JUNE 8, 2009 • PopCap Games has one of the best track records in the casual side of the business. Not only has the company thrived online, it’s has successfully taken its top-tier titles such as Bejeweled to PCs, Macs and iPhones.
Only a few years ago such success would have meant little in traditional video game circles where discussion is shaped by core franchises such as Grand Theft Auto, Halo and Metal Gear Solid. Perhaps the success of the more mainstream Wii helped change perceptions around the industry. But it’s a fact that PopCap’s May 2009 release, Plants vs. Zombies, is getting far more universal attention and positive endorsements at launch than any of the company’s previous titles. That makes Plants vs. Zombies the kind of crossover success the casual game segment has been looking for.
The game got a big assist with the placement of its unicorn-themed game Peggle on the Steam distribution network. But the game did not go as-is, it was adapted into Peggle Extreme, full homages to core games like Half-Life that appealed to the enthusiast side of the business. Then when a plucky developer created a mod for World of Warcraft that allowed Bejeweled to played within the MMO, PopCap wasted no time putting the person on the payroll to make the mod a polished commercial product. Now legions of WoW players call up Bejeweled while they wait for their raids to get started, or their PvP battlegrounds to begin. In both cases, thousands of gamers got introduced to PopCap games and liked them.
So DFC got in touch with PopCap chief executive David Roberts, and executive vice president of business development Dennis Ryan, to get the full story on Plants vs. Zombies, and how the title attained its successful introduction.
DFC: From our vantage point, Plants vs. Zombies has gotten the kind of core gameplayer awareness and game press coverage that goes beyond what top notch PR can deliver. Why do you believe this is the case?
R&R: The real answer is in the game design: “accessible and fun for the complete novice but engaging and challenging for even the most die-hard gamer” is our mantra. This sounds simple on paper but in reality it’s a very delicate balancing act. Our studio chiefs walk this fine line daily, striving to infuse each game with as much of the “PopCap special sauce” as possible while remaining focused on the primary goal of making the game as fun as it can possibly be. PvZ has clearly achieved this goal at a level that most games do not. We really believe that really great games can be great games for everyone.
DFC: What is different about Plants vs. Zombies compared to your previous games?
R&R: Well, in many ways PvZ is directly reflective of our aforementioned development philosophy, and in that respect it’s very similar to games like Zuma, Peggle, Bejeweled Twist and even Bookworm. There are millions of “hardcore” players of all of these games, yet the primary customer target remains “everyone.” PvZ is dramatically different in that it brings the strategic aspects to the surface very quickly – at its core it’s a strategy game. Our other major franchises are puzzle games that involve considerable amounts of strategy IF you want to play them strategically. If you want to play Peggle or Bejeweled or others of our games in an “unstrategic” way you can do that and still have tons of fun. If you try to play PvZ without using strategy you won’t get very far.
DFC: Is there a game mechanic with more hardcore appeal, and does that mechanic still resonate with the traditional casual audience? Can you have a game that appeals to both 40 year old women and 19 year old boys?
R&R: Both Plants vs. Zombies and Peggle fit this description very well. We’ve heard from customers of both games who say they love playing them with their children or grandchildren as young as 5 or 6, and we hear from hardcore gamers who want to know where to find the most comprehensive strategy guides and other game tips in order to master the games. Bejeweled Twist is also in this mold, but as yet hasn’t been embraced quite as broadly or visibly by the hardcore set…although a quick glance at the range and number of Bejeweled Twist replay videos on YouTube illustrates just how hardcore some people have gotten with that latest installment of our flagship franchise. Likewise, Bookworm and Zuma straddle the casual/hardcore line very aptly and have sizable followings in both camps.
We’ve finally reached a point in the video games industry where a great casual game like PvZ no longer suffers so much of the Rodney Dangerfield treatment from the hard-core community. Peggle set the table for this, which is really crazy in some sense given that it’s a game with unicorns and rainbows. Mobile phone gaming and the democratization of the platform sector are also big parts of this. In the not-too-distant future, the best games will be the ones that can attract and entertain both 40-somethings and teenage boys, and PopCap plans to be at the forefront of that sea change – in fact, we’re already driving that change.
DFC: Which platforms will Plants vs. Zombies eventually end up on?
R&R: We haven’t decided exactly which platforms PvZ will be adapted for, or exactly when. Given the game’s hugely successful launch only a few weeks ago, the chances of it making its way to other platforms is very good. We always strive to a) only bring our games to platforms that make sense for the game in question; b) optimize each adaptation of each game for each respective platform. But expect our ultimate target list to include iPhone, other Smartphones, and the Xbox 360, all of which have been tremendously successful for PopCap’s other franchises like Bejeweled and Peggle.
DFC: For many years “casual” games have been looked upon with general indifference within the traditional game community. What changed? Your games, or consumer perceptions?
R&R: Both. Our games continue to evolve as our developers become more ambitious and adventurous about game design and development, and the market continues to move in the direction of somewhat simpler, more accessible games that can be played on various platforms. All hardcore gamers have cell phones, and as gamers they want to be able to play on whatever device they have handy. As these core gamers discover the game-playing capabilities of their phones and realize they’re never going to be playing Madden NFL 2009 or Halo 3 on those devices, they naturally seek out games that DO run on phones, and we make the very best mobile titles. I also think some of the influencer perceptions have changed. Three years ago, most hardcore reviewers dismissed Bejeweled as “not a game.” There are dozens of references in the PvZ reviews of PopCap’s other great games like Peggle and Bejeweled, and I don’t think that would have happened three years ago.
DFC: To us, the breakthrough for PopCap has been Peggle Extreme released via Steam, and the Bejeweled add-on for World of Warcraft. Have both of these examples provided you the street credibility that has helped build the crossover potential for Plants vs. Zombies?
R&R: We have to agree that Peggle Extreme was really a turning point in the hardcore sentiment. These examples, along with the recently launched Peggle add-on for WoW, definitely help raise awareness among hardcore gamers and give them comfortable opportunities to experience our games in more familiar settings, definitely a kind of street cred we didn’t have a few years back.
We’ll continue to do things like this not only because they’re valuable to us from a marketing standpoint but also because the majority of our developers are hardcore gamers at heart and thus have great affinity for the best of the hardcore games on the market. We’re still waiting for a Blizzard or Valve to come ask if they can put some of THEIR games inside one of ours though.
DFC: What was different about Peggle Extreme compared to standard Peggle? What did you learn?
R&R: Well, Peggle Extreme is really a sort of “mash-up demo” of Peggle, so it doesn’t compare directly to the full Peggle game. Further, Peggle Extreme was expressly intended to appeal to the sensibilities of the hardcore gamer, and this is reflected in each level with sounds and imagery from Valve’s Half-Life franchise. So Peggle Extreme could be viewed as a bit of a missing link – it was the introduction to Peggle for many hardcore gamers, and kind of eased them into the idea that this casual game mechanic could be the source of some seriously hardcore, skillz-based gameplay.
DFC: Dave, you have said that Plants vs. Zombies is the kind of game that would not have been made by a traditional publisher. Why is that the case?
R&R: Hardcore developers now live in a world where it’s becoming prohibitively expensive to try something new and unproven, whether thematically or with game mechanics. That’s why so much of their revenue comes from sequels and proven game mechanics. You could argue that PvZ was a proven mechanic (tower defence), but it’s really a lot more than that. And the imagery and overall product risk would have been huge if this thing were to manifest itself as a $10 million hard core game. We knew that given a really talented product team, and for three years the game just kept getting better and better until it was ready. I don’t think there are many companies that have that kind of patience with game development
DFC: How long did it take to produce Plants vs. Zombies? Did the title require a larger budget and more staff to create than games like Peggle?
R&R: Plants vs. Zombies took more than three years from concept to completion. Peggle took about the same, but for different reasons. Each had a small team devoted to it, about three to five people. Obviously more people touch the game as it nears the finish line, providing all sorts of critical support to make the game ready for general consumption.
DFC: What has been the response to Plants vs. Zombies internationally? Where is the game strong, where has it not caught on?
R&R: It’s a bit too early to make that call, since some regions started offering the game as much as a week later than North America and the U.K. So far, it seems to be selling very well in every country where it’s available. As with most of our games, there’s very little dialogue – and what there is in the way of dialogue can be ignored by the player without adversely affecting their experience – so the game was relatively straightforward to localize. And zombies as entertainment subject matter are turning out to be universally popular the world over, so we expect it to be a global success.
DFC: What markets has Plants vs. Zombies been localized for?
R&R: Thus far, the game has been localized for the French, Italian, German and Spanish markets, and is also available in Australia and of course throughout the U.K.
DFC: Based on your previous experience, and early returns, how much more revenue do you expect Plants vs. Zombies to generate than your previous titles, and why?
R&R: Impossible to say. PvZ has done incredibly well in the almost two weeks that it’s been available, but our games sell for years, not weeks or months. Will PvZ someday be in the same category as multi-million sellers Bejeweled, Bookworm, Chuzzle, Zuma and Peggle? We’d sure like to think so. PvZ certainly has the potential to join those other major franchises. But we won’t know until it’s broadly released, and even perhaps until it’s ported to other platforms.
DFC: What have you learned from Plants vs. Zombies that will be incorporated into your future games?
R&R: That would be telling… we learn a lot with each new game that we release, and certainly spend a lot of time factoring those lessons into each subsequent game we develop. Most of that kind of information is proprietary – those insights, and the ability to effectively utilize them in future games, are among the things that set our games apart from the flood of mediocre titles – hardcore AND casual – on the market. One thing we could publicly acknowledge in this respect is that humor can be very effective in easing players into a new game experience.
Plants vs. Zombies is very easy at the outset, in order to be as accessible to novice gamers as possible. This long, shallow learning curve could easily have been off-putting to hardcore gamers – they could well have played five or even ten levels and dismissed the game as too easy. But the great sense of humor behind PvZ shines through from the beginning and has been instrumental in keeping more seasoned gamers engaged long enough for the game to reach a level of challenge and difficulty they can really sink their teeth into.
