verification . please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . unsourced material may be challenged and removed . september 2010 learn how and when to remove this template message popcap games type subsidiary industry video game industry founded 2000 ; 16 years ago 2000 1 headquarters seattle washington united states key people john vechey brian fiete jason kapalka products list of popcap games revenue us 100 million 2010 2 number of employees about 400 2 parent electronic arts website www.popcap.com popcap games is an american video game developer and publisher based in seattle washington united states and is a subsidiary of electronic arts . it was founded in 2000 by john vechey brian fiete and jason kapalka and since october 2013 employs about 400 people . 2 most of popcap s games are available for a fee and are purchased through origin or steam . popcap s flagship title bejeweled has sold more than 50 million units 3 across all major platforms . popcap games are available for microsoft windows mac os nintendo ds nintendo dsi wii xbox xbox 360 playstation 3 playstation 4 zeebo cell phones pdas ipod classic ios android blackberry tablet os windows phone mobile devices and in web browsers . contents 1 history 2 games 2.1 awards 2.2 music 3 popcap games framework 4 references 5 external links history edit popcap games was founded by john vechey brian fiete and jason kapalka in 2000 . they wanted to create games primarily by learning from other internet gaming sites . their first game was bejeweled a huge hit gem swapping game which was supported on all major platforms and awarded by computer gaming world hall of fame in 2002 . the company expanded in 2005 with the acquisition of sprout games a seattle based casual games developer company like popcap games founded by james gwertzman . sprout games is the creator of the game feeding frenzy . the sprout team helped popcap to make a sequel to the hit game feeding frenzy 2 shipwreck showdown with gwertzman becoming the director of business development at popcap . in early 2006 popcap international was opened based in dublin ireland working on product localization mobile games development marketing sales and business development . on august 22 2006 it was announced that popcap games had entered into an agreement with valve corporation to deliver popcap s games via steam valve s content delivery system . beginning on august 30 2006 17 of popcap s products became available via steam . in keeping with popcap tradition each popcap game offered via steam is available for a free trial period as well as for purchase . 4 popcap began another round of expansion in july 2007 by buying other casual game developers including the creators of an online consumer portal spintop games . one week prior the company acquired the chicago based development house retro64 founded by mike boeh which is best known for their retro arcade action and puzzle titles . after these acquisitions the popcap logo was rebranded dropping the games portion . popcap s premium games list on their website are now mixed with other games from other developers distributors . on april 5 2011 popcap announced the creation of a new subsidiary 4th and battery started in order to create edgier games . 5 their first creation was the game unpleasant horse . on july 12 2011 electronic arts announced it was acquiring popcap for 650 million with an additional 100 million stock option . 6 since the acquisition by ea the state of 4th and battery is unknown ; its website redirects back to the main popcap site . on august 21 2012 popcap fired 50 employees in north america in a move to address a shift to mobile and free to play games and evaluated ceasing operations of its dublin studio . 7 the dublin studio was closed on september 24 2012 . 8 games edit main article list of popcap games most games run both with or without hardware acceleration are usually controllable with the mouse and often feature multiple game modes based on variations of the core game play . one example of a notable game on popcap is typer shark . released in 2003 typer shark is designed as an educational typing game which is primarily used for teaching young children how to type but also a game that benefits teenagers and adults by improving their typing skills and increasing their words per minute . the game typically offers a 90 day trial after which a full download can be purchased . the premise of the game consists of the individual typing as a scuba diver and as the player dives deeper into the ocean there are words and letters written on sharks swimming towards the player ultimately trying to eat them . the keyboard acts as your weapon so to zap and kill the sharks the player must correctly type the words and letters they see on the sharks body . the faster you type the quicker the shark will be zapped to death . the player is rewarded with jewels and both accuracy and speed medals . during the introduction the player can choose easy normal hard expert or x treme levels and it shows them a treasure map of the different challenges they will encounter . as the scuba diver the player has 3 lives and after every round statistics are kept track of and displayed for the player to monitor their progress and improvement . typer shark may be seen as drill and practice because of the repetitive typing tasks but there are various levels and different challenges so it also works for conceptually understanding how a keyboard works and making people more aware of how to use the keys and where they are located . typer shark records high scores tracks typing stats and displays your accuracy and speed level to view your progress . some top tags in the reviews on different game websites described typer shark with the key words challenging addicting fun and strategic . other reviews from the steam website stated that typer shark is a stimulating and interesting game to introduce and improve typing skills . many reviews are often adults that reminisce on the game because they remember playing it in school but still continue to play to improve their typing skills as adults . awards edit according to the official company website popcap games has won at least 25 industry awards including computer gaming world hall of fame status for bejeweled . music edit games generally use tracker music as soundtracks often written by future crew members jonne valtonen and peter hajba . some exceptions are talismania which featured an ethnically greek soundtrack with a modern twist peggle which featured an easy listening soundtrack as well as a choral passage of beethoven s ninth symphony both by somatone productions noah s ark which featured an ogg vorbis stream and plants vs. zombies which featured an original soundtrack composed by laura shigihara . popcap games framework edit popcap games framework official name was sexyapp framework is the name of a video game development kit for c released by popcap games . it is designed to let programmers easily and quickly create popcap style games and is part of their developer program that encourages game creators to distribute their finished games through popcap games . the popcap games framework is licensed under a proprietary free license . the popcap framework powers casual games such as popcap s own bejeweled and sandlot games cake mania . the framework only officially runs on the microsoft windows platform although some games have been ported to the mac using proprietary conversions of the framework . a community supported effort is under way for porting the framework to linux as well . one such effort is tuxcap 9 which additionally makes use of pycap 10 wrapping the sexyapp api in a python layer . a community forum for the popcap framework 11 has helped developers and improved on the last official release of the framework . as of july 27 2009 popcap have finished their developer program . community efforts to modernise the framework have culminated in sexykanji 12 which wraps the sexyapp api around the gogii games engine formerly the kanji engine introducing support for new features and many different platforms including android and ios iphone ipad . the gogii games engine is a commercial engine so developers must pay to acquire a license to use it unlike the original popcap framework . references edit popcap games about . www.popcap.com . a b c brian crecente january 1 2011 . ten years of popcap games . kotaku . gawker media . retrieved december 29 2010 . leigh alexander 2010 02 10 . bejeweled sales hit 50 million . gamasutra . retrieved 2010 02 10 . popcap games now available via steam . 2006 08 30 . alexander sliwinski 2007 04 05 . popcap launches edgy 4th & battery label . joystiq . retrieved 2013 04 27 . ea to acquire popcap games press release . electronic arts . 2011 07 12 . retrieved 2012 06 21 . electronic arts popcap games cuts jobs may close office . businessweek . august 21 2012 . archived from the original on 25 august 2012 . retrieved august 22 2012 . ea closes popcap dublin . develop . september 24 2012 . retrieved september 24 2012 . tuxcap games framework free development software downloads at . sourceforge.net . retrieved 2013 07 07 . quirky little games for your edification . www.farbs.org . retrieved 2013 07 07 . the unofficial popcap framework developer board . forum.fischeronline.de . retrieved 2013 07 07 . http www.sexykanji.net external links edit popcap games website popcap japan website popcap world korean sites on ncsoft v t e electronic arts employees founder trip hawkins current larry probst executive chairman andrew wilson ceo peter moore coo patrick s derlund evp will wright joe ybarra former bing gordon don mattrick jeff green ralph guggenheim robin hunicke greg kasavin john riccitiello subsidiaries current bioware criterion games ea canada ea dice ea mobile ea montreal ea salt lake ea singapore ea sports ea tiburon european integration studio firemonkeys studios ghost games maxis motive studios popcap games the sims studio visceral games defunct bullfrog productions danger close games ea black box ea bright light ea chicago ea phenomic ea uk kesmai mythic entertainment origin systems pandemic studios playfish victory games westwood studios franchises army of two battlefield bejeweled burnout command & conquer crysis dead space dragon age fifa madden nfl mass effect medal of honor mirror s edge nba live ncaa football need for speed nhl plants vs. zombies rock band simcity spore ssx the sims related ea access origin pogo.com frostbite list of acquisitions by electronic arts list of electronic arts games category v t e popcap games bejeweled series main series bejeweled 2 3 spin offs twist blitz stars bookworm series bookworm adventures feeding frenzy series feeding frenzy feeding frenzy 2 shipwreck showdown peggle series peggle nights 2 plants vs. zombies series plants vs. zombies 2 it s about time garden warfare garden warfare 2 zuma series zuma revenge other games popcap alchemy astropop big money bonnie s bookstore chuzzle dynomite gyromancer hammer heads heavy weapon iggle pop insaniquarium noah s ark pixelus pizza frenzy rocket mania talismania tiptop typer shark venice 4th and battery unpleasant horse retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title popcap games & oldid 738164738 categories video game companies of the united statesbrowser based game websitescompanies established in 2000video game development companieselectronic artspopcap gamessoftware companies based in seattlehidden categories articles needing additional references from september 2010all articles needing additional referencespages using infobox company with unsupported parameters navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia