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New YoYoGames.com has 54% Fewer Uploads and 38% Fewer Game Plays

The recently relaunched YoYo Games website gives more attention to the GameMaker product and less to GameMaker creations. The effect of the new site on games uploaded by GameMaker users can now be seen.

Since switching to the new site on 4th July YoYo Games has experienced:

  • 54% decrease in the number of games uploaded per day
  • 38% decrease in the number of game plays per day

Graph of Games Created at YoYoGames.com

The old site still exists on the sandbox.yoyogames.com prefix and links made to old games pages redirect to the new location, however visiting the main homepage no longer provides quick access to games.

Prior to hiding user-created games away behind a single drop down menu item the “games created” figure on the YoYo Games homepage increased by an average of 76 games a day in 2011, whilst the “games played” count grew by 11,160 in an average 24-hour period.

Since the change both these figures have decreased.  In the week since 5th July “games created” has risen by just 34 a day whilst “games played” rose by 6,095.  Comparing these new figures with the period immediately before the site relaunch gives the percentages at the top of this article.

All figures were obtained from the “YoYo Community” section present on sandbox.yoyogames.com (previously yoyogames.com).

What do you think?

18 Comments

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  1. Let YoYogames develop there editor to a new an much better level. After all its a bad compiler with some short cuts to tricks in game making for people that can’t program in a regular language.

    Let them give a good helpdesk service for there produkt, when making a game your allways dependable of other devs that bought the gamemaker editor and publish there experiences on forums outside YoYo games.

    YoYo games made one (in all those years) game, and are now leeching on the hard work from others.

    Flash is even better for making games then gamemaker is at this moment. Its truly kids stuff and there text over studying countless hours to learn an programming language to make games, as it would not be neccasery with gamemaker is a lie. you need countless hours to study to understand gamemaker…

  2. YYG is de-emphasizing their upload service, and putting more emphasis on marketing their own games for a reason. They’re shifting their business model away from being the “youtube of games”, to a model more like… say… PopCap. 😉

    In case you missed this news, PopCap was just acquired for $1.3 billion dollars. They got that valuable by marketing online and mobile games. Inexpensive casual games. Many of which were created by indie developers, who worked with PopCap to get published.

    I’m not saying that’s YoYo’s immediate goal. But I’m sure they’re thinking about it. The future is marketing online games, and mobile games. And they can’t grab that future by just selling GameMaker, and providing an upload service to beginners.

    • Why continue with this publishing (in any form) and not focus on their main priority: gamemaker.

      Does adobe publish flash games? No but they still profit a lot from creating flash.

    • paul23 :
      Does adobe publish flash games? No but they still profit a lot from creating flash.

      That’s cuz adobe flash pro cs5 costs $700 (on it’s own, if you need other adobe products it racks up even more, have you ever looked at the full suite prices for liscencing?)

      And also they do sponsor and publish to a certain degree onto the adobe air platform.

  3. NPT> {no} wonder your interviews are so riveting.

    Not a very clever quip….just straight asinine, but I’ll forgive you since you haven’t had me to kick around for awhile. As for this article….who’s surprised by that crap? Seriously, let me just kick you in the teeth for thinking you were shocked.

    YYG changed their main webpage so that it loads a shitty “cover page” for their company, no longer highlighting the top-rated games in queue…it doesn’t take a genius to realize that the gaming side would take a hit. There have been dozens of complaints about the advertisements on the GMC because of “bandwidth,” and you think that putting an additional step in the process of getting to the games will somehow not be effected? Quite understandable that it’s still a “work in progress,” but again, they shoved to a launch, and now we (the customers) pay the price for YYG stretching themselves too thin.

    NPT can make another challenge so that maybe it’ll kick them into overdrive to finish their multitude of projects…..or…they can continue to work in the app market while raising their middle fingers to the rest of us who were swindled into giving them money. All I can picture is Scrooge McDuck jumping in his pile of gold.

  4. Bretboy129 ~ Bret Hudson :Without the amateur games being able to get out there, how are amateurs going to get modivated to become better and become pros with the software? Everyone starts as an amateur, and some of them progress to become pros.

    With such sophisticated thinking, it’s now wonder your interviews are so riveting.

  5. What a waste indeed. While we will be seeing a lot less “capture the clown” type games, we will also be seeing a lot of potentially great future programmers turned off with the looks of your chart.

  6. I can’t believe you guys. lol… YoYo expected this, and WANTS this. Seriously, who gives a crap about fewer amateur games being uploaded?

    YoYo doesn’t want to be an upload service for amateurs anymore. Isn’t that obvious? There’s no future in that. And frankly, the business model change is long overdue.

    • Without the amateur games being able to get out there, how are amateurs going to get modivated to become better and become pros with the software? Everyone starts as an amateur, and some of them progress to become pros.

  7. Ellaborating on my LULZ:

    I’m quite happy and excited with the pace GM development has taken in the last year. I understand they are a small company, and most of the resources are going to get GM HTML5 out and improving GM itself.

    However, not having enough staff members to create a robust website is not a valid excuse to neglect the importance of your website presence.

    Come on, just hire a digital agency to develop the website, otherwise the costs of having a poor website are gonna be higher than outsourcing it.

  8. I’d be more interested in seeing how much ad revenue has decreased. The whole thing seems like a bad move on their part – they probably should have picked a new domain for their corporate website.

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