After four years of development, Popcap lit up Seattle Monday night with the launch of Bejeweled Twist sparing no expense to show off their new casual game. It took four years to complete but Popcap isn’t going to release a game until it’s perfect. You won’t play it until they believe it is a game their mom would love.
“Popcap builds games for people, not demographics,” says CEO David Roberts. At the launch the founders, John Vechey, Brian Fiete and Jason Kapalka talked about the casual game market while the “Gem Girls” walked around looking sexy and flashy. Roberts talked about the casual game industry and forecasts it growing to become an $8 billion market — not too shabby for USD $19.99 games.
Downloads of Bejeweled, of course, show no signs of stopping and Popcap explained that 40% of their revenue comes from the old concepts of “Diamond Mine.” Phil Spencer, Microsoft Game Studios’ General Manager, hopped on stage and explained how Microsoft saw Popcap’s vision in their Diamond Mine flash game and suggested a rename to Bejeweled, the founders hated the name but took the big companies suggestion on the change.
Since then, we’ve had many folks attempt to clone and replicate the success in Popcap’s flagship product. Complete with open bar, Gem Girls, camera flashes and glitter this game launch shows the growing casual games industry the great power and momentum of “simple” casual games.
Nothing about Bejeweled Twist is simple. The game play of Bejeweled Twist aggregates all the knowledge Popcap has acquired over the last seven years to design one blockbuster title. From classic Bejeweled to Chuzzle to Peggle, the game takes pieces of each successful title and combines the game play, sounds, graphics and modes into a product that will bring casual gaming to a new level. Bejeweled Twist is going to be the new bar to reach in the industry in terms of addictive game play and a unified casual vision.
Stay tuned for the full review as we get deep into the full features of Bejeweled Twist. Special thanks to Dale North from Destructoid for hanging out for some drinks during the after party.
Only 13.4% of gamers are playing the Wii even though it’s the hottest selling console on the market, showing the fury of the casual gamer it seems. It’s trendy to own a Wii but it’s not trendy to play it; it would be interesting to see how much of the 13.4% is Wii Sports.
I wrote a comment to this podcast instead of playing GTA 5. I should probably get the VGRT reader’s award or something.
@EA CEO
I am in the camp who hates EA by default. I still bear a grudge for them ruining Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath and Marvel Nemesis. It will never change regardless of who runs it. But I do enjoy Battlefield and am looking forward to Battlefront so I am glad that some guy got replaced by another guy and I hope he will take the company in a bold new direction out of the shit pit it’s in.
@Sega buys Atlus
Never heard of Atlus. But I don’t expect Sega to get back in the console race. At the moment the competition is cutthroat in the market. Even an established brand like Nintendo can’t survive. Maybe Sega wants to expand it’s TV add on business. They release little boxes that have bunch of classic Sega games and are plugged into your TV. Either that or they want more MMOs.
@To mediocricity and below
Star Trek had a reboot and I didn’t even notice. I always thought Star Trek needed a reboot. It’s a very long running franchise. But I would prefer a condensed contemporary version of the original series. Not a movie where there is more shooting then actual trecking.
@Your daddie’s credit card can no longer beat Diablo
Just recently I started playing the second Diablo with a friend. I love it. Fast paced combat. Many locations. And loadsa loot. I also played the Xbox 360 demo and it was good. But not as good as 2. Combat was way to slow. On the account of auction house, I completely do not care if it is there or not. I am the type who can spend hours grinding monsters to get a good item (Monster Hunter eats my life)
@QOTW
I will answer last weeks question if it’s all the same. I live by the Russian rule of: “if it ain’t broke -don’t fix it”. I got a DSi because my original DS was falling apart. My Xbox 360 crashes evey 2 hours but I won’t get a new one as I don’t tend to play the same game for more than 2 hours anyway. I only get new hardware if i don’t already have it.
First I wanted to wish Jordan a speedy recovery from his hospital stay, I hope it wasn’t too serious.
It was nice to hear Dan on the show again!
@EA Change: Just googling to see the long history of game series ruined they have built a reputation that may be irreparable at this point. I know I’ll be getting Sims 4 for my wife and this change I hope does bring better games. The reputation is however a well earned one.
@Diablo Auction house: I think the more games that abandon the Pay to Win mechanic the better for quality games.
I’d like to end this with a question to you guys. I’m trying to figure out what is the best console for a family to play on and so far that does seem to be the Nintendo franchise. Xbox and PS seem very heavily focused on FPS and other 3D games. My wife get’s motion sickness from 3d gaming and can only play side scrollers and the like. Also I heard you saying how split screen is dead so I’m wondering what do you do when you have people that want to play the same game on the same console at the same tv?