The archive · Games & Play · Product decision · 2014–2020
Jackbox makes the phone the controller — the party game format that took over quarantine
Jackbox put party games on one shared screen and turned every phone into a controller — a room code, no installs, the default game of quarantine 2020.
Jackbox Games
What it had to solve
Jackbox Games wanted living-room party games, but adding players meant buying extra controllers, which people would not do. Its first phone app added download friction, so the studio replaced the controller with a plain web page.
How it works
Jackbox Games' breakthrough was a hardware decision: no controllers. After 2008's You Don't Know Jack revival, the studio tried making a phone app into a controller, but CEO Mike Bilder and CTO Evan Jacover say the download itself was friction. They replaced it with a website — each player opens jackbox.tv in any browser, enters the four-letter room code shown on the shared screen, and their phone becomes the controller.
The format proved itself with Fibbage in 2014. Streamers played it on Twitch and discovered viewers could join the same lobby: see the screen, type the code, and play along from anywhere. That 'audience can become players' property turned a living-room party game into broadcast content years before lockdowns — and into the Party Pack franchise, five games a year since 2014.
When COVID-19 sent everyone home, the format was already perfect for it. Jackbox traffic in March 2020 rivaled or beat its traditional Thanksgiving and New Year peaks, then kept climbing worldwide, and the studio made Drawful 2 free for weeks, giving away over nine million copies. It still shipped Party Pack 7 on schedule in October 2020, and its nine-episode Celebrity Jackbox charity stream raised $1 million for pandemic relief.
Why it lands
- A browser controller means there is nothing to install and no hardware to buy, so the barrier to joining is nearly zero.
- The room code makes the game shareable by design: anyone who can see the screen can play, in person or across the world.
- Because the game is about talking and bluffing, it works over Zoom, and streamers could turn their audience into players.
- One shared screen plus private phones lets strangers keep secrets from each other — the structural core of Fibbage and Quiplash.
What it did
In March 2020, as lockdowns began, Jackbox traffic rivaled its Thanksgiving peaks and kept climbing worldwide. The studio gave away over nine million copies of Drawful 2, shipped Party Pack 7 on schedule in October, and raised $1 million for COVID charities across a nine-episode celebrity stream.
What you can take
Remove every barrier to joining — no controller, no install, just a room code — and the audience becomes the product; a format built for the living room turned out to be built for the internet too.
Since then
Jackbox became the default remote game night: the company shipped a Party Pack every year, added a Twitch Audience Kit extension so viewers could play along without leaving the stream, and localized games like Quiplash 2 InterLASHional. Party Pack 10 launched in October 2023, still on the same room-code, phone-as-controller idea, and the franchise remains a standard fixture of both in-person parties and streaming channels.
Sources
- How Jackbox's In-Person Party Games Emerged as Remote Hits
- Jackbox Games 2020 Year in Review
- The Jackbox Party Pack 10 – The PAX AUS Interview
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