Bejeweled Blitz Interview

Heather Hazen, Senior Product Manager at PopCap Games, agreed to a hearty chin-wag with Digital Gigolo. Bejeweled Blitz is the topic of discussion.

Can you talk us through the changes BB has undergone since its inception.
We launched Bejeweled Blitz on December 20th 2008. We introduced the first weekly tournament and the jewel Jabber early 2009, then the star medals, the friend comparison & scoring charts and the star medal collection in the second quarter of 2009. By the third quarter of that year, the game reached 2 million daily users and had attracted about 10 million monthly users in its first 10 months.

The game became Facebook’s most played Game Globally in October 2009. We added the Blitz mode to the Bejeweled 2 iPhone title and the game was the number 1 Apple App Store download in November 2009. At the end of 2009, we added the Last Hurrah, the Blazing Speed and the star gems. One year after its launch, Bejeweled Blitz was a record-setter:

•400 million hours of leisure time consumed by December 2009
•100 million games of Bejeweled Blitz are played each day
•More than 25 million players in the first year
•More than 3 trillion gems matched/destroyed since launch - and more than half a billion gems matched/destroyed each hour

In 2010, we gradually introduced new features to make the game even more exciting and to offer a great experience to Bejeweled Blitz lovers. We added boosts & coins, coins purchase, daily spin, rare gems to name a few. And at the end of last year, we added the Cat’s Eye Rare Gem. By the end of 2010, the game attracted more than 4.5 million daily users!

What was the inspiration behind the Cat's Eye gem?
After we tested the Moonstone Rare Gem and realized that people were interested in the concept, we brainstormed tons of other ideas (and ate lots of ice cream in the process). We decided that we liked the idea of creating a unique, eye-popping feature unlike anything else Bejeweled Blitz players had ever experienced. We wanted to create a spectacle. Following that brainstorm, I ran into Jason Kapalka (Cofounder and Creative Director of PopCap Games) in the office kitchen and he kept telling me we should make “Laser Cats”! So we started prototyping and Jason insisted that we use his cat, Snackers (even though my cat is much cuter). We kept adding sound effects and other ridiculous animations until we couldn’t stop laughing…then we knew it was ready.

Snackers. The fuzzball that inspired the Cat's Eye Gem

What's the highest score you've seen without the use of boosts or cheats?
According to Julia Gemstone's website, she scored 1.6 million just a couple weeks ago. That’s definitely the highest score I’ve ever seen but I’m not sure whether or not she was using boosts. We could probably query our database to determine the highest score without boosts but honestly, we actually encourage people to play with boosts because we think it’s more fun!

How much money does BB make for PopCap Games?
As with all PopCap releases, we prioritise getting the game right first and making sure the experience for customers is fun. That comes before monetisation and in fact, despite introducing Bejeweled Blitz Beta at the end of 2009, we didn’t actually start monetising for 18 months - in May 2010.

Ker Ching! Swapping actual cash for virtual coins. Madness!

While we don’t actually disclose revenue figures, I can tell you that within two months of introducing microtransactions on Bejeweled Blitz, the game had its first million-dollar month so it is very successful. To that end, the social games space is a very important part of PopCap’s global business and definitely one to watch going forward. Facebook take a cut in the form of 30% of revenues generated by Facebook credits. This is standard with virtually every Facebook application.