PopCap: EA 'knows that PopCap isn't just a collection of IPs'

When veteran games publisher EA announced that it had acquired Bejeweled Blitz creator PopCap, it was scary to think of what might happen to the Seattle-based casual and critical hit machine. Game company acquisitions have a history of killing creative direction and even axing entire game franchises, so the fear wasn't entirely unfounded.

Even Peggle franchise director Joe McDonagh might have been a little squeamish at the thought of telling his staff that everything was going to be OK. Now that the dust has settled since the buyout, we recently sat down with the Peggle head to get an idea of what things are like at PopCap HQ since EA. There isn't much of anything intense to report, but according to McDonagh, PopCap has had an interesting if profound effect on the publisher.

Now that it's been a few months since the EA acquisition, what has it been like at PopCap--specifically in the studios--since?

I can honestly tell you that nothing has really changed. EA has been incredibly respectful of what they bought. I mean, think about it: They spent $1 billion acquiring this company. They obviously value what we have. They want us to keep on doing what we've always done. So, they've been incredibly respectful, they've really allowed us to carry on doing what we do.

Well, there have been some good things--there have been some interesting things. I would say that our day-to-day hasn't changed, but what has changed is we're certainly part of this big organization. And there are certain opportunities that have opened up to explore some things that we couldn't have done before.

In fact, one of the reasons I was so excited about the deal is that EA has got some awesome teams--some of the best teams in the world. And this was a chance for us to explore working with these people. So, we've had some meetings with the folks at DICE [Ed. Note: creators of Battlefield 3], at Bioware and the folks at Playfish to see what ways that we can work together. And that's been really exciting.
PopCap Zombies letter to EA
Now, EA CEO John Riccitiello has said that the publisher will treat PopCap with a "if it's not broke" approach. Will you say that's largely been the case?

So, when we did the deal, I was really lucky and got an hour with John Riccitiello one-to-one. I asked him, "Look, John. I've got to go back and sell this deal to my teams. And they're gonna ask me, you know, the elephant in the room is what happened to these companies that you bought back in the late '90s, sort of the Bullfrog's and the Origin's and Westwood?" And I said, "I've got to be able to look these guys in the eye and say that that's not going to happen to them."

He was incredibly candid with me about his experiences with the company and said, "Look, we've learned from that. And we've learned that this is about talent, and that if you don't create an environment to keep that talent happy, it's gonna leave." So, I really believe that he was sincere about that, and I believe that EA is sincere in its belief that it's learned its lessons about the importance of talent management. And that, when it looks at PopCap, it knows that PopCap isn't just a collection of IPs [Ed. Note: intellectual properties].

It's essentially about two things: It's about the talent that's here and it's about the culture around the creation of those games. And the thing that I can say about PopCap that's very true is that the people that work here really love the company. That's reflected in the games that we make, and I think that, if you're going to spend a billion dollars on something, you know there's something special there. They have really been true to their word, and I really believe they respect what we do. I couldn't be happier with the way it's gone.

Before PopCap was acquired, it opened 4th & Battery, a label where designers could create and release whatever games they wished. But ever since, no games have been released under that label. Will any more creative outlets come from that label or PopCap proper now that EA is in the picture?

So, this week we're actually going through a thing called PopCamp, which is a thing we do we do every quarter, [and] I think it's quite unique to PopCap. It's basically like Google 20 Percent Time, which is once a quarter the whole studio downfalls all around the world. And people some to studio management and say, "I have this crazy idea and I want to work on this thing, and I got a bunch of people that want to do it, too. Can I do it?" And we're like, "Yeah, you can."

This week is PopCamp, and that has not changed since EA bought us. Further to that point, and even more excitingly, I think that idea is taking hold even within EA. A bunch of studios at EA are actually excited about doing that themselves. And I think that people like Frank Gibbeau, president at EA Games, have seen that, and think, "How can we take some of PopCap's magic and spread it wider inside EA?" Not only have they not clamped down on that creativity and freedom, I think they're sort of trying to take lessons from that and apply it to their own studios.
Peggle in action
Talking about the future, how will PopCap fit into EA's larger social/casual games strategy?

I believe I'm right in saying that EA's kind of core strategy is digital in that on one side, EA wants to grow its digital business and the recognition that the business is growing away from retail goods and more towards online and connected. And secondly that the implicit recognition that the growth, at the moment, is coming from the arrival of hundreds of millions of new gamers coming to vehicles like Facebook and smartphones. Most of those gamers are, by definition, casual gamers. I think that was the driving force behind the acquisition. So, I believe we're kind of right at the heart of what they're doing.

Will PopCap simply create go on creating PopCap games, or will it also have a working relationship with EA's other companies like Playfish or Bioware's social studio?

I personally would love to work with some of those guys. I believe it will happen where it makes sense. I mean, are we suddenly going to turn into a place that starts churning out EA-licensed games? I think you can safely say no, right? But also, where there's some really cool collaborations to work on, we'd be crazy not to. So, we retain to a larger degree our creative independence, but I think there's an opportunity to do some cool stuff with other studios.

PopCap's Blitz games have been largely successful on Facebook. Will we see more of those, and how are those games performing financially compared to the downloadable games?

Social's been tremendously successful for us. But I think, going back to the reasons EA bought us, I think that one of PopCap's core strengths is that we are one of the few publishers and developers in the world that can develop great games across different platforms. If you look at the PC, console, social and phone spaces, we're right up there in the top 10 publishers of all those businesses. Our success has really been based on that cross-platform strategy. So yeah, we will probably focus on a lot of new social games, because it's been successful for us. But we'll also stay true to our cross-platform heritage.

Kindle FirePopCap has been bullish on mobile for some time, too. What are your thoughts on tablets, especially more emergent devices like Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet?

What I can say as the franchise director for Peggle is that I'm very excited for the Kindle Fire. That's something I'm watching very closely, and the reason why is because I think the success of the iPad is really about the store as much as it is about the device. That's why some of the competitors to the iPad have not been as successful is because it's not just about the hardware itself, but it's the consumer experience.

I think the Kindle Fire is a really interesting an exciting device. I'm really excited about tablets. I don't know about you, but it's really interesting. My experience is the change in the relationship I have with my PC over the last year relative to the tablet. You're seeing huge growth in that market, and you're going to see some really interesting, exciting games coming out on that that will really focus on the touch functionality.

Generally speaking, where do you see social games going in, say, the next few years?

I think social games are at the place MMOs [Ed. Note: massively mutliplayer online games] were at before the release of World of Warcraft. I think there are lots of commonalities in the core gameplay loop. A lot of sort of grindy, character growth-driven experiences that are presented in a lot in an unpolished way.

Every game that comes out in the social space is sort of an evolution. I was just playing CastleVille a few weeks ago and really seeing that that's a jump forward from where Zynga was before with a lot of its other games. I'm actually really excited about it, because I think this is the start of something huge.

I'm really excited to start making social games, because it's a chance to get my games into more people's hands. But I also think that it's a rapid-evolving design environment and what we see today is not what we're going to see in two-three years time.

[Image Credits: PopCap, Amazon]

Games.com's 2011 Social Gaming Predictions: How did we do?

Well, not to toot our own horn, but beep-beep. As it turns out, we did pretty darn well, thank you very much. At the start of 2011, the Games.com team sounded off on what we thought would be the top trends of the year. It's been a crazy year of ups and downs, bringing about the most impressive social games to date.

Almost more importantly, 2011 also brought the most interesting developments. And we pretty much called the lot of them. Some might call it back patting, but we call it ... a retrospective. Here's how we did in our predictions for 2011:

The Mobile Explosion
Our list devoted entirely to the best mobile social games of 2011 pretty much sums this one up. Social games broke out on mobile phones in a big way this year, so much so that some traditional companies have either focused huge portions of development to the genre or simply reorganized entirely to that end. Zynga released eight mobile social games this year alone. Boom.

3D is Gonna Take Off
Hey, we never said social gamers were going to dig it. Numerous 3D games came out on Facebook this year ... and none of them did as well as we might have hoped. However, the push for 3D games on social networks hasn't slowed down. Flash Player--what almost all social games are made in--now supports 3D. Better yet, the hardcore games creation tool Unreal Engine now supports Flash, as does the Unity Player. Next year will be different, we promi--wait, never mind.
CityVille
CityVille Shall Fall
Alright, so this one didn't happen at all. But we came pretty damn close, right? We know, horseshoes and hand grenades, but at least The Sims Social threatened Zynga's stranglehold on the social game market. While EA and Playfish's social masterpiece has been on the decline for some time, it still has disrupted much of its competitor's top games.

Interactive Billboards?
We're sad to say this prediction was 100 percent on the money. Unfortunately, branding in Facebook games has only become more popular. Just look at the number of celebrities featured this year in Zynga's top games. At least we've seen some gems that make sense, like Indiana Jones's takeover of Adventure World. Farmers Insurance in FarmVille was clever, too, but an ad is an ad.
Zynga zTag Project Z
The Zynga Network
While it wasn't exactly what any of us expected, Zynga announced Zynga Direct, popularly referred to as Project Z. We figured this would be The Big Z's move to escape Facebook, but the social network appears to be baked right in. This leaves us wondering just what value zTags, similar to Xbox Live's gamertags, will add for its fans much less Zynga.

The Advent of the Advergame
Another sad-but-true prediction, advergames, or branded games as some like to call them, exploded in 2011. Almost every TV series you can think of--from Weeds to The Vampire Diaries--has launched a companion social game. In fact, Game of Thrones will soon get its second tie-in Facebook game. At least that Dexter Facebook game was pretty neat-o.
Order & Chaos Online Facebook
Facebook MMOs Go Big Time
Not quite. We've certainly seen more MMOs come to Facebook in 2011, though none of which were any good nor successful. The combination simply makes sense on paper, but perhaps it's just not a good fit for the more casually-minded social gamer. Now, if you count Facebook-connected MMOs, we were right without a doubt.

The Fat Cats Get Fatter
Zynga acquired some 17 companies since 2010. How's that for fat cats? Hell, EA bought the biggest name in casual gaming for a whopping $1 billion. Looking at the disparity between even the top two Facebook game makers and the rest of the market, according to AppData, we'd say this estimation was about accurate, wouldn't you?

Facebook Gets Friendly Again
While social game makers will never see the viral success they did in early 2010 ever again, Facebook has made strides to support its game creator community. Sure, Zynga has quite the deal with the social network, but the company has made numerous changes to how games are presented on the network for all developers. Although to the dismay of many, Facebook even championed the top games on the platform with the rest of us.

By our math, that's seven out of 10. Not too shabby, huh?

The Top Five Tools for the Facebook Gamer

Look, we both know that you played the hell out of your favorite Facebook games this holiday. (And you lucky bastards that have off all week are probably playing right now.) So, tell us if this is you: You can crack your wrist at will, and it hurts to lift much of anything that isn't, well, a mouse. Also, you've developed quite the hunch and your laptop feels like it's about to blow any minute.

What's that? You scored a ton of gift cards to Best Buy or Amazon because your extended family didn't opt to actually spend brain cells on thinking of a more suitable Christmas present? By golly, you're in luck, because we know of five tools you can spend that not-so-hard-earned plastic on that could help boost your (Facebook) game on the cheap:

A Solid Clicker
If Mr. Ian Bogost has taught us anything, you absolutely need a computer mouse that not only A. can keep up with you, but B. feels comfy underneath your hand, too. And there are plenty of options that won't break the bank. We personally recommend the Microsoft Arc Mouse or the Apple Magic Mouse, as they're most compatible with tools featured later. But more economic options include the Microsoft Wireless Mobile Mouse 3500 or the Logitech Wireless Mouse M305.

Cool It, Will Ya?
We don't know about you, but most Facebook games drive our laptops into dangerous temperature territories. This is because either our machines don't have fancy graphics or that most social games wouldn't take advantage of them anyway. At any rate, a trusty laptop cooler would do the trick to keep your precious FarmVille machine from overheating. We recommend the Targus Lap Chill Mat or the Xpad Laptop Desk, both of which are affordable options.
IMAK SmartGlove
Protect Your Greatest Weapon
Anyone who works with a computer all day can tell you: Carpal tunnel is downright terrifying. So, to fend off that dastardly, seemingly irreversible damage to your wrist, consider picking up a wrist brace. There are several varieties to the modern day gauntlet, but we highly recommend those that include both a splint and some type of padding underneath. In that case, try looking for the IMAK SmartGlove--it's only 15 bucks.

Homedics Massage Chair PadTake a Load Off
Sitting in front of the computer for hours can be not only excruciating on your wrist, but on your back, too. There isn't much to help with that hunch you might have developed without without training yourself to practice good posture. To that end, you can at least make sitting back a little more enticing. How about a lovely, robotic massage every time you sit back? If you're looking to save the most money possible on this buy, look out for the Homedics Massage Chair Pad.

Seriously, Protect That Wrist
Look, we may have been cute or cheeky before, but carpal tunnel is no joke. Seriously, double up on protection and preventative measures if you want to be able to keep at The Sims Social for much longer. Luckily, there isn't much price or guess work to wrist rest-equipped mouse pads. This writer personally prefers the Fellowes Microban mouse pad, but just make sure whatever you buy has a gel wrist rest with an indent for your wrist to, well, rest on.

[Image Credits: Microsoft, Homedics, Edova Innovations]

LA Times gets its game on with Mahjongg and more from Arkadium

Is it about time we trade in the paper's (literally) two-dimensional crossword puzzles for the depth of Mahjongg? The Los Angeles Times seems to be headed in that direction, as the news outlet announced a partnership with New York-based social game maker Arkadium. As a result, Arkadium has already thrown the lot of its hit games on the "Games" section of the LA Times website.

The Arkadium games available on the LA Times Games page include several of its varieties of Mahjongg (including Mahjongg Dimensions), Sparks, Monkey Gems and more. All of Arkadium's games on the LA Times are packed with Facebook and Twitter integration throughout, and the deal was made in hopes of increasing advertising revenue, according to the news organization.

"Given the ever-rising popularity of casual games, adding Arkadium's titles allows us to further engage latimes.com's users and entice previously untapped gaming enthusiasts to visit our site throughout the day," LA Times' VP for Digital Revenue Products Jennifer Collins said in a statement. "We are also creating a previously unavailable opportunity for our advertisers to reach Southern California's casual gaming audience and in the process establish another digital monetization platform."

It's interesting for a social games company to make such a move, and perhaps a terribly smart one. (This is the second of such deals Arkadium has made with a news organization; the first was CNN.) When you think about it, the majority of Arkadium's games cater to the same audience that enjoys crossword puzzles and the like. However, we'll see whether those "casual" gamers will be keen on making the leap from word searches to, say, Monkey Gems.

PlayStation Home renovations make 'a true social game platform'

The idea of PlayStation Home was always an intriguing one: Rather than simply log into a service, go to a more literal destination to connect with your game friends. While Home has enjoyed 24 million users worldwide, Sony hasn't exactly capitalized on that healthy player base. Since its launch in 2008, the company has listened to feedback, and here we have the new Home, "a true social game platform," Sony says.

Now, wait a minute, we thought social games were reserved for social networks or at least connected to them. Well, consider this Sony ... redefining the term "social network." The new core of PlayStation Home is the aptly-named Hub, which serves as the main place for PS3 gamers to socialize in real time through their avatars.

This Hub also provides players with quests that span a number of new free-to-play games and community events through the Activity Board. The Hub, as its name implies, also connects players to the various districts of Home:

        Action District: A gathering place for hardcore gamers, the Action District has a gritty, urban feel reminiscent of a first-person shooter level and provides a direct travel point to action and horror games.
        Sportswalk: The Sportswalk has an exciting outside-the-stadium feel with instant major league sports scores, headlines and highlights and sports-themed games.
        Adventure District: At the launch of the PlayStation Home redesign, the Adventure District will present the Uncharted 3: Fortune Hunter total game integration event, providing a third-person adventure experience including a partial recreation of the Yemen level from Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception multiplayer mode and a cover-based shooting system complete with weapons and gameplay inspired by the hit series. Players can unlock content that can be used in the Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception Blu-Ray Disc game as well as additional PlayStation Home rewards.
        Pier Park: A waterfront boardwalk leads players to carnival, puzzle, outdoor and arcade games. Take a ride on the Pier Park Ferris wheel or visit the arcade for more games.
        PlayStation Home Theater: The PlayStation Home Theater features an ultra-modern architectural design and hosts a wide range of videos programmed specifically for PlayStation gamers, including episodes of Pulse and Qore, trailers and interviews from the PlayStation Blog, and exclusive user-generated videos in the popular Community Theater.
        PlayStation Home Mall: The PlayStation Home Mall is loaded with thousands of pieces of content from some of the most popular games and entertainment in the world. Shop for PlayStation Home games, extravagant personal spaces, costumes, clothing items and other avatar enhancements, and tons more in the redesigned Mall.

PlayStation Home Cogs
But what sounds most "social" to us are the several new free-to-play games strewn across the new Home. These new games are supported by microtransactions, much like the Facebook games you likely play daily. However, most of these games certainly cater more to the traditional gamer, and here's why:

        Bootleggers '29: Set in the seedy underbelly of the Roaring Twenties, this PlayStation Home exclusive first-person shooter found in the Action District pits cops vs. criminals in a Prohibition-era game of Capture the Cask. Boasting real-time multiplayer action, a variety of vintage weapons and unlockable rewards, and the unique ability to play as your PlayStation Home avatar, Bootleggers '29 is a 100% free-to-play game that introduces a classic narrative to the modern shooter genre.
        PlayStation Home Hold 'Em: A series of backroom poker tables hosted in the brand new Sportswalk district, PlayStation Home Hold 'Em squares players off in a no-holds-barred, winner-take-all battle of the bluffs. Only the best of the best will progress to the high stakes tables and collect all the prizes in this free version of the wildly-popular Texas Hold 'Em card game.
        PlayStation Home Sports Trivia: Test your sports expertise against the PlayStation Home community and unlock a series of themed rewards in this massive sports trivia game, found in the Sportswalk. Packed with over 10,000 trivia questions, this game will challenge the memories of even the most die-hard sports fans.
        RC Rally: Build and customize your own remote controlled car and race against friends over multiple courses, performing stunts and tricks and unlocking numerous upgrades along the way. This fast-paced PlayStation Home original game can be found in the new Pier Park.
        Cogs: A 3D version of Lazy 8 Studios award-winning Steampunk puzzle game, Cogs can be found front-and-center in PlayStation Home's new Hub. Build a variety of machines from sliding tiles and unlock exclusive PlayStation Home rewards in this highly-addictive puzzler.

PlayStation Home RC Rally
The new focus for Sony's PlayStation Home is the games, according to PlayStation Home director Jack Buser. However, we're still hung up on this whole "social" thing. (And not only with Home, but with that PS Vita, too.) Whether Home will better connect players through its increased focus on games will be seen starting tomorrow. PlayStation Home launches on the PS3 on Nov. 3, but until then, tease yourself with this trailer.


What do you think of the new PlayStation Home? How about Sony's overall focus on social through both of its leading consoles?