Hitcents

As high school sophomores, Chris and Clinton Mills started Hitcents as an internet advertising company. The company name referred to the policy of paying clients on a cents-per-hit basis. Hitcents was acquired by Houchens Industries in 2003.

The company expanded from its headquarters in Bowling Green, Kentucky to San Francisco in April, 2014 and Los Angeles in 2015.

The business includes mobile game and application development, e-commerce, technology, marketing, creative design, software development, production, automation, self-service checkout, and enterprise resource planning.

In 2007, Hitcents was ranked No. 191 on Inc. magazine's list of the top 500 fastest-growing private companies in the U.S., after growing 1,099.8% over 3 years. Clinton and Chris Mills were also ranked in the top 5 CEOs under 30.

In 2013, the company moved from its offices at Western Kentucky University into a building called "The Wrap" in Bowling Green, which was developed by the Mills family's real estate business.

Hitcents was named one of the best places to work in Kentucky for 2014.

After contractors on the building said the family's real estate business owed them more than $2 million, the county took over the project and the company moved out in August 2015.

Hitcents, as of today, no longer has a game department, and they are not working on game projects, this was announced around 2023–2024 by one of the Hitcents moderators through the official Hitcents Discord Server.

Video game publishing

Hitcents is a video game publisher. In 2018, they published two games developed by other indie video game studios.

A Robot Named Fight

Hitcents published A Robot Named Fight, a 2D action figure game developed by Matt Bitner Games. The game was released on April 26, 2018, for the Nintendo Switch platform. In A Robot Named Fight players are robots tasked with defeating Megabeast while exploring a labyrinth where you can discover artifacts and power-ups.

Don't Sink

Hitcents published Don't Sink for the Nintendo Switch platform on January 3, 2019. Studio Eris developed the game in cooperation with Hitcents. Don't Sink is an adventure, pirate-themed role-playing video game where players explore the high seas, islands, and grow a pirate empire. Players must balance adventure with physical needs for the pirate crew, governing islands and expanding their empire.

Services

Hitcents web development services include web design, programming and maintenance, administrative access, eCommerce, data transfer and website hosting. Hitcents web department has been recognized over the years with numerous awards for their website work including Marcom Awards, Davey Awards and Communicator Awards.