Cash (in the form of pre-paid credit cards) and merchandise prizes are available to U.S. and Canadian residents, excluding Quebec.

Network, Inc, which became Pogo.com was created in 1995 from the merger of two predecessor companies, Optigon Interactive (founded by Daniel Goldman and Janice Linden-Reed) and Outland (founded by Dave King, Bill Lipa, and Alex Beltramo), in conjunction with investment from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers led by partner Vinod Khosla.

The original grand vision of the company was to become a hip, young version of CompuServe - a dial-up service for the MTV generation.

Much of the early hiring was therefore focused on editorial staff for content such as comics and music designed to appeal to that demographic and this was reflected in the grandiose name "Total Entertainment Network."

The service's initial flagship game was Duke Nukem, and SSI's DarkSun RPG found a solid following on TEN.

This undermined the subscription business model of TEN and its strategy to be the exclusive place to play popular PC games online.

With the failure of TEN to reach a critical mass of players, the company needed a new business model and offering to survive.

As Internet advertising was starting to gain traction, the company decided to focus on easy-to-access and easy-to-play browser-based games that would appeal to a broad audience and attract enough unique users to drive an advertising-based business model.

Network acquired Michael Riccio's WebDeck service, which offered Java-based versions of Euchre, Spades, and Hearts that ran in the popular web browsers circa 1998, to accelerate this transition.

Pogo.com entered into a deal to be purchased by then popular web portal Excite@Home Network, also a Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers/Vinod Khosla investment.

[5] Some of their distributions partners included Excite, WebCrawler, Netscape's Netcenter, Prodigy, Geocities, CNET, Snap.com, Road Runner, Go, @Home Network, AltaVista, Sony Station, XOOM, and iVillage.

Perks to subscribers include exclusive members-only rooms, no ad interruptions, graphic emoticons (smileys) (discontinued), private chat, "Pogo Minis" (avatars) (which later became available to free Pogo members), double jackpot spins (discontinued), and access to full content in-game.

In addition to this, subscribers also get access to site wide events and the new Seasons that grant you Pogis (points) for the specific challenges you complete.

On September 25, 2008, on the first anniversary of club Pogo UK, the winning entry in a competition to design a Mini item was released: The very 'English Seaside' attire of 'Rolled-up Trousers' and 'Knotted Hanky'.

Pogo included several Adobe Flash games over the years, such as Monopoly, Authentic Boggle Bash, Yahtzee Party, High Stakes Poker, Dominos, Lottso!, Bingo, Dice Derby, KenoPop, Shuffle Bump, High Stakes Pool, Clue: Secrets & Spies, Squelchies, Poppit Sprint, Boardwalk Sea Ball, Blackjack Carnival, Ride The Tide, Hearts, Quick Quack, Pop Fu, Risk, Swashbucks, Casino Island Blackjack, Perfect Pair Solitaire, Makeover Madness, Penguin Blocks, Flower Daze, Wonderland Memories, Omaha Poker, Harvest Mania, Balloon Bounce, Slingo Blast, Panda Pai Gow Poker, several Slot Games and others were all removed from the site.

Club Pogo members can sign in and play without ads, and an ads-free version of the application can be unlocked with a purchase of $20.99.

Pogo released CLUE: Secrets and Spies, a hidden object game for the iPad in November 2010.