Kongregate is shutting down permanently.

On June 30, 2013, Kongregate will shut down permanently and all avatars, games, user profiles and data will be deleted. Kongregate has garnered some controversy, especially among teenagers, for the perception that it opened the door for harassment and bullying, due to the anonymity of the entries. A fight between several students at a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania high school, which started after an argument over Kongregate forums received some media attention in February 2010. On March 12, 2010, a news article, which later turned out to be a hoax said that the creators planned to reveal personal information about their users spread on Twitter and other social networking sites. Kongregate has stated on its forum site that it will never publicly reveal anonymous information of its users. On March 22, 2010, a 17-year-old West Islip, New York high school graduate committed suicide, reportedly after dozens of insulting comments about her had been posted on Kongregate in the days leading up to her death. Soon after, a local grassroots boycott of the Kongregate site began. A further incident of suicide allegedly prompted by bullying on Kongregate was the untimely death of 15-year old Natasha MacBryde, from Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, United Kingdom. The Coroner's inquiry heard that she received anonymous personal abuse via the website on 13 February 2011; this appears to have compounded bullying and teenage anxiety into a level where, having researched suicide methods, Natasha took her own life on 14 February 2011. According to the Daily Telegraph: "Det Sgt Shanie Erwin told the inquest that Natasha was known to have received a short anonymous message containing personal abuse via the Kongregate forum site on February 13. Another incident of bullying involving anonymous harassment on Kongregate was reported on in September 2011. A fourteen year-old student, Jamey Rodemeyer, from Williamsville North High School in New York state, United States, committed suicide on September 18, 2011 after repeated incidents of bullying in real life and on Kongregate. Rodemeyer's "It Gets Better" video specifically calls out Kongregate as contributing to the anti-gay bullying impacting his life. Kongregate participated in a March 2011 White House Conference on Bullying Prevention along with MTV, Facebook, Survey Monkey and others. At the conference Kongregate announced that it is working with The MIT Media Lab to develop new approaches to detect online bullying, and to design interfaces which help prevent it or mitigate it when it does occur. In January 2012, Kongregate also announced that it was a sponsor of the Great American NO BULL Challenge, a nation-wide video contest that encourages teenagers to stand up to bullying.