BACK TO THE WEB By Rafael Morgan, Director of Partnerships at CrazyGames T


raditional gaming storefronts are reaching a breaking point. On mobile, developers must contend with soaring user acquisition costs and retention fatigue, with recent ZBD data showing that


80% of mobile developers believe current retention and engagement strategies have become repetitive rather than innovative. While on PC, studios are drowning in an increasingly saturated Steam ecosystem that saw over 21,000 games launch in 2025 alone. All of this comes as the industry faces a hardware crisis, with


consumer prices for products such as system DRAM and GPU memory rising by up to 89% in Q2 2026, and access to traditional storefronts remains gated by 30% platform taxes. Against this backdrop, and with the industry desperate for sustainability, the open web has established itself as a frictionless escape hatch, stripping away financial and technical barriers to let developers reach players with unprecedented ease. The common perception that web gaming is only for simple, short-


session novelties is not only outdated but also fails to recognise the swell in players who have migrated to web gaming platforms. Platforms like CrazyGames now attract over 60 million monthly active users, up from 35 million in 2024, offering studios immediate access to huge audiences and scalable reach. High-engagement, complex titles such as Bloxd (367 million plays


since release), Space Waves (211 million), and Ragdoll Archers (143 million), demonstrate that deep core loops and longer (30+ minute) session times can thrive on the web. Alongside these web-native successes, established studios, such as Kwalee (Teacher Simulator, Draw it, Oil Digging) and Miniclip (Agar.io), are using platforms like CrazyGames to port existing mobile and PC portfolios, unlocking immediate, highly monetisable secondary audiences. This complements studios like Blue Wizard Digital (Shell Shockers, Soccer Bros) that have used CrazyGames as a low-risk incubation platform to build player communities before expanding onto native platforms or other storefronts. Unlike traditional storefronts, where audience access is locked


behind high upfront costs or heavy paywalls, web developers can generate instant revenue from organic platform traffic. Web platforms like CrazyGames utilise hybrid monetisation systems, ranging from high-eCPM rewarded video ads and midgame interstitial placements, to non-disruptive banner ads, and direct web In-App Purchases (IAPs), allowing developers to monetise players as soon as they land on the page. Crucially, having access to web-native IAPs bypasses the standard 30% platform tax imposed by Apple and Google. The revenue potential of the web ecosystem is huge. Hit voxel builder


Bloxd, which launched on CrazyGames in 2021, has expanded from a solo project into a full-time team of 11 developers based in London. A milestone achieved with no outside investment. Space Waves, a 2D arcade-style platformer, has secured a revenue share of over €250,000


14 | MCV/DEVELOP September/October 2026


since launching on CrazyGames, all on the back of zero marketing spend. Being able to monetise 100% of visitors immediately allows studios to sustainably build new games without committing to expensive live-ops campaigns on traditional storefront rollouts. Web games also offer developers compressed production


and deployment timelines. With CrazyGames’ ability to handle discoverability natively, through recommendation algorithms, category tags, and internal search engines, games can receive immediate, targeted impressions without external user acquisition spend. Developing for the web also eliminates the multi-day review queues


and multi-gigabyte patches found on traditional platforms, enabling developers to push instant updates, run live A/B tests on new content or gameplay loops, and release hotfixes in real time. With community growth and engagement increasingly challenging for developers and studios across the traditional ecosystem, the ability to instantly engage with and respond to player feedback is invaluable. As distribution and financial barriers fall, technical limitations


are following the trend just as quickly. The historical technology line dividing native desktop games from web games is slowly disappearing, mainly due to the emergence of WebGL 2.0 and the widespread adoption of WebGPU. With browsers now able to access low-overhead modern GPU architectures, performance bottlenecks that previously constrained web platforms no longer exist. Advanced rendering techniques such as complex 3D lighting,


real-time physics, GPU-driven particle systems, and advanced post- processing can now be accessed by players without requiring high-end client hardware or multi-gigabyte client downloads. Plus, with major engines like Unity beginning to offer ways to export into WebGL 2.0 and WebGPU, studios and developers can deliver web games featuring rich, previously technologically inaccessible gameplay mechanics or visual flair. The open web offers an alternative to the rising user-acquisition costs


and storefront congestion that developers face on traditional platforms, and its current trajectory positions it as the primary future distribution engine for modern games. The traditional publishing pipeline, defined by mandatory platform taxes, huge download volumes, bloated UA costs, and slow platform approvals, is ill-suited to an audience living in an instant-access world. As new modern browser technologies eliminate the gaps between


the web’s ease of access and the visual fidelity and physics of native applications, the industry landscape will fundamentally shift to accommodate them. In the future, a studio’s ability to grow its games will no longer be


dictated by the size of its UA budget or platform placements but by how quickly it can capture the audience on the open web, with just a single click.


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