"It's hard to distinguish from a native experience. And all at the click of a button"

• New social features bring players together in multi-player games faster and more reliably than ever before
• "We're the only large-scale social casual games platform that is so accessible and so instant"

Last week CrazyGames online browser-based gaming service underwent a major upgrade with new technology designed to make it even easier for players to find the games they want to play and then start playing them whatever their chosen platform.

And new social features bring players together in multi-player games faster and more reliably than ever before - all in a service built within today's modern browsers and all requiring zero downloads and installation. Free, fun games are literally just a click away.

To find out more on the current state of browser games we caught up with CrazyGames CEO Raf Mertens to find out what the future holds and what makes CrazyGames different.

PocketGamer.biz: By now we're all familiar with games in the browser but that's different about CrazyGames in 2024? What's your USP?

Raf Mertens: Recent browser technologies such as WebGPU and WebAssembly are making it possible to get a gaming experience that is hard to distinguish from a native experience. And all at the click of a button. 

This trend opens up a massive opportunity for low-friction, accessible gaming in the browser. In particular for casual multiplayer games this is very interesting: users can start playing with their friends at the click of a button, without any installation.

We're the only large-scale social casual games platform that is so accessible and so instant.

And CrazyGames aren't just limited to one device?

We're cross-platform because our users are cross-platform. Mobile is still relatively small for us - about 20% - but it is growing very fast and we expect this trend to continue as the mobile browser gaming experience improves.

What does the core CrazyGames player and audience look like right now?

It's really mixed. All demographics play casual games nowadays, and we have content for everyone. Historically we had mainly teenagers, but we've grown strongly in the older player segments, and we plan to grow further for older players as our catalog adapts to serve these player's tastes.

Tell us about the new social features - specifically the new Friends Connect feature. What does it aim to do and what makes the experience different?

Playing games is ten times more fun when you do it with friends. Our users found it hard to do until now. Our new friends functionality solves this key user problem. Users can now join their friends in whatever game they're playing at the click of a button.

Our longer-term goal is to offer a social experience that's at least as good as the one on Roblox, but that has three core advantages:

1. Being browser-based reduces the friction to start playing.

2. Our catalog is much more diverse and as such we can attract a much wider audience.

3. It's more developer-friendly in terms of discovery and earning revenue.

What are your plans for the rest of the year and is there anything you can tell us about future plans?

At the moment player profiles are simple, but we plan to expand these to let players express their identity in their avatar. And we'll continue product development, focused on two key aspects: Firstly we'll be further building out our Friends system and all related social aspects. And secondly we're working on improving content recommendations

In addition, we'll further ramp up our marketing, as well as continue to grow the breadth and quality of our content catalogue.