Mousebreaker

Mousebreaker.com

Founded	2001
Headquarters	London, England, United Kingdom
Key people	Richard Pendry: Co-founder Alick Stott: Co-founder
Website	www.mousebreaker.com
Type of site	Internet games
Available in	English
Launched	2001
Current status	Active

Mousebreaker is a UK based casual games website founded in 2001 by Richard Pendry and Alick Stott. One of the earliest browser game portals, the site earned a reputation in terms of publishing sports and, in particular, football games. In 2008 the website was purchased by UK publisher IPC Media for a rumoured seven figure sum ^[1]. Today the site is amongst the biggest UK flash games website, with over 4,500,000 unique users per month ^[2].

Early Games

Pendry and Stott first worked together on flash games as a hobby in 2000. Their first projects were a simple penalty shoot out game, and a pool game that would be the basis of the Blast Billiards franchise. Upon licensing copies of both games, the pair realised the potential of their hobby, but it wasn’t until 2003 that Mousebreaker.com was popular enough to be the only source of income for them and they began to work on the website full time ^[3]

Purchase by IPC Media

In June 2008, Mousebreaker was purchased by Time Warner owned IPC Media for a rumoured seven figure sum. The move saw Mousebreaker become part of IPC’s Ignite division, aimed predominantly at the 18-24 male demographic, and home to publications such as Nuts, Loaded and NME ^[4].

Style of Games

Mousebreaker is best known for its sports and topical games, with titles such as Aporkalypse Now ^[5], Spank the Banker ^[6], Fat Cat Cashback ^[7] and 'Bad Adebayor', getting attention from mainstream news outlets. Their sports section remains their most popular area however, and the site’s sheer number of football games has ensured the two are widely associated.

Mousebreaker’s own list of requirements for third party flash developers states that their games are based on the ‘easy to play, difficult to master’ model, with short load-speeds and “a cheeky sense of humour” also required ^[8].

Best Known Titles

Many of Mousebreaker’s early popular titles gained enough of a following to earn their own websites. Blast Billiards, Flash Cricket and Camper Strike all proved popular enough to get a unique domain, with Play A Pal and Play For Your Club also registered by Mousebreaker for use with their popular football volleys games.

More recently, Pendry has noted that Jumpers for Goalposts – a football lifestyle sim – has gained a loyal and dedicated following. ^[9] A sequel to Jumpers for Goalposts was released in 2009 with another sequel released in 2010. Top Spinner Cricket has proved popular with gamers as well ^[10]

Finally, the ambitious Rock Band Sim – which attempted to combine rhythm action gameplay with the management sim genre – got some positive write ups on casual game sites ^[11]. From October 2010 Mousebreaker has a new gaming partner for the cash games section, the famous 888games.com website.Mousebreaker propose to all the adult gamers to get 5 pounds free and to try to win huge jackpots at 888games.

Mobile Gaming

In November 2009, it was announced that Mousebreaker had entered into a partnership with CobraMobile to bring some of its titles to the iPhone and iPod Touch through the App Store ^[12]. The first game, Blast Billiards Touch, was approved by Apple in December 2009. A lite version offering a few levels was released in February 2010.

References

1. ^ IPC buys Mousebreaker site to inject new life into division
2. ^ Time Warner Press Release on Mousebreaker Acquisition
3. ^ Interview with Richard Pendry
4. ^ IPC buys Mousebreaker site to inject new life into division
5. ^ Guardian: A Sick Game to Play
6. ^ Mediaweek: City boys get come uppance with Spank the Banker
7. ^ Telegraph: Sir Fred Goodwin ‘Fat Cat Cash Back’ Game
8. ^ Mousebreaker Developer Guidelines
9. ^ Interview with Richard Pendry
10. ^ Flash Game Challenge: Top Spinner
11. ^ Jayisgames review of Rock Band Sim
12. ^ Cobra bringing Mousebreaker Flash games to iPhone

External links

• Mousebreaker
• Mousebreaker Corporate Site
• IPC Media