There are countless Flash games on the web, but weeding through them to find the one you’re looking for can be a challenge. Heyzap the first company out of Y Combinator‘s latest batch of startups, is looking to offer users a comprehensive database of the web’s best games, along with the ability to embed those games wherever they’d like. In short, they’re looking to become a YouTube for Flash gaming.
But unlike YouTube, founders Immad Akhund and Jude Gomila say that Heyzap isn’t necessarily meant to serve as a destination site, but is instead focusing on its widget (which has an integrated catalog of available games) as well as forming partnerships with publishers looking to integrate Flash games into their sites. The widget itself seems fairly well designed, with games sorted into categories like “Sports” and “Puzzles”. However, there doesn’t seem to be an easy way to search by keyword, which could become frustrating if you want to search for a specific game.
The site currently offers over 4000 games, which come from a variety of sites including Addicting Games and Kongegrate (both of which offer embedding, so the games aren’t scraped). Akhund says that many of these games come from Mochi Media, which is sharing advertising revenue with Heyzap through a rev share agreement. The site will also earn money from games that developers independently upload to the site.
I think Heyzap’s biggest chance at success will lie in forming partnerships with popular sites looking to cleanly integrate Flash games without any development costs (for example, lifestyle sites and magazine homepages might use the games to increase engagement). As a destination site Heyzap will have a great deal of difficulty dealing with more established sites like Addicting Games and Kongegrate, which offer game catalogs of their own. Another contender in this space is Game Curry, which we covered in October.
This isn’t Immad Akhund’s first run at a Y Combinator company – he co-founded Clickpass, which was recently acquired by Synthasite.
To try out the widget for yourself, click on the button below:
@import ‘http://www.heyzap.com/elightbox/lightbox.external.css’; var heyzap = new Heyzap(‘heyzap_games’, {}); heyzap.renderMini(); heyzap.com – free online games