Peggle Perfection Requires A Dash Of Madness

Have you ever played Peggle? If not, it's one of the more surprisingly addictive titles to come out of the PopCap Games stable of brightly colored "casual" games. Even if you have played Peggle—or Peggle Extreme, the free Half-Life themed version that's included in The Orange Box—an 18 million point round might not blow your hair back. So when watching this clip, via Waxy, the first minute or so might not impress. The fanatical, bordering-on-insane planning, however, as demonstrated moments later, might. It also might frighten.

Casual is Complex: The PopCap Model

PopCap: UK Workers Should Play Online At Work

PopCap, paragon portal of the casual clickfest, wants desk jockeys in the UK to spend more of their office hours playing casual games online. To support its efforts, the company is claiming that banning personal internet use in the office is costing UK businesses £4 billion ($7.85 billion) a year.

Workers unable to visit social networking, dating, shopping and gaming sites on office time, PopCap said, have reduced staff efficiency and morale. The casual games company even brought in a Goldsmiths University Psychologist, Dr. Chamorro-Premuzic, to study the impact of personal internet bans on employee productivity.

Plus, the report suggests, the 71 percent of employees who sneak online to mess around when they're not supposed to probably feel "frowned upon," even resentful of their workplace. 47 percent of PopCap's survey subjects said they felt their boss would rather they take a five minute "fag break" (that's cigarettes, guys) than surf online.

So, demoralized UK workers, PopCap apparently calls on you to help your economy by playing some Peggle on the job! Steely-eyed supervisors relent!

Galaga, Pac-Man, Bejeweled and Others Coming To iPhone

Yes, yes, everyone is jumping on board the iPhone bandwagon, and since I own an iPhone that makes me very, very happy.

The latest recruits include Namco, PopCap and THQ with talk of Pac-Man, Galaga, Bejeweled, Zuma and Peggle coming to the device.

"We're very excited about Apple's new SDK and reaching every iPhone user through the new App Store," said Scott Rubin, vice president, Sales and Marketing, Namco Networks. "We can't wait to show off great new versions of arcade classics like PAC-MAN and Galaga that use the revolutionary features of the iPhone and iPod touch."

...

"Apple's become an important mobile game platform with the iPhone SDK," said Jason Kapalka, co-founder and Chief Creative Officer, PopCap. "The new SDK gives us the tools to innovate and reinvent games like Bejeweled, Zuma and Peggle. With the new App Store we can reach every iPhone and iPod touch user on the planet."

...

"The iPhone is the mobile platform game developers have been dreaming of," said Scott Zerby, vice president, THQ Wireless. "We're looking at how we can use the iPhone's innovative user interface to create new game experiences for our big brand entertainment partners that consumers love."

All I gotta say is that they better be making use of some of the iPhone's neat capabilities and not just porting it straight over from a cell phone build. That and why the hell haven't we heard about Puzzle Quest? Don't make me email you Infinite Interactive!

iPhone SDK Downloads Top 100,000 [Apple]

Peggle...For The DS! [UPDATE]

Yes, Peggle is coming for the DS. Don't act so surprised. John Vechey, co-founder of Peggle devs PopCap, announced the title at the Casual Connect conference, which is being held in Amsterdam. That should be all you need to know! Peggle, for the DS. If you're wondering about a release date or price, sorry, they don't have that yet. If you're wondering what all the fuss is about, consider that Peggle on the PC has now been downloaded over 10 million times.
PopCap's Peggle bouncing over to DS [Pocket Gamer]

UPDATE: PopCap's Greg Canessa has issued the following statement:

We have ambitious plans for many of our titles including Peggle, and are eager to bring its peg-popping pleasures to as many appropriate platforms and devices as possible. But Nintendo has not approved this product, we have not signed a developer to port Peggle to DS, and we have not green lighted this project.

PopCap on Unicorns, Casual Market, and Making Games

While PopCap games aren't my personal vice (I much prefer snorting coke off pleather escort boots), there's no question that they are a force in the PC/Mac casual gaming market. Now as part of a holiday sale, they've dropped the prices on their games by 50% until January 3rd. A kind of neat option they're offering is an emailable gift certificate. And if you can get over the looking like a thoughtless jerk to your spouse part, the certificate allows the recipient to choose from all 48 of PopCap's games with the option to play demos before purchase. I'd order one up for my mom, but since I gave her Puzzle Quest last Christmas her life has never been the same.

PopCap [via opposablethumbs]

Popcap Pops Peggle to iPod

PopCap Tests Retail Console Waters

"We're very excited to be bringing some of our top million-selling casual games to consoles via retail shelves, and eager to see how consumers respond," said Glenn Drover, Director of Retail Sales at PopCap. "We've had tremendous success at retail with the PC versions of many of our games, and these new collections for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 2 are priced even more aggressively, so they should be a hit with holiday shoppers."

Casual Gaming Bring Generations Together

Finally, Bejeweled On Your iPhone

Xbox Live Arcade Chief Leaves for PopCap

Heavy Weapon Hits Live Wednesday

Hands On: Heavy Weapon For XBLA

Casual Games Getting Big Budgets

Bejeweled Lottery Ticket

PopCap Teams Up With Square-Enix

PopCap, Games For Health Team for Research