Their strength lies in how simple they are. Their districts are offices and schools, where they make workers and kids as unproductive as possible. Who do we have in mind? Obviously, about mobile games! This time, we're not just talking about any old mobile games. We're talking about io games, which we've already talked about in the context of the battle royale genre. The popularity of these games spread around the world like the success of battle royale does now.

How everything began

On April 27, 2015, a young Brazilian game creator named Matheus Valadares announced a new game called Agar.io. This was the start of everything.

This Agario game basically takes the first part of the popular game Spore, where you play as a small cell that eats its way through life to become the biggest one in the pond. Anyway, it's very interesting to us that it took so long for someone to think of this, since Spore didn't come out until 2008. Agario takes this cell game and tries to make it as easy to play and look at as possible. All that's left are colorful circles on what looks like a piece of squared paper. And what do you know? It's great! Though it didn't take long before new cell skins in the form of flags, jokes, or even famous people started to show up in-game. This made the game even funnier and funnier to watch. Mainly because it opened the door to many strange things, like Obama eating Russia or Russia eating Obama, and so on.

This game caught the attention of internet celebrities very quickly, which led to a lot of their fans recommending it. The most famous one was made by Felix Kjellberg, who goes by the name Pewdiepie. He loved the game so much that he made several videos about it, including one called "Reddit wants to eat me!" The same was true for other YouTubers like Jacksepticeye, Markiplier, and Vanossgaming.

They sent the game's fame through the roof, and if anyone hadn't heard of it before, they did now. And, of course, he played it. Because of these things, a whole new market opened up in the video game business, and everyone wanted to get in on it and make as much money as they could while doing it. So, new io games (clones or variations of the popular Agar.io) started popping up. Even though Agario had nothing to do with the.io domain, it became a sign for these simple games, and they all started using it in their names.

A lot of new games from IO

Because of this, we now have Slither.io, also known as Slitherio, which is an online version of classic Snake in the "io" style, or clones of many popular AAA games. For example, Zombsroyale.io, which we think is one of the best IO games of all time, takes the best parts of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and even some of Fortnite and puts them in a top-down, 2D format. And, to be honest, a very fun one.

Even though (almost) all io games are fun. Probably because they are easy to understand and use. Some really crazy pieces tried to combine it with other popular things, like the "fidget spinner simulator" Spinz.io, which pretty much died when fidget spinners became famous.

On the other hand, there is no sign of the end of the "io" game craze. It is still going strong, and almost every game has hundreds of thousands of people. Their size is one of the best things about them. You don't even have to download the game to play it on your phone or computer, where you can find Agar.io on Steam. It is easy to play in a web browser. And you can do it on our website! If you haven't played any of the games above, you can find them in our "IO Games" tag group. And if you have, why not play your favorite game for a little while?