Old Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon games: what happened?

By Obscure Internet 26 Oct 2026 8 min read

Most of the old Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon web games are gone, and you can’t play them officially any more. The bulk of them ran on Flash, and when Flash ended the networks didn’t bring them back: Cartoon Network closed its US website on 8 August 2024, and nick.com now carries only newer games.

If you were a child with a computer in the 2000s, there’s a fair chance you lost whole afternoons to these sites. They were free, they were full of characters you already loved, and nobody at home thought of them as “gaming”. Here’s what they were, who made them, and what’s left.

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What were the Cartoon Network games?

They were the free games section of cartoonnetwork.com, and they were enormous. Cartoon Network said its site had 1.6 billion game plays in 2004 alone. In October 2006 the games page promised “140+ free games”, and by 2009 there were more than 200.

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Almost every game was built around a show. In October 2006 the featured games included Big Fat Awesome House Party, starring the cast of Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends and billed as “our biggest game ever”, with a list of others such as Operation RAIL, Grimball and Hall of the Wild. In July 2008 the front of the section had Cul-De-Sac Smash II: Wheels of Fury, Johnny’s Deep Sea Snapshots and the Ben 10: Alien Force Game Creator. The shows of the decade were all in there somewhere: Codename: Kids Next Door, The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, Ed, Edd n Eddy, Dexter’s Laboratory, The Powerpuff Girls, Samurai Jack and Ben 10.

If your computer wasn’t up to date, you got a line of text instead of a game, “This Flash movie requires a newer version of the Flash plug-in”, and a polite instruction to go and fetch one from Macromedia’s website.

Not everything was free. Cartoon Network also sold Power Play games, longer downloadable games for the PC. In 2006 Tag-Team Titans cost $19.95, and the advert made a promise that sounds touching now: “Play offline. Play full-screen. Play for keeps!” By 2008 the pitch was a free demo first, then “buy and own it forever!”

Who made the Cartoon Network games?

Some were made by Cartoon Network’s own web team and some by outside studios, and the network went looking for new ones. In 2004 and 2005 it ran a competition called Project Goldmaster alongside the Independent Games Festival. The prize was the chance to make a Power Play game for the website.

The first winner was Flashbang Studios, a young independent studio whose game for Adult Swim, Sealab 2021: Sweet Mayhem, launched on AdultSwim.com in November 2004. The 2005 competition offered characters from Codename: Kids Next Door, The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy and Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends. “We know our audience loves games as much as we do,” said Paul Condolora, who ran Cartoon Network New Media.

What was the Ben 10 game creator?

It was the best idea the site ever had. Instead of just playing a game, you built your own Ben 10: Alien Force level, posted it, and played other people’s. When Cartoon Network redesigned its site in October 2009, it said the game creator had been played more than 630 million times, and fans had made more than 4.6 million games with it. That autumn a Star Wars: The Clone Wars game creator joined it.

The same announcement gives a snapshot of the site at its peak: more than 5 million unique users a month in the US, more than 200 free games, and just under 2 billion game plays in 2008.

What was FusionFall?

FusionFall was Cartoon Network’s own online world, and for a few years it was the big one. Developed by Grigon Entertainment, it opened in January 2009, with a boxed retail version at $19.99 from 13 January. You made your own character and fought off an alien invasion alongside more than 50 Cartoon Network characters, redrawn in an older, anime-style look. Familiar places such as the Cul-de-Sac, the Tree House and Foster’s were all there to explore, and tiny collectable versions of the stars, called Nanos, followed you about and gave you powers.

In April 2010 it became free to play, with new missions for Generator Rex and Ben 10: Ultimate Alien.

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It didn’t last. FusionFall ran from 2009 to 2013. Fans later ran their own unofficial servers, and in April 2020 Cartoon Network sent them a copyright takedown, which closed those too.

What happened to Cartoon Network games?

Some went years before Flash did, FusionFall among them. The rest faded out with Flash, and then the site went too. The games section stayed open long after Flash was gone, but it filled with newer games for newer shows. In May 2024 the US page listed 51 games, for Teen Titans Go!, The Amazing World of Gumball, We Bare Bears, Craig of the Creek and the like. Flash itself had ended long before: Adobe stopped supporting Flash Player after 31 December 2020 and blocked Flash content from 12 January 2021.

Then Warner Bros. Discovery closed the US website. As of 8 August 2024, cartoonnetwork.com sent visitors to its streaming service, Max. “We are focusing on the Cartoon Network shows and social media where we find consumers are the most engaged and there is a meaningful potential for growth,” a spokesperson said. By October 2025 the old games address was pointing at Cartoon Network’s channel page on HBO Max.

The UK site held on a little longer. In May 2025 cartoonnetwork.co.uk still promised “hundreds of free games for kids” and even had a category called Flash Games. By August 2025 its games address sent you to Cartoon Network UK’s YouTube channel.

What were the Nickelodeon games?

Nick.com had just as big a games section, sorted by show. In October 2006 its games page listed dozens of shows, from SpongeBob SquarePants, The Fairly OddParents, Danny Phantom, Jimmy Neutron and Avatar: The Last Airbender to Invader ZIM, Rugrats and Hey Arnold!

In 2004, a kids-only spin-off of the site offered games such as SpongeBob’s Jellyfish Shuffleboard, The Fairly OddParents Big Superhero Wish Game and My Life as a Teenage Robot Techno Tennis. Younger children had Nick Jr.’s own site, whose matching spin-off had Dora’s Super Silly Costume Maker and Blue’s Matching Game.

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Nickelodeon also bought other people’s games. By the start of 2007 it owned the casual games sites Shockwave.com and AddictingGames.com and the virtual pets site Neopets. On 30 January 2007 it opened Nicktropolis, its own virtual world, where you made an avatar and wandered between areas such as the Pier, a gaming zone, and Nicktoons Boulevard. In March 2008 Nickelodeon said it would add 1,600 more Flash games across its sites, which already held some 5,000 games and reached 20 million users a month.

What happened to Nickelodeon games?

Nick started building games for phones early. In July 2013 it opened an HTML5 games hub for phone browsers, with 15 games from shows such as SpongeBob SquarePants, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Legend of Korra. “As one of the first kids’ networks to develop games in HTML5, Nickelodeon is committed to making our games and content available to our audiences wherever they are,” said its senior vice president of digital, Matthew Evans.

Then, for a while, the games left the website altogether. By March 2019 the games page was titled “Game Apps and More from Nickelodeon”, and under each game it said “You can download here”. Browser games came back to nick.com in 2022: by September that year the page was offering SpongeBob Run, Nickelodeon Lanes, The Loud House: Survival of the Loudest and others, with Play Here buttons.

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Can you still play the old Cartoon Network and Nick games?

Not officially, as far as we can find. Neither network has put its old Flash games out again, and their own sites no longer carry them. Cartoon Network’s US and UK games pages now send you to HBO Max and YouTube.

Nickelodeon is the one that still has games in your browser. In October 2026, nick.com’s games address led to an “All Games” page with SpongeBob, PAW Patrol and Peppa Pig games. They’re free and they run without Flash, but they’re new games, not the ones you remember.

Where can you play old Cartoon Network and Nick games?

The honest answer is that the official places are gone. Copies of many of these games are scattered around the web, uploaded by people who don’t own them, and we don’t link to those.

The one place we’ll point you to is Flashpoint Archive, a volunteer preservation project that has been saving web games and animations since December 2017, and has rescued more than 200,000 of them. You install its launcher on your own computer and play from there.

Don’t download anything that calls itself Flash Player, whatever a page tells you. Adobe’s own end-of-life page told everyone to uninstall it, and the grey “Adobe Flash Player is blocked” box was the last thing many of us saw of these games. For the games whose makers did keep them going, see The best old Flash games and where to play them now, and for the bigger story, What happened to Flash games?

Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon games: a timeline

• 2004: Cartoon Network’s site records 1.6 billion game plays, and Flashbang Studios’ Sealab 2021: Sweet Mayhem, the first Project Goldmaster game, launches on AdultSwim.com in November.
• 14 July 2004: Nickelodeon opens kids-only spin-offs of nick.com and nickjr.com, with their own games.
• October 2006: cartoonnetwork.com promises “140+ free games”.
• 30 January 2007: Nicktropolis opens.
• 18 March 2008: Nickelodeon announces 1,600 more Flash games across its sites.
• January 2009: FusionFall opens.
• October 2009: Cartoon Network redesigns its site, with more than 200 free games and the Ben 10: Alien Force Game Creator past 630 million plays.
• April 2010: FusionFall goes free to play.
• 2013: FusionFall closes.
• July 2013: Nickelodeon launches an HTML5 games hub for phones.
• March 2019: nick.com’s games page points to apps instead.
• 12 January 2021: Adobe starts blocking Flash content in Flash Player.
• September 2022: Browser games are back on nick.com.
• 8 August 2024: Cartoon Network’s US website closes and redirects to Max.
• By August 2025: Cartoon Network UK’s games page redirects to YouTube.

There’s more from the same era in The Playground Years.

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