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.
Don’t feel bad guys, I listen every week. Even though its a bit hit/miss when one of you starts on a rant it’s still a good listen and a good place to get in depth gaming news đ
I’ll try to keep this one more brief then my last post, hopefully bullet pointing will help.
* I’m sorry to hear about your foot, I don’t know what could do that but I guess the one silver lining is you can say you will be a Cyborg now or training up to be the Six Million Dollar man.
* The Bobba Fett game: All I can say is Ouch, that would have made many a SW fan happy. I am in the camp of “meh” about Bobba Fett, I agree with Jordan’s assessment on him.
* Dying Light: I certainly hope that it isn’t another DI, I found that game to be boring very quickly. Just the unending swarm of Zombies can get tedious.
* Watch Dogs: If it requires the install, might as well get it for PC.
* This episode pretty much confirmed my decision to stick with PC and get 3ds for the family to play together. If Atari and Sega can survive on software sales so can Nintendo. I feel that Nintendo has been behind the hardware race really since N64.
* It just seems like a lack of foresight to try to make their previous libraries available on PSN (and same with Microsoft) If they make more money on software then they are losing money from this potential customer that wants to buy games they refuse to have on digital stores. I end up having to buy PC versions or emulate them on PC.
Okay I think I managed to keep that shorter, great episode guys lots of laughs and I told Dan to write you.
Oh and the guy with “yo-yo” weapon was Rygar. he has one of the best themes ever.
I considered using only consonants to shorten the post but then I decided to simply write less đ
* Shout out to Red Letter Media. I love those guys. Mr. Plinkett reviews are awesome and their other shows – Half in the Bag and Best of the Worst are very entertaining.
* Shout out to Dying Light – Polish guys know how to develop great games – remember Robbo?
* Anti-shout out to Ubisoft – at least I’m getting that 1TB drive for the PS4. Maybe it will be enough for Watch Dogs. I’m really looking forward to that game.
http://www.gametrailers.com/side-mission/63162/gabriel-knight-returns-interview-with-jane-jensen
Jane Jensen is getting the license to remake the GK1 game Sins of the Fathers. According to that article it’s because of all the adventure games being crowd funded on Kickstarter. The Adventure series of GK may be getting new life if this remake does well. I’m excited not just for this game but for the fact that Kickstarter games seem to be making a difference now in giving Adventure genre another chance.