From time to time, companies we’ve covered in the past check in with us to give us an update on their progress, and we’re always happy to receive those notices even if we don’t always publish something about it here. Yet sometimes, it’s definitely worth it.
For instance, InstantAction, a gaming site from IAC-owned GarageGames, has managed to cross the 1 million members mark only 9 months after we covered their launch.
InstantAction lets you play 3D games inside your browser using neither Flash or Silverlight, but instead via a proprietary Windows and Mac compatible plugin that works with games programmed in pretty much any language. The 3D graphics are awesome and the games are rather addictive.
The company also very recently announced it was making all the games free of charge for users, instead of clinging to the subscription model, a move that could explain the notable traffic surge Compete and Quantcast are reporting. Anyone who registers with the site can now get access to the games Fallen Empire Legions, Marble Blast Online, Rokkit Ball, and Think Tanks for free. Those who had previously purchased an ActionPass subscription will gain advanced access to the beta for three upcoming titles: flight-combat Ace of Aces, Lore and arcade racer Blur. They’ll also get a refund on their purchases through June 1, 2009.
So what’s your favorite gaming site, and more importantly, why?
This site crashed Firefox (3.05) everytime I try to use it…
Sorry you’re having trouble!
Make sure to contact:
Support@instantaction.com
I would love to personally help you get back on track
Ian Tornay – Customer Service
Wow, Ian is going beyond the call of duty.
That’s all well and good, but I don’t think the browser is quite the place for 3D games yet. Sure, they’re free, but if you get PC/Console games second-hand they can be damn cheap. Look at a site like Dawdle. They’re doing for game reselling what StubHub does for ticket reselling, and tickets there nearly always end up far below face.
The only reason they got to 1mm is because they’re paying for them – this is IAC we’re talking about… remember MyFunCards?
Tob, looks like you are right. I went on Alexa and http://www.instantaction.com has the blunt of their traffic coming from India. So that is a good sign that they might be using pay per click services. Or they are just really popular in India.
I frequented the site when it was in beta/free and stopped when they tried to charge.
I don’t agree with saying the browser isn’t the place for 3D games, if you tried any of them you’d see how well they were created and run.
They aren’t meant to be full title games but a cross between them and 5 minute flash games. I for one think they’ve done a fantastic job however they should move to a “virtual goods” type economy to monetize.
I’ll be logging back on the next time I have 10-15 minutes to kill.
Never heard of it and must have missed the original write-up.
My fav game sites are:
Zodoo.com – cheesy little site but fun.
Pogo.com – I play on Wednesday and sometimes Thursday when new badges come out…
I’ll have to check it out when I get some time.
Impressive growth indeed.
What’s the revenue model, now that gaming is free?
http://www.iminlikewithyou.com is the site. multiplayer, beautifully designed and highly addictive. the little site that could.
The thing that bothers me about iminlikewithyou is that they started out as a dating site. Now it’s a gaming site. That’s a pretty big shift in their business model. It makes me not want to visit the site because I don’t want to deal with things that are still in development and also risk getting into something that’s going to be taken away in the future. They should have just started a separate brand for the games and linked into the main site.
Ironrealms.com – They’re text MUDs, which will put most people off at first, but my god are they incredible once you get past the textyness. I’ve never played an MMO that even comes close to the depth and richness of their worlds.
I think the surge in traffic is due to IAC buying lots of banner ads. If you look at their Alexa history, which goes back farther and has more detail, you see they have big spikes and big drops. That corresponds to ad campaigns and low retention. The retention problem is probably largely due to having to do a huge plugin download. (http://www.alex...stantaction.com)
If you actually manage to get into the game lobby you can see that their are typically 500-800 people playing at any given time. Not a big audience compared with other online game services – they are also about 90% on one game – Legions. It’s a really good game – a descendent of Tribes 2, made by the founders of Instant Action.
Thanks for the kind words on Legions Dave! I just wanted to correct real quick on the last sentence (the founders of InstantAction). The game was actually made internally by the game studio at GarageGames (5 man team).
After Open Beta launched it continues to be maintained and further developed by a small team internal to GarageGames, but 3 of the original team members have left the company to help form a new studio, PushButton Labs (http://www.pushbuttonlabs.com). Some cool stuff going on there that should be announced soon.
How would playing a game on this site affect my laptop’s battery on the road with 3G?
I usually play on http://www.cafe.com … i like it because of my ability to play quick games at work and not having to register to play the games.
Garage Games has a great team and I have heard them speak in the past. They were very excited to launch instant action a while back and now very glad to see they are thriving.
My site http://www.cafe.com also covered by techcrunch at the same time than instant action, is also working very well in terms of traffic and user engagement, both on cafe.com as on facebook.
Our demo is mainly Active Women. The quality games we have are very popular, like Temple Of Mahjong, already played million times!
Try it: http://www.cafe.com
Have fun
That’s a very cool site too.
There’s a big difference between flash games and 3-d games.
There’s also a cost.. The games take a bit longer to load, but the graphics are certainly much better than simple flash.
I just played Rokkitball… silly name, but damn that was fun.
i actually think a marriage of offline and online is always the goal of what the new age of the WWW is aiming to be and love the idea that this site and the games are heading.
And now that its free oh yea.
Kongregate ofcourse. badges:D
It’s no surprising they’ve managed to get this many visitors; especially given how much they’re spending on advertising. They have a rather extensive affiliate program, which at one point was *extremely* profitable for affiliates. If I were to attribute their success to something, it would definitely be their effective affiliate marketing efforts.
What only ~14% of their traffic coming from the U.S. and over 47% coming from India is that really impressive?
http://www.alex...stantaction.com
This entry stinks.