Yahoo! Games was a section of the Yahoo! website, launched on March 31, 1998, in which Yahoo! users could play games either with other users or by themselves. The majority of Yahoo! Games was closed down on March 31, 2014 and the balance was closed on February 9, 2016. Yahoo! announced that "changes in supporting technologies and increased security requirements for our own Yahoo! web pages, made it impossible to keep the games running safely and securely". It was then announced by Yahoo! that its Games section would be dissolved completely on May 13, 2016. However, the Yahoo! Games service is still available on Yahoo! Japan, along with Yahoo! Auctions.
Features
The games on the web site were typically Java applets or quick Flash games, although some titles required a local download. Many of the games that required a download contained TryMedia Adware. Yahoo! Games also included Yahoo! Video Games, which provides news, previews, and reviews of currently available or upcoming First Party games–and Yahoo! Games on Demand–which provided free demos and full-size downloads of full PC games for a charge. The site featured an "All Star" system for users, in which a user could pay to get an All Star username. All Star users were able to get extra privileges on Yahoo! Games sites such as disabling pop-up ads. All Star users did not have playable games without downloading. Yahoo! Games was built on Yahoo!'s acquisition of ClassicGames.com in 1997. The last used Yahoo! Video Games section of the site was formerly known as Games Domain, from back when Yahoo! acquired the web site in 2003. As of May 14, 2016, Yahoo! Games held over 1,400 games, most of which were developed externally.
Up until March 2014, Yahoo! Games included a popular Internet chess server. Ten years earlier, in 2004, James Eade had recommended Yahoo! Chess as the best of Internet chess, writing that "action is to be found there at all times". Yahoo! Chess differed from more contemporary Internet chess servers in its complete lack of oversight regarding user conduct or chess engine use.
Yahoo! Chess was the subject of a song by the British rock bandHalf Man Half Biscuit on their 2008 album . Entitled "Bad Losers on Yahoo! Chess", the song references a fictitious player, Dennis Bell of Torquay, Devon, who on losing a chess game signs out from the Yahoo! Chess server "Good game, Sir, do you want another bout? But Dennis ain't replying 'cos he's just signed out." The song also references Deep Blue.
