PopCap's classic match-three gem puzzler, Bejeweled, is 10 years old today -- and to date it's sold 50 million units, the company says, estimating that altogether half a billion people have played it.
PopCap's classic match-three gem puzzler, Bejeweled, is 10 years old today -- and to date it's sold 50 million units, the company says. The figure includes the original game, plus the Blitz and Twist versions. "Bejeweled has obviously succeeded beyond our wildest dreams," says Jason Kapalka, co-creator of the game and PopCap co-founder and chief creative officer. "When Brian Fiete, John Vechey and I built the game ten years ago, we had no grand aspirations for it or PopCap -- we were trying to survive as a company during the depths of the dot-com collapse. Little did we know we'd still be selling copies of Bejeweled a decade later!" In fact, PopCap says it sells a new copy of the game every 4.3 seconds. In the coming year, it plans to add new installments, launch a community-wide Bejeweled Blitz competition and undertake other promotional activities for the original game's anniversary. Bejeweled originally launched in Spring 2000 as "Diamond Mine" -- according to PopCap, it's since seen 350 million downloads, "dozens" of awards and "more than a dozen" different platform adaptations on console, mobile and more. "Between free-to-play online versions across the internet, trial downloads, pre-installs and demo disks, an estimated half billion people have played Bejeweled in one form or another since its introduction," says PopCap.
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