PopCap has announced that the Facebook version of its Bejeweled game, Bejeweled Blitz, has attracted more than five million monthly users.
Five million! 75 per cent of whom are female. So far, more than one billion sessions of the game have been played, too.
Not bad for your first toe-dip into social gaming. The game has been in beta on Facebook for the last six months, but launches officially today.
The game sees people playing one-minute rounds of Bejeweled - which has been a proven hit on mobile - aiming to get the highest score possible.
PopCap's chief creative officer Jason Kapalka says the idea was originally an in-joke. "Whod think anyone would play a casual game with such a frenzied time limit? But it turned out the one-minute timer actually made the game more accessible, as a bite-size entertainment for people busy doing other things on Facebook."
Meanwhile, PopCap's head of online and social projects John Vechey gives as good a summary of the appeal of social gaming as we've seen: "The social nature of the game felt like the missing link. Playing Bejeweled on your own was always fun, but playing with and against family and friends takes it to another level."
PopCap's announcement of the news says that it's "not providing any details" of future plans to launch Facebook versions of games like Peggle, Zuma, Bookworm, Plants vs Zombies and Chuzzle.
We're assuming this is code for 'they'll be launched as soon as we can get 'em live'.
News
Contributing Editor
Stuart is a freelance journalist and blogger who's been getting paid to write stuff since 1998. In that time, he's focused on topics ranging from Sega's Dreamcast console to robots. That's what you call versatility. (Or a short attention span.)
Top Stories
News
5 hours, 42 minutes ago
King and Flexion partner to bring Candy Crush Saga to App Gallery and more alternative app stores
News
6 hours, 37 minutes ago
Zynga’s Game of Thrones: Legends is open for pre-registrations with a July 25th release date
Feature
8 hours, 59 minutes ago
Mobile Mavens: Are today's everlasting, live ops games holding back new innovation?
Feature
10 hours, 27 minutes ago
The key takeaway from Apple's AI-laden WWDC keynote? It's time to buy a new iPhone
Events
Tribeca Games Festival 2024 | North America | Jun 5th |
Steam Next Fest: June 2024 Edition | Jun 10th | |
WN Conference Istanbul 2024 | Jun 11th | |
GamesForum Hamburg 2024 | Europe | Jun 11th |
ESI London 2024 | Europe | Jun 13th |
Game Con Canada (GCC) 2024 | North America | Jun 14th |
Indie Dev Play 2024 | Europe | Jun 14th |
DevGAMM Vilnius 2024 | Europe | Jun 14th |
Popular Stories
Interview
Jun 5th, 2024
A galaxy far, far away… Why Star Wars: Hunters took six years to hit the target
as
Feature
Jun 3rd, 2024