FreeWorldGroup
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Type of site | Online gaming website (Social Network), Games developer |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1999 |
| Owner | Frank Valzano |
| Revenue | Advertising Game sales Corporate sponsorship |
| Website | FreeWorldGroup.com |
| Alexa rank |  Global Rank 69,289 (August 2015[update])[1] |
| Commercial | Yes |
| Registration | Separate for chat, forum and game commenting. None required to play. |
FreeWorldGroup is a browser games hosting website and game portal owned by web developer Frank Valzano which allows visitors to play various Adobe Flash, HTML 5/JavaScript, Shockwave, Java and Unity3D games. Users can also review and comment on games using the blog comment hosting service Disqus. The site's functionality is free, however some hosted games, such as popular online strategy game Goodgame Empire, offer in-game purchases. The site also has its own merchandise available through online retailer Zazzle.
The site also develops its own Adobe Flash, Android and iOS games, with over 200 created to date which, as of November 2012, have been played over 2.5 billion times. These feature on other games portals across the Internet, have won awards and are played hundreds of thousands of times a day.[2]
One of the site's main attractions is its thriving community. It features an official forum (registration required) where users can discuss games, report bugs, follow walkthroughs, play simpler forum games, role-play, suggest games/site changes, discuss current events, privately message each other and have forum-wide discussions. Alongside this is a chat room (rented via chat application company Cbox) where most discussions take place. Visitors can use this to talk to each other whilst using most parts of the FreeWorldGroup website.[3]
History
Origin
FreeWorldGroup was created in 1999 by Australian web developer Frank Valzano. Among other things, the site was originally primarily intended to share free vouchers and coupons (hence the title "FreeWorldGroup"), although at this point in time it was simply a small, multi-purpose company.
2001-2003
The primary focus of the site later became the development and management of Flash game portals as Valzano saw a gap in the market and decided to pursue his hobby of web design and development professionally. The site quickly grew to become one of the biggest dedicated Flash game portals in the world.[4]
2004-2012
2006 saw the introduction of FreeWorldGroup China, a games development company run by Valzano operating out of Beijing, China. The focus was directly on the creation of Flash games, MMOs and mobile games. Valzano guided a team of 20 to 40 full time, part time and contracted programmers, artists, designers and managers, as well as many international contractors and volunteers. During this time, Valzano negotiated numerous partnerships with companies such as Casale Media, BidClix advertising, Spogg.com, Trymedia Systems, arcadetown.com, and, most notably, Google.
The venture was highly successful, with over 200 games created to date which, as of November 2012, have been played over 2.5 billion times. These feature on other games portals across the Internet, have won awards and are played hundreds of thousands of times a day. Such games include Tank 2012 and its predecessors, Bed and Breakfast 3, FWG Bridge 1 and 2[5], and Zoo Escape.[6] Most significantly however, archery game Bowman 2 was played at least 500 million times alone and is the most popular FreeWorldGroup game. It was also played and reviewed by YouTuber, comedian and rapper KSIOlajidebt and brother Comedy Shorts Gamer[7] - who are the first and sixteenth most subscribed British YouTubers respectively (excluding music channels).[8]
2012-present
FreeWorldGroup has continued to develop its community and games, with many new games added each day. The games are also now featured on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Google+ and many other profiles for the website. The community has also expanded itself, with users collaborating to create communities on plug.dj, Minecraft and Steam, among others.[9][10]
Owner Frank Valzano has since become semi-retired, managing, running and developing the site and community on a casual basis.
Themes
The site itself has been redesigned several times, including themed Christmas, Halloween, Easter and Thanksgiving designs. The main site mascot had originally been a fish, however on November 6th 2003 it was decided that the site would be redesigned. Exactly a week later on November 13th the new, "fish-free" design was implemented.[11]
The new site mascot became a cartoon robot and the site as a whole undertook a robotic, mechanical theme. This was held for roughly another year until June 24th 2004, when the site again underwent a redesign. The robotic theme was scrapped and a koala design was created by Graphic designer Yasmine Sasannejad.[12]
A year later, on June 19th 2005, it was again announced that the site would be modernized. Over the course of the next two weeks, site pages were gradually updated to appear more professional and interactive. This update is much more reminiscent of today's design, and the site's appearance is largely unchanged since. The koala mascot was removed and a new mascot was not added.
The site has continually had a blue color scheme since its creation. The color scheme is still in use today.
References
- ↑ "FreeWorldGroup.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Archived from the original on 2016-04-05. Retrieved 2015-08-12.
- ↑ "FreeWorldGroup Games Uploads". Newgrounds.com.
- ↑ "FreeWorldGroup Wiki". wikia.com.
- ↑ https://www.linkedin.com/pub/frank-valzano/9/128/833
- ↑ "10 jogos de construir ponte que vão quebrar a sua cabeça". Boa Informação.
- ↑ Hardgamer. "F.Valzano, Freeworldgroup.com : I wanted [Mental] series of point and click games to be really challenging". Hardcore joueur.
- ↑ KSIOlajidebt Plays - Bowman 2. YouTube. 6 November 2013.
- ↑ "Top 100 YouTubers in United Kingdom Filtered by Subscribers - Socialblade YouTube Stats - YouTube Statistics". socialblade.com.
- ↑ "Funky Willow Greens". plug.dj.
- ↑ "Steam Community :: Group :: FreeWorldGroup". steamcommunity.com.
- ↑ Frank Valzano. "FreeWorldGroup site news". freeworldgroup.com. Archived from the original on 28 May 2004. Retrieved 12 August 2015.
- ↑ Frank Valzano. "FreeWorldGroup site news". freeworldgroup.com. Archived from the original on 20 July 2005. Retrieved 12 August 2015.
External links
This article "FreeWorldGroup" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.
