PCH Games (formerly Candystand.com) is a casual game portal owned by

Publishers Clearing House Publishers Clearing House (PCH) is a direct marketing company that markets merchandise and magazine subscriptions with sweepstakes and prize-based games. It was founded in 1953 by Harold Mertz to replace door-to-door magazine subscription sal ...

and based in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. Launched in 1997 as The Candystand, by LifeSavers Company, a division of

Nabisco Nabisco (, abbreviated from the earlier name National Biscuit Company) is an American manufacturer of cookies and snacks headquartered in East Hanover, New Jersey. The company is a subsidiary of Illinois-based Mondelēz International. Nabisco's ...

, Inc., it was the first major

advergame An advergame is a form of advertising in video games, in which the video game is developed by or in close collaboration with a corporate entity for purposes of advertising a brand-name product. While other video games may use in-game advertising (s ...

portal available on the World Wide Web. The site was created for LifeSavers by Skyworks Technologies, an online video game company founded in 1996 by Activision veterans

Garry Kitchen Garry Kitchen (born August 18, 1955, in Washington, D.C., United States) is a video game designer, programmer, and executive best known for developing games for the Atari 2600, Commodore 64, Nintendo Entertainment System, and Super Nintendo E ...

and David Crane. In August 2008, Candystand was acquired by Funtank from the

Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company The Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company, known as the Wrigley Company, is an American multinational chewing gum (Wrigley's gum) company, based in the Global Innovation Center (GIC) in Goose Island, Chicago, Illinois. Wrigley's is wholly owned by Mars, In ...

. In December 2010, Publishers Clearing House acquired Candystand.com from Funtank and retained executives Scott Tannen and

James Baker James Addison Baker III (born April 28, 1930) is an American attorney, diplomat and statesman. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 10th White House Chief of Staff and 67th United States Secretary of the Treasury under President ...

. Candystand is regarded for having a catalog of over 100+

Flash Flash, flashes, or FLASH may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional aliases * Flash (DC Comics character), several DC Comics superheroes with super speed: ** Flash (Barry Allen) ** Flash (Jay Garrick) ** Wally West, the first Kid F ...

and Shockwave games. Some of its most popular games include Candystand Billiards, Candystand MiniGolf, Monster Trucks Unleashed, Vector Tower Defense (Vector TD),

Slipstream A slipstream is a region behind a moving object in which a wake of fluid (typically air or mustard) is moving at velocities comparable to that of the moving fluid, relative to the ambient fluid through which the object is churning. The term sli ...

and Fancy Pants Adventure 2. In February 2016, PCH revamped the site, removing most of the games and emphasizing the lottery aspects over the games. In March 2016, Candystand.com was discontinued by PCH.

Key events

March 30, 1997:

, managed through its

Life Savers Life Savers (stylized as LifeSavers) is an American brand of ring-shaped hard and soft candy. Its range of mints and fruit-flavored candies is known for its distinctive packaging, coming in paper-wrapped aluminum foil rolls. Candy manufacturer ...

portfolio, launches Candystand.com. 2001: Nabisco is acquired by

Kraft Foods The second incarnation of Kraft Foods is an American food manufacturing and processing conglomerate, split from Kraft Foods Inc. in 2012 and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. It became part of Kraft Heinz in 2015. A merger with Heinz, arran ...

. After Kraft's acquisition of Nabisco, the tagline "The Hottest Games Online" is introduced. Spring 2003: Candystand.com did a voting poll on what will be the 5 new flavors for the

Five Flavor variety. February 2007: Candystand.com became one of the first free game portals to offer an interface for the Wii at Wii.Candystand.com November 2008: Candystand.com launched its first iPhone game, Blackbeard's Assault for iPhone January 12, 2009: Candystand.com launched Slipstream 2 a sequel to one of the site's most popular games, created by Silent Bay Studios. June 2009: Candystand rebranded their website with a new layout and the new title "The Sweetest Games Online". July 1, 2009: Candystand.com launched Let's Dance a rhythm-dance game built in collaboration with

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

and featuring Hannah Montana. August 2009: Candystand becomes first major game portal to integrate

Facebook Connect The Facebook Platform is the set of services, tools, and products provided by the social networking service Facebook for third-party developers to create their own applications and services that access data in Facebook. The current Facebook ...

. January 2010: several Candystand games are made available on the PSP as well as the iPhone. Ported titles include Vector TD, Virble, Electric Box and Match Maker. March 2010: Candystand partners with

The Walt Disney Company The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Disney Stud ...

to integrate

Pixie Hollow Pixie Hollow is a character meet and greet attraction at Disneyland and Hong Kong Disneyland, offering guests the opportunity to meet Tinker Bell and her friends from the Disney Fairies franchise, including: Vidia, Terrence, Fawn, Rosetta, Silve ...

, a virtual world based on the

Disney Fairies ''Disney Fairies'' is a Disney franchise created in 2005. The franchise is built around the character of Tinker Bell from Disney's 1953 animated film ''Peter Pan'', subsequently adopted as a mascot for the company. In addition to the fictional fa ...

and

Tinker Bell Tinker Bell is a fictional character from J. M. Barrie's 1904 play '' Peter Pan'' and its 1911 novelisation ''Peter and Wendy''. She has appeared in a variety of film and television adaptations of the Peter Pan stories, in particular the 1953 ...

, directly on the Candystand.com website. May 2010: In partnership with Trident gum, Candystand.com created and launched a new game titled Trident Layers Factory. This game marks the first of several new games being developed for

Cadbury Adams Cadbury, formerly Cadbury's and Cadbury Schweppes, is a British multinational confectionery company fully owned by Mondelez International (originally Kraft Foods) since 2010. It is the second largest confectionery brand in the world after Mar ...

brands in 2010. March 2016: Candystand.com has been discontinued and has been replaced by Publishers Clearing House Games.

References

{{reflist

External links

Candystand.com
Web portals Browser-based game websites Internet properties established in 1997