Yahoo is quietly building a games business, and it’s starting with daily webgames
Yahoo is expanding its presence in the casual games market following a significant relaunch of its games platform in January. The company has seen daily active users increase by more than 60% since the January restart, with gameplay clicks up nearly 25% since the beginning of the year. This growth positions Yahoo among the major internet properties capitalizing on daily, habit-forming web games—a trend notably pioneered by the New York Times and followed by LinkedIn.
Andrew Pedersen, Yahoo’s head of games and former mobile vice president at EA, is leading the initiative. He highlighted the company’s substantial reach, noting that Yahoo maintains approximately 250 million monthly unique visitors, making it one of the top five internet properties in the United States.
A key component of Yahoo’s strategy involves a partnership with King, the developer behind the Candy Crush franchise. The two companies launched Crushable, a daily puzzle game in the Candy Crush universe, hosted exclusively on Yahoo Games within the US market (with an international version available at candycrushable.com).
Yahoo is also developing its own casual games, with Solitaire Roadtrip among the titles currently available on the platform. The company’s renewed focus on games represents a strategic effort to leverage its user base and compete in the growing segment of accessible, daily-play gaming experiences that have proven successful for other major internet platforms.