Game Jolt

Game Jolt (GJ) is a hosting service for free and commercial video games (in browser and a downloadable client) with social functions. Co-founded by Yaprak and David DeCarmine, the initial site launched on January 1, 2004,[2] and was created by David DeCarmine.

Game Jolt
Screenshot
A screenshot of GameJolt.com from December 2015
Type of site
Publishing platform and marketplace for video games
OwnerLucent Web Creative, LLC
Created byDavid & Yaprak DeCarmine
URLwww.gamejolt.com
Alexa rank 6,264 (September 2017)[1]
CommercialYes
RegistrationOptional
Launched2002
Current statusOnline

History

2003–2007

Development of Game Jolt started in 2002 as holo-world,[3] which then was renamed to Game Jolt in 2003.[4] The site publicly launched on July 29, 2004[2] and included a public account system, forums, a chatroom and games, uploaded with the respective creators' permission. In 2007 the site was taken down due to inactivity.[5]

2008–present

In December 2008, David launched a second version of the site with Game Jolt becoming a game portal. The site was completely redesigned and introduced an automated uploading system for downloadable games, as well as Flash, Unity and Java games.[6]

Ad revenue sharing was publicly released in September 2009 from its closed beta,[7][8] which gave users a 30% share on advertising revenue on their game pages, profiles and blog posts.[9]

The site had much automated spam from mid-2011 to early 2012, which resulted in inactivity of the community as well as its owner.[10][11][12][13][14][15][16]

The Game Jolt API came out of its three-year beta in July 2012[17][18] allowing games to integrate with the site.

Game Jolt started accepting browser-based HTML5 games for upload in February 2013.[19][20][21] David DeCarmine announced on August 8 that he was working full-time on Game Jolt's development,[22] leaving his job at Zulily in the process.[23]

Indie Statik, a now defunct[24] indie games-related news aggregator and blog, announced it was 'partnering' with Game Jolt in October 2013.[25] This brought an article stream on the front page and articles of Game Jolt hosted games show up on the said game's profile, with a game portal congregated by Indie Statik and served by Game Jolt planned[26] but never came to fruition.

Game Jolt Jams released in early 2014 as a service to allow users to create their own game jams that integrated with the main site.[27][28]

A beta for a new site overhaul was made public in June 2015 and was released later that month, with Game Jolt advertising a responsive design, automated curation for both games and game news articles which weighs how recent a game was uploaded and how popular it is ("hot") and filtering options on game listings for platform, maturity rating and development status.[29][30]

In January 2016, Game Jolt released source code of the client and site's frontend on GitHub under MIT license.[31]

An online marketplace was announced in April 2016[32] and released the following month in May, allowing developers to sell their games on the site.[33]

Let's Player partnerships

In November 2014 Game Jolt announced the "Indies vs PewDiePie" game jam, partnering with the popular Youtuber Felix "PewDiePie" Kjellberg.[34][35] Developers were given a weekend (21–24 November) to create a game with the theme of "fun to play, fun to watch" to suit the Let's Plays entertainment style.[36] Users could rate entries afterwards until December 1 when the scores were counted up. The prize to the top 10 rated games was Felix playing the games on his channel as a means of promotion for the developers,[37] although later he played other entries.[38]

Game Jolt partnered with Felix, Sean "Jacksepticeye" McLoughlin and Mark "Markiplier" Fischbach to host "Indies vs Gamers" in July 2015.[39] The requirements for entries were arcade games using the GJAPI highscore tables, to be made between the July 17–20[40] and the top 5 games were played on the partner's YouTube channels.[41][42][43]

API

The Game Jolt Application Programming Interface (usually known as the GJAPI) allows any developer using a game development platform that supports HTTP operations and MD5 or SHA-1.[44][45] Game Jolt advertises that the API can:

  • Create multiple "scoreboards" which collect high scores from players made publicly available on the game's profile and give user accounts EXP[46]
  • Award player's trophies which give user accounts EXP[47]
  • Store game data on Game Jolt's data servers[48]

Competitions

Game Jolt has hosted numerous official game development contests with varying requirements and rewards. "Contests" are differentiated from "Jams". A contest on Game Jolt refers to a competition wherein developers have a single theme their game must follow if they enter the competition, and an ordered subjective top games selection is found either from judging by the staff or, with the two recent Indies VSs competitions, community voting. A jam however has no requirements and only an optional theme, which may or may not be judged but with no prizes for the winners.

Contests
Date Theme Place
1st 2nd 3rd
13–21 June 2009 Shocking[49] ShockMaze Infidels Shocker: The Electrifying Hero
1–31 August Axiom [8][50] Raimond Ex Paul Moose In Space World No Longer Apart
1–7 November 2009 Minimal[51][52] Spectrum Wing Saut Fetus
24–25 January 2010 Rogue[53][54] Super Space Rogues Tower Climb Flood the Chamber
1–8 July 2010 Indie Game Demake[55][56] Warning Foregone Sulkeis Saucelifter 8-bit
16 January – 14 February 2011 Invention Contest[57][58] Fire With a Riot Bun Dun Monica
August 20 – September 24, 2011 Music Interpretation[59][60] Je Suis Le Diable Rhythmical Jeremy
11–19 August 2012 Fear[61][62] The Room Fragments of Fear Nyctophobia
1–11 March 2013 Chaos[63][64] Void Rogue Blues for Mittavinda Stellar Zero
9–18 March 2013 Party[65] Quantum Party Crasher Super Clean Clean Party Run
21–24 November 2014 Fun to play and watch (Indies vs PewDiePie)[36] Lord of the Horde Kid VS School DANCE!DANCE! PewDiePie
17–20 July 2015 High scores (Indies VS Gamers)[40] Racket Boy Sushido Super Nanny Sleepytime Ultra HD Alpha Omega

Jams

Jams are hosted on the weekend. Unlike the contests there is no theme- just work on new games or WIPs. Developers are encouraged to livestream, post screenshots and tweet about whatever they're developing, with no winners are produced at the end.[66][67][68]

gollark: And will punch any who betray him in the face.
gollark: Some will tell you that it's because the people agreed to impose basic rules, but that's probably wrong.
gollark: You only use it once.
gollark: What's the use of aliasing intercalate there?
gollark: Yes, seems like it.

References
  1. "Game Jolt.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved September 2, 2016.
  2. Game Jolt Main Page, archived from the original on January 1, 2004, retrieved November 30, 2013
  3. Holo-World! Quality Freeware games!, archived from the original on November 23, 2002, retrieved September 21, 2017
  4. Game Jolt, archived from the original on July 23, 2003, retrieved September 21, 2017
  5. Index of /, archived from the original on October 13, 2007, retrieved November 30, 2013
  6. Game Jolt Main Page, archived from the original on December 25, 2008, retrieved November 30, 2013
  7. Rose, Michael (September 7, 2009). "Game Jolt Ad Revenue Sharing Goes Public". IndieGames.com. Archived from the original on November 30, 2013. Retrieved November 30, 2013.
  8. DeCarmine, David (June 12, 2009). "Ad Revenue Sharing and Contest". Game Jolt. Archived from the original on November 30, 2013. Retrieved November 30, 2013.
  9. "Ad Revenue Sharing". Game Jolt. Archived from the original on November 30, 2013. Retrieved November 30, 2013.
  10. "Holy mother of Mary..." July 17, 2011. Archived from the original on November 30, 2013. Retrieved November 30, 2013.
  11. "Why is Game Jolt so dead?". November 11, 2011. Archived from the original on November 30, 2013. Retrieved November 30, 2013.
  12. "Game Jolt... brainstorming". February 18, 2012. Archived from the original on November 30, 2013. Retrieved November 30, 2013.
  13. "Spam?". May 5, 2011. Archived from the original on November 30, 2013. Retrieved November 30, 2013.
  14. "So much spam". July 7, 2011. Archived from the original on November 30, 2013. Retrieved November 30, 2013.
  15. "Making Money Through Ads". August 13, 2011. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved December 1, 2013.
  16. "Vest Trials: Approaching Dawn Released!". August 8, 2011. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved December 1, 2013.
  17. "Game Jolt Achievements now open". July 8, 2012. Retrieved September 1, 2016.
  18. Gwinnell, Ashley (July 17, 2012). "Achievements System Released!". Game Jolt. Archived from the original on November 30, 2013. Retrieved November 30, 2013.
  19. "Newgrounds now accept HTML5 games". September 24, 2013. Archived from the original on September 1, 2016. Retrieved September 1, 2016.
  20. "GameJolt Html5". February 13, 2013. Archived from the original on September 1, 2016. Retrieved September 1, 2016.
  21. DeCarmine, David (February 11, 2013). "Distributions and HTML Integration". Game Jolt. Archived from the original on November 30, 2013. Retrieved November 30, 2013.
  22. DeCarmine, David (September 7, 2009). "Game Jolt is now indie!". Game Jolt. Archived from the original on November 30, 2013. Retrieved November 30, 2013.
  23. "David DeCarmine's LinkedIn". LinkedIn. Retrieved November 30, 2013.
  24. "Internet Archive Wayback Machine". Archived from the original on May 8, 2013. Retrieved February 2, 2017.
  25. Priestman, Chris (September 17, 2013). "Thank You: Indie Statik, Kickstarter and Game Jolt". IndieStatik. Archived from the original on November 30, 2013. Retrieved February 2, 2017.
  26. Mattingly, Josh (October 2, 2013). "We're funded, but it's not over yet!". IndieStatik.
  27. Wawro, Alex (July 16, 2014). "Run your own game jams with Game Jolt's new manager". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on September 1, 2016. Retrieved September 1, 2016.
  28. "Internet Archive Wayback Machine". Archived from the original on August 4, 2014. Retrieved December 27, 2015.
  29. "Gamejolt Next :: Nuevo diseño, nuevas posibilidades". July 9, 2015. Archived from the original on September 1, 2016. Retrieved September 1, 2016.
  30. "We Launched the New Site - Fireside by GameJolt". October 13, 2013. Retrieved December 13, 2015.
  31. Game Jolt is Open Source! by @CROS on gamejolt.com (January 12, 2016)
  32. "Selling Games on Game Jolt". April 21, 2016. Retrieved September 2, 2016.
  33. Francis, Bryant (2016). "Gamasutra - Gamejolt announces indie games marketplace". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on September 2, 2016. Retrieved September 2, 2016.
  34. Dimopoulos, Konstantinos (November 13, 2014). "Indies VS PewDiePie: The Game Jam". Gamasutra#IndieGames.com. Archived from the original on September 1, 2016. Retrieved September 1, 2016.
  35. "INDIES VS PEWDIEPIE - YouTube". YouTube. Retrieved December 31, 2015.
  36. "Indies VS PewDiePie". Game Jolt. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
  37. "DANCE PEWDIEPIE DANCE! // INDIES VS PEWDIEPIE JAM WINNERS! - YouTube". YouTube. Retrieved December 31, 2015.
  38. "VIDEOGAME: THE GAME - YouTube". YouTube. Retrieved December 31, 2015.
  39. Rad, Chloi (July 8, 2015). "Game Jolt Prepares to Launch Indies VS Gamers Jam". Gamasutra#IndieGames.com. Archived from the original on September 1, 2016. Retrieved September 1, 2016.
  40. "Indies Vs Gamers | Game Jolt Jams". Game Jolt. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
  41. "BEAT UP KIDS! | Indies Vs Gamers Gamejam - Top 5 Winners - YouTube". YouTube. Retrieved December 31, 2015.
  42. "Fans vs PewDiePie (Indies vs Gamers) - YouTube". YouTube. Retrieved December 31, 2015.
  43. "BEATING SMALL CHILDREN!! | Super Nanny Sleepytime Ultra HD Alpha Omega - YouTube". YouTube. Retrieved December 31, 2015.
  44. "What is the Game API?". Retrieved December 13, 2015.
  45. "Game Achievement System". October 13, 2013. Archived from the original on November 30, 2013. Retrieved November 30, 2013.
  46. "Scoreboards Guide". Retrieved December 13, 2015.
  47. "Scoreboards Guide". Retrieved December 13, 2015.
  48. "Data Storage Guide". Retrieved December 13, 2015.
  49. "Shocking Contest". Game Jolt. June 12, 2009. Archived from the original on December 1, 2013. Retrieved 2013-12-01.
  50. "Axiom Contest". Game Jolt. July 25, 2009. Archived from the original on November 30, 2013. Retrieved 2013-11-30.
  51. "Minimal Contest". Game Jolt. October 28, 2009. Archived from the original on November 30, 2013. Retrieved 2013-11-30.
  52. "Minimal Contest Results". Game Jolt. November 19, 2009. Archived from the original on November 30, 2013. Retrieved 2013-11-30.
  53. "Rogue Contest". Game Jolt. January 10, 2010. Archived from the original on November 30, 2013. Retrieved 2013-11-30.
  54. "Rogue Contest Results". Game Jolt. January 31, 2010. Archived from the original on November 30, 2013. Retrieved 2013-11-30.
  55. "Indie Game Demake Contest". Game Jolt. June 28, 2010. Archived from the original on November 30, 2013. Retrieved 2013-11-30.
  56. "Indie Game Demake Contest Results". Game Jolt. July 17, 2010. Archived from the original on November 30, 2013. Retrieved 2013-11-30.
  57. "Invention Contest- Hosted by NAL". Game Jolt. January 16, 2011. Archived from the original on December 1, 2013. Retrieved 2013-12-01.
  58. "Invention Contest- Hosted by NAL". Game Jolt. March 12, 2011. Archived from the original on July 20, 2014. Retrieved 2013-12-01.
  59. "Music Interpretation Contest with..." Game Jolt. August 13, 2011. Archived from the original on December 1, 2013. Retrieved 2013-12-01.
  60. "Music Interpretation Contest with..." Game Jolt. June 27, 2012. Archived from the original on July 19, 2014. Retrieved 2013-12-01.
  61. "Fear Contest". Game Jolt. August 7, 2012. Archived from the original on December 1, 2013. Retrieved 2013-12-01.
  62. "GameJolt Fear Contest". Game Jolt. Archived from the original on December 1, 2013. Retrieved 2013-12-01.
  63. "Chaos Contest". GameJolt. February 22, 2013. Archived from the original on December 1, 2013. Retrieved 2013-12-01.
  64. "Game Jolt Chaos Contest". GameJolt. Archived from the original on December 1, 2013. Retrieved 2013-12-01.
  65. "GameJolt Contest 10". Game Jolt. Archived from the original on November 6, 2013. Retrieved December 1, 2013.
  66. "Game Jolt Weekend Jam". Game Jolt. January 31, 2010. Archived from the original on December 1, 2013. Retrieved 2013-11-30.
  67. "Game Jolt's Second Jam!". Game Jolt. July 26, 2010. Archived from the original on December 1, 2013. Retrieved 2013-11-30.
  68. "GameJolt Weekend Jam #3". Game Jolt. November 28, 2012. Archived from the original on December 1, 2013. Retrieved 2013-11-30.
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