PopCap Games

PopCap Games, Inc. is an American video game developer based in Seattle. The company was founded in 2000 by John Vechey, Brian Fiete and Jason Kapalka; it was acquired by Electronic Arts in July 2011.

PopCap Games, Inc.
Subsidiary
IndustryVideo games
Founded2000 (2000)
Founders
Headquarters
Seattle, Washington
,
U.S.
Key people
Matt Nutt (general manager)[1]
ProductsList of games
Number of employees
~400[2] (2010)
ParentElectronic Arts (2011–present)
Divisions
  • PopCap Vancouver
  • PopCap Shanghai
  • PopCap Hyderabad
  • PopCap Singapore
  • PopCap Sydney
  • PopCap Seoul
Websiteea.com/studios/popcap

History

PopCap Games was founded by John Vechey, Brian Fiete and Jason Kapalka in 2000. They originally incorporated as "Sexy Action Cool", a phrase taken from a poster of Desperado.[3] Their first title was a strip poker game called "Foxy Poker" and was supposed to serve as a revenue stream for their future titles.[3]

Their first game as PopCap was Bejeweled, a gem-swapping game, which was supported on all major platforms and awarded by Computer Gaming World Hall Of Fame in 2002. The company expanded in 2005 with the acquisition of Sprout Games, a Seattle-based casual games developer company like PopCap Games, founded by James Gwertzman. Sprout Games is the creator of the game Feeding Frenzy. The Sprout team helped PopCap to make a sequel to the game, Feeding Frenzy 2: Shipwreck Showdown, with Gwertzman becoming the Director of Business Development at PopCap. In early 2006, PopCap International was opened, based in Dublin, Ireland, working on product localization, mobile games development, marketing, sales and business development.

PopCap began another round of expansion in July 2007 by buying other casual game developers including the creators of an online consumer portal, SpinTop Games. One week prior, the company acquired the Chicago-based development house Retro64, founded by Mike Boeh, which is best known for their retro-arcade action and puzzle titles. After these acquisitions, the PopCap logo was rebranded, dropping the "Games" portion. PopCap's premium games list on their website are mixed with other games from other developers/distributors.

On April 5, 2011, PopCap announced the creation of a new subsidiary, 4th and Battery, started in order to create "edgier" games.[4] Their first creation was the game Unpleasant Horse. On July 12, 2011, Electronic Arts announced it was acquiring PopCap for $650 million with an additional $100 million stock option.[5]

On August 21, 2012, PopCap fired 50 employees in North America in a move to address a shift to mobile and free-to-play games and evaluated ceasing operations of its Dublin studio.[6] The Dublin studio was closed on September 24, 2012.[7]

Games developed
Main article: List of PopCap games

Bejeweled
Main article: Bejeweled (series)
gollark: It should really NOT ignore out of bounds writes but display a warning?
gollark: Too bad.
gollark: Every time memory is allocated.
gollark: A snub dodecahedron.
gollark: I found out how to make imagemagick do it.

References
  1. Brightman, James (May 2, 2017). "PopCap Seattle getting downsized". GamesIndustry.biz.
  2. Crecente, Brian (January 1, 2011). "Ten Years of PopCap Games". Kotaku.
  3. GDC (January 8, 2019), Classic Game Postmortem - Bejeweled, retrieved April 30, 2019
  4. Sliwinski, Alexander (April 5, 2011). "PopCap launches edgy '4th & Battery' label". Engadget.
  5. "EA to Acquire PopCap Games". Business Wire. July 12, 2011.
  6. Edwards, Cliff (August 22, 2012). "Electronic Arts' PopCap Games Cuts Jobs, May Close Office". Bloomberg Businessweek.
  7. Chapple, Craig (September 24, 2012). "EA closes PopCap Dublin". MCV.
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