I arrived at home tonight to find the most peculiar yet creative marketing message from Popcap. Not knowing what it was, I tore it open to examine the contents. It’s a secret message made of pastry. Yes, it’s a box of cookies! Holiday treats made of bejeweled pieces.
How cool, now this is marketing we can eat up! A poster, a press release paper or even plastic figures cannot compare to edible treats. We’re guessing this is all about Popcap’s Bejeweled Twist which arrives soon. Excuse me, but I think I’m hungry….
Read on for Bejeweled Twist press release information
PopCap Prepping New Bejeweled® Title for October Launch
Bejeweled Twist™, First New Installment in Casual Game Leader’s Flagship Franchise in Nearly Four Years, Will Put New Spin on Match-3 Genre
SEATTLE, Washington – September 29, 2008 — PopCap Games, the leading developer and publisher of casual games, today announced that it will be launching the next entry in its flagship franchise Bejeweled® next month. Titled Bejeweled Twist™, the new game has been in development for more than three years and will bring a completely new perspective to the “Match-3” genre of puzzle games that the original Bejeweled pioneered eight years ago. PopCap plans to formally unveil the game at a gala event at Seattle’s Experience Music Project Sci-Fi Museum and Hall of Fame on the evening of Monday, October 27, 2008 – the first such launch event in casual games history. The game will carry a retail price of US$19.95 and will initially be available exclusively via Web download from www.popcap.com.
“As our first and most popular game, we’re particularly dedicated to Bejeweled and wanted to make sure that our next offering in the lineup delivered as much innovation, polish, and sheer pleasure as possible,” explained Jason Kapalka, co-founder and chief creative officer at PopCap. “We spent a long time conceiving and prototyping a totally new direction for Bejeweled Twist. The game will be immediately recognizable to Bejeweled fans, and as accessible as earlier titles in the series, but with far more depth and flexibility. Previous versions of Bejeweled appealed to a pretty broad audience, but we’re confident Bejeweled Twist will offer a compelling experience for everyone, from the novice gamer to the seriously hardcore player.”
From PCs and Macs, PlayStation and Xbox consoles to mobile phones, PDAs, iPods and iPhones, Bejeweled is available for more than a dozen devices and platforms and is the most popular casual game of the 21st century. More than 350 million copies of Bejeweled/Bejeweled 2 have been downloaded from the Web, accounting for nearly a third of the 1 billion-plus downloads of all PopCap® titles. Tens of millions of copies of Bejeweled have been installed on mobile phones worldwide, and more than 25 million units of the game have been sold across all platforms, amounting to over $300 million in consumer spending over the history of the game.
All other details of Bejeweled Twist are currently under wraps and will be disclosed at the game’s gala launch event in Seattle on October 27. Credentialed journalists interested in attending the event should contact PopCap PR (above) to RSVP.
About PopCap
PopCap Games (www.popcap.com) is the leading multi-platform provider of “casual games” — fun, easy-to-learn, captivating computer games that appeal to everyone from age 6 to 106. Based in Seattle, Washington, PopCap was founded in 2000 and has a worldwide staff of over 200 people in Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, Vancouver, B.C., Dublin, Ireland and Shanghai. Its games have been downloaded more than 1 billion times by consumers worldwide, and its flagship title, Bejeweled®, has sold more than 25 million units across all platforms. Constantly acclaimed by consumers and critics, PopCap’s games are played on the Web, desktop computers, myriad mobile devices (cell phones, smartphones, PDAs, Pocket PCs, iPod, iPhone and more), popular game consoles (such as Xbox), and in-flight entertainment systems. PopCap is the only casual games developer with leading market share across all major sales channels, including Web portals, retail stores, consoles, mobile phones and MP3 players.
The game industry, like other entertainment avenues, is a risky business in which publishers have to pick titles they “predict” will do well in the market while passing on other “risky” propositions. While a the good ol’ shooter title will break sales records, the market cannot rely on one genre to carry the business especially considering many of these titles are forgotten within two months from launch. Publishers are going to be forced in expanding their reach to “family games” in order to finance new blockbuster titles.
The idea of designing a “family” game isn’t new to our industry, as a matter of fact, it’s one of the oldest cornerstones of video game entertainment. Pong, Centipede, Pac-Man, Space Invaders and many other classic titles were no doubt playable by the entire family, but things have changed. We’ve evolved from hit titles like Donkey Kong to hit titles like Halo. We migrated from 2D gaming to full 3D adventures and pixel graphics to pixel shaders, but where do we go next?
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