PopCap Acquires Social Games Company ZipZapPlay

PopCap Games today announced its acquisition of Bay Area-based social games company ZipZapPlay, best known for its lineup of Facebook titles. While financial terms of the agreement have not been disclosed, the deal means that the Bejeweled and Peggle creator now has an established social studio in Silicon Valley, and further certifies itself as a leading company in the digital games space. ZipZapPlay was founded by Curt Bererton and Mathilde Pignol, and has found success with its Facebook title Baking Life amongst others. The team will continue to develop social games at its San Francisco studio headed by Bererton and Pignol, and reporting to PopCap vice president of social games development Jon David. PopCap co-founder John Vechey said of the acquisition, "The team at ZipZapPlay is one of the best in the social games space, and combined with our existing group in Seattle gives us the opportunity to dramatically expand our development resources." "While the acquisition creates immediate cross-promotional and operations benefits, this is a strategic move with huge long-term potential; we believe ZipZapPlay can help us further evolve and expand the definition of social games." "We're elated to join the leading casual games developer and help grow PopCap's presence in the social arena," noted ZipZapPlay's Bererton. "PopCap's focus on innovative gameplay and user experience meshes with our own design philosophy. "We can't wait to put our heads together with PopCap and start creating the next generation of games for Facebook and other social platforms." PopCap said that it plans to release four or five social games on Facebook by the end of 2011.