Free bookworm game on popcap license#

They believed they could do it far more efficiently than these big studios, and hopefully make enough money to keep themselves ticking over.

Free bookworm game on popcap license#

The trio’s aim was to create simple, downloadable games, that they would be able to license back to companies like Microsoft and Pogo (formerly TEN). “In retrospect, probably not the best title,” acknowledges Kapalka, but “the URL was certainly available.” (I strongly recommend against checking it today.) At one point he and Vechey had used it to release a since-abandoned strip poker game, Foxy Poker, and the company was lying dormant. Kapalka had already created a company called Sexy Action Cool, a name inspired by a promotional poster for Robert Rodriguez’s movie, Desperado. Vechey and Fiete eventually got jobs at Sierra Online, but, as Kapalka puts it, all three felt “a little disgruntled with our work environment.” They decided to start their own company. I was given the job of trying to entertain them.” Or as Kapalka recalls, “They were definitely two 19-year-old kids out of an Indiana trailer park. There they met Jason Kapalka, a former games journalist and one of the original members of TEN, who was put to work on ARC. Back then connecting players was tricky, so they approached Total Entertainment Network (TEN), a company that specialised in adding multiplayer modes to popular games. They put together a 2D capture-the-flag concept that Vechey believes was one of the first downloadable multiplayer games. In 1995, Brian Fiete and John Vechey were two college students who were fascinated by the earliest iterations of multiplayer gaming. So how did this happen? How did one studio manage to occupy every corner of gaming, from dial-up downloads to cellphones, from casual gaming portals to Valve’s Orange Box? And how did it go from a three-person indie project to a $650m+ sale to EA? Whether it was Peggle, Bejeweled, Bookworm or Plants Vs Zombies, whether played on mobile, PC, Facebook, console, inside World of Warcraft, or on a Palm Pilot, there was a time around 2009 where PopCap’s games were ubiquitous, when everyone and their mother would have tried PopCap’s products. For about 10 years, there was one name in casual gaming, and that name was almost Sexy Action Cool. More extraordinary, there’s a very good chance everyone you know, including your parents, have played a PopCap game. There is a very good chance you’ve played a PopCap game.