's always an issue for all the platforms. We are doing our best to make sure the games work. Like you said, so when it comes to the iterations and what works, what doesn't work, we are always here to support you. So just please talk to us.
Yeah, we're we do a lot of conference around so just you can stop by and then we can explain all the stuff in details and take a look at your game in particular. But those are some of the elements, you know, think about immediacy, think about technology, think about the the progression and monetization as a whole. There is I think that there's the tooling it's getting better and better. There's the difference between mobile and the web is that mobile has way more support around from different companies for service providers and things like this. But now we're starting

to see more and more of those guys coming to the web as well, right? And yeah, so here's I think I was thinking about cuz this is the question I get the most is like what type of game you should I make from crazy games? And I think this is those are some of the some of the I was looking at the data more recently and say like what's the trending what what is like the elements. If you're watching this presentation because it's recorded in a year or two, maybe it's not true anymore. But at the moment that's what it's that's what is true. So I would say those five games. So I think that that's last sentence say a lot. So build for engagement and offer no variety and in depth these days outlast gimmicks. So Um yeah. So First to finish
Unfortunately we're going to have to get we're we're already a little over time.
Okay okay so that's that's pretty much it. So just the question that I used to get is like should we launch on the web? And now the question is like why am missing out this opportunity? So that's it. Thank you everyone.
Thank you.
Thank you guys. I think that's incredible.
[applause]

[music]
Hey.