If you’ve ever swapped a gem in one of the popular Bejeweled puzzlers, then you’re well aware of its addictive "match 3"-style gameplay. From computers to consoles, handhelds to smartphones, social networking sites and even airplane seatbacks and scratch-off lottery tickets, the franchise has appeared pretty much everywhere. But there is a lot more to learn about Bejeweled -- which is currently celebrating its 10th anniversary -- than just matching gems.
1. It's a money machine. Developer PopCap Games originally tried to sell the rights to Bejeweled for just $40,000 -- but found no takers. Instead, they decided to self-publish. When Bejeweled debuted in 2000, it was initially a browser-based game titled Diamond Mine, and the beta testers were the moms of the three co-founders. That turned out to be a smart move: according to PopCap, the game has generated well over $350 million dollars, establishing itself as one of the most lucrative game franchises ever. Despite it being a decade old, the game continues to sell somewhere in the world every 4.3 seconds.
2. It can be beaten. Barely. In fact, only one person has ever officially completed Bejeweled 2: Mike Leyde, a 57-year old steel contractor from Riverside, California. In 2009, Leyde achieved the highest score possible -- 2,147,483,647 points -- after playing for more than 2,200 hours. Mike first discovered Bejeweled in 2005 when his son Brian bought him the game. Bejeweled 2 wasn’t designed to show a higher number than this, so his game simply showed a blank where the score would go.
3. It's voiced by its maker. The deep-talking narrator in Bejeweled 2 – you know the one – is none other than Jason Kapalka, Bejeweled’s designer and chief creative officer of PopCap, who founded the company in 2000 along with Brian Fiete and John Vechey. Kapalka’s voice was modulated to make it sound deeper in the game. Prior to PopCap, Kapalka spent five years at casual game site pogo.com, and before that, the Canadian was a columnist for Computer Gaming World magazine.
4. It spawned hundreds of imitators. Bejeweled is considered the original "match 3" game, though more than 200 knock-offs have surfaced over the years. While there are a few official sequels – namely, Bejeweled 2 (2004), Bejeweled Twist (2008) and Bejeweled Blitz (2009) – PopCap has rarely “reskinned” the game for promotional purposes. One was for the animated feature film The Ant Bully, and another time for -- believe it or not -- the Pork Advisory Board, featuring pork products on the board instead of colored gems.
5. It's sociable. Bejeweled Blitz, the 1-minute Facebook adaptation of the game playable on both computers and iPhone/iPod Touch, attracts more than 3 million players per day. Collectively, that fan base spends half a billion hours per year playing at the rate of about 100 million games per day. That means plenty of tips, too: more than 2,000 videos of Bejeweled Blitz strategies, tricks and cheats have been uploaded to YouTube.
According to Nintendo boss Reggie Fils-Aime, entering the next gaming dimension might not be a great idea for all players.
Speaking to Kotaku during the E3 2010 conference, Fils-Aime warned that very young children shouldn't play 3D systems -- including the company's upcoming 3DS handheld, which boasts full 3D visuals without requiring special glasses.
"We will recommend that very young children not look at 3D images," he told the site. "That's because, [in] young children, the muscles for the eyes are not fully formed... This is the same messaging that the industry is putting out with 3D movies, so it is a standard protocol."
Fils-Aime believes children "under seven" should avoid using 3D technology. That could prove problematic for Nintendo, a company bursting with kid-friendly brands destined to act as showpieces for their 3D-enabled portable. The good news? The 3DS isn’t solely a 3D device; players can use a slider to toggle the intensity of the 3D effect. Turning 3D "off" renders the image in traditional flat 2D.
The 3DS, which is due out by March of next year, enjoyed rave reviews by the lucky few who experienced it firsthand at E3. Nintendo hopes the device will ultimately take the wind out of 3D leader Sony's sails, although Sony boss Kaz Hirai considers the 'naked eye' portable to be "imprecise."
Frontierville, a Wild West-themed social game that takes cues from previous Zynga hits like Farmville and Treasure Isle, was the fastest growing game on Facebook last week, according to Inside Social Games. It gained almost 5.5 million new users over the course of the week, taking it to some 6.3 million players: a relative minnow in Facebook terms, but nevertheless an impressive debut.
Frontierville is one of Zynga’s first major launches since its 2009 hire of seasoned video game designer Brian Reynolds, celebrated for his role in classics like Civilization II and Alpha Centauri. He describes it as “Oregon Trail meets Little House on the Prairie meets FarmVille,” and it’s a much broader experience than past Zynga games. As you play, you can gradually acquire a whole family of controllable characters, building a barren wasteland into a bustling frontier town. And a new “reputation” system encourages players to interact socially with each other rather than just boasting about their achievements on their Facebook pages. You can even use some of the materials you gather to manufacture other, better goods, in a mechanic players of online role-playing games will recognize all too well.
Social gaming had been one of the biggest growth areas in video games, but the category has recently fallen on hard times. Numerous top Facebook games have taken a steep dive in popularity over the last few months.
It's not just the everyday ebb and flow of users between games, either. According to numbers from Inside Social Games, 23 of the 25 biggest Facebook games lost monthly average users in June, some by as much as 20%.
For many games, it's the second month of decline, and although many are gaining ground in daily average users -- indicating the players that remain are increasingly engaged with their games -- the news is sure to have furrowed brows in social game development boardrooms around the world.
Industry observers point to Facebook itself for the declining numbers, specifically to a change the company made in March around social game notifications. Players are no longer hit with constant updates on every tiny happening in these games, a move Facebook described at the time as an effort to make interactions "more streamlined, clear, and less spammy for users."
Most games quickly switched to email notifications, but not all their players have necessarily switched with them. The changes are bound to have reduced the visibility of Facebook games to many players.
But don't expect the games to be going away. At this week's unveiling of Apple's newest iPhone, Zynga -- which owns several of the affected games -- took the wraps off its latest version of Farmville, which will run on the iPhone. Like many news and IM iPhone programs, Farmville will use the phone's push notification system to keep iPhone farmers updated on their farm's development.
Zynga's also rolling out its newest game, Wild West-themed Frontierville, this week. Designed by Brian Reynolds, who gamers will remember for his work on strategy classics like Civilization II, it's been dubbed "Oregon Trail meets Little House on the Prairie meets FarmVille." It's Reynolds' first social game, and a deliberate attempt to reach a more diverse audience than existing social games have achieved. He's hoping as many as five million Facebookers will try the game this week alone.
The surprise decline has largely spared the abundance of smaller Facebook games, many of which continue to post significant gains in daily users. Notable climbers include Zynga's Mafia Wars -- one of the original breakout social networking hits -- and new titles like EA Sports' FIFA Superstars, released to coincide with the coming World Cup.
| Add/Read Comments: 0 |
