One Game, Many Sites: How HTML5 Game Distribution Works

If you make browser games, one site is a small audience. If you run a website, building a game library from scratch is a large job. Distribution platforms sit between the two: the developer submits a game once, and many sites show it. This guide describes how that works, how three of the platforms differ in approach, and what to ask before you pick one.

The three jobs a platform does

• Collect and review games from developers, so a site owner does not have to judge every build.
• Host the game, usually so that an update reaches every site at once.
• Give websites a way to show the games: an embed code, a widget, or a feed they can import.

The differences are in who earns what, who controls the advertising and how much of the work lands on you.

How the three approach it

GameMonetize is built around developers who upload games and an advertising layer that runs inside them. In our own catalog we have seen its titles show an ad before the game starts, and sites that host them need to add the matching lines to their ads.txt file. For a developer that means a large pool of sites and simple monetization. For a site owner it means accepting the provider's ads inside the frame.

Playgama presents itself to websites as a partner program: a large catalog available through an embed or an API, with a share of revenue for partner sites. Its own materials describe a revenue split and a minimum payout, and those terms are set by the platform and can change, so read the current partner terms instead of relying on a figure from a blog post, including this one.

PlayKovo takes a narrower approach. Every game goes through a review for loading, controls, mobile behavior, thumbnail and description, and advertising behavior. Website owners can embed any listed game for free with an iframe, or import the whole catalog from a JSON or XML feed. There is no revenue share today. The partner terms say so directly and state that any future payment would come under separate written terms. What a partner gets is reviewed games, hosting handled for them and launch statistics.

A comparison you can check yourself

• Review: ask what a game must pass before it is listed, and whether that standard is published.
• Money: ask who sells the ads in the frame, what share goes to the developer and to the site, and the payout threshold. Get the answers in writing from the current terms.
• Control: ask whether you can see and limit ad behavior such as pop-ups and redirects on your own pages.
• Updates: ask whether a fixed bug reaches your embed automatically or whether you must replace code.
• Exit: ask what happens to your embeds and your data if you leave.

For developers: spread, but keep track

Submitting to several platforms is normal, and nothing stops you from doing it, as long as each one's terms allow it. Some require exclusivity or a head start for a period, so read that clause first. Keep one build as the source of truth, version it, and note where each copy lives so you can update every one when you fix a bug. Our guide on where to publish an HTML5 game covers the choices, and the one on hosted builds versus external URLs covers how updates reach players.

For website owners: pull from a catalog

If you run a website, you do not need to host or manage any game files. Look through the games at catalog.playkovo.com and pick the ones that suit your audience. Each game has a ready iframe code and shows its orientation, so you can match it to your layout. Partner sites can also pull the whole catalog automatically through a feed, so new games appear without anyone copying code again. The import guide shows the iframe, the feed formats and how to handle portrait games.

• Use the iframe when you want a few games on a page.
• Use the feed when you want a full games section that updates itself.
• Register your website to see launches and approved domains in a partner dashboard.
• Keep the referrer on the iframe. Our statistics identify your website from it, and launches cannot be counted without it.

Before adding any catalog, ours included, run through the checks in our embed checklist, and keep the page fast with the advice in our guide on embedding without hurting Core Web Vitals.