Beware Bejeweled Blitz. Lurking behind the candy coloured gems and the gaudy alien vista is something altogether more sinister.Mike folds back the sleeves of his shirt to expose his elbows. “There!” he declares triumphantly. “That’s how you separate the men from the boys”. Both Mike’s elbows sport painful looking sores; a direct consequence of the hours spent leaning on his kitchen counter. It’s where he plays Bejeweled Blitz, alone. Having been banned by his wife from playing in front of their children, Mike, 31, snatches these precious hours of solitude whenever he can. ‘I love Bejeweled Blitz. I’d play it all day if I could. Once I’ve started I won’t quit until I’ve topped the high-score table. It’s a matter of personal pride’.
For the uninitiated, Bejeweled Blitz is a Facebook application developed by PopCap Games. The goal is to achieve the highest possible score, by matching three or more gems of the same colour, in one minute. Since its low key appearance on December 20th 2008, BB has quickly attracted a dedicated following, with over 4.5 million users per day. One of the reasons for its astonishing success can be attributed to BB’s seamless integration into Facebook’s ubiquitous social network. Before long, online acquaintances become bitter adversaries in the ongoing battle to top the high-score table. And once you’re entrenched in the sordid world of internet one-upmanship, it’s hard to break free.
Indeed, certain aspects of the game have been judiciously geared towards exploiting the brain’s natural response to a ‘near miss’. It’s no coincidence that players are invited to spin a slot machine for the chance to earn coins, which can be exchanged for score enhancing ‘boosts’. If the reels align to show three matched gems, the coins flow fast and freely. The more likely outcome however, is a ‘near miss’: the last reel just fractionally short of completing the required set of three. But it’s enough to tease the brain into releasing dopamine, a neurotransmitter that stimulates the reward circuitry, which in turn increases the desire and motivation to continue spinning those reels.
Thing is, you can’t; at least not straight away.
BB enforces a devious time restriction between spins. Every player must wait twenty four hours before they are given the chance to earn more coins – an intolerable period of time when you’re languishing in second place on the high-score table. Nevertheless, there is a way to gain an instant fix of coins. And rather sinisterly, it involves buying them. Yup, swapping actual cash for virtual coins. “On average I spend around £40 a week buying coins”, says Mike. “The coins I win on the Daily Spin are never enough to satisfy the way I want to play”
It’s a sentiment shared by many dedicated blitzers.
If one were to adopt the hysterical game-bashing platitudes of the Daily Mail, BB would no doubt be decried as a gateway drug to the coin guzzling slot machines of Vegas. But in the spirit of impartiality we spoke to BB’s Senior Product Manager, Heather Hazen and asked her if the game was intentionally engineered to manipulate the player into parting with their cash.
‘We didn’t intentionally program the Daily Spin to exploit the brain’s natural response to a ‘near miss’. Daily Spin was developed because we thought it was a fun way to give away extra coins. We added the bonuses to the Daily Spin to encourage players to invite more friends to play Bejeweled Blitz and to give players rewards for playing every day’.
Introducing incentives to keep the punters playing has no doubt been the key to PopCap’s growing success. The continuous tweaks and flourishes introduced to BB since its inception has transformed a simple Facebook App into a global phenomenon, and a lucrative one at that.
‘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’.
Keeping the punters playing is clearly paying off. But what is the key to PopCap’s success? What keeps the gaming public coming back for more? It’s a question we asked Cindy Morrison, aka Julia Gemstone, the veteran blitzer responsible for writing BB’s strategy guide.
‘I used to play Bejeweled 2 for hours and hours. I played it when on conference calls and in airports - anywhere I could turn on the laptop. I always had to be alone while playing, and one game could go on for months. I wrote the Bejeweled 2 guide in 2007, because I thought I’d cracked the code for keeping the classic game going. Then came Bejeweled Blitz. I honestly didn't think I'd like it because I preferred the classic mode of Bejeweled 2 over the action mode. I wanted to play until I messed up and not because I was on a timer. But after the first few games of the 1-minute Blitz, I was hooked…it's mostly the competition, shortness of the individual games, and desire to beat my last best score that keeps me coming back for more’.
Served in bite-sized chunks of sixty seconds, BB fuels that nagging urge for ‘just one more go’. It’s a deceptive time-sink that converts minutes into hours and hours into days. And no matter how dismal your performance, each minute of gem matching mayhem climaxes with an explosive Last Hurrah, followed by the narcotically addictive aural cue of chinking coins. Failure to attain even the most rudimentary score – anything above 25K earns a ‘star medal’ - still sees the player increasing their ‘status’; so dedicated blitzers can gradually work their way up from humble ‘Trainee’ (level 1) to expert ‘Elder Bejewelian’ (level 130). This clever integration of basic RPG stat-raising means the player is rewarded every single time they play.
Speed and consistency are the secret to high scores. The subtle yet delightful crackle of burning twigs indicates a particularly successful run of skill; an uninterrupted frenzy of gem matching turns the screen bright orange while BB’s disembodied voice announces in its typically bombastic style, ‘BLAZING SPEED’. For the next eight seconds every matched set of gems explodes, destroying everything in its immediate vicinity. If a player has the good fortune to match five identical gems they are rewarded with a Hyper Cube. These delightful rarities can be combined with any single gem to destroy all those gems that share the same colour. Matching two Hyper Cubes clears the whole screen and is the most powerful combo in the game. But speed and skill will only get you so far. To stand any chance of competing with the best, budding blitzers must routinely purchase coins to spend on score-enhancing boosts, a practice that’s all too familiar to Cindy Morrison.
‘I feel sorry for people who can't afford to purchase coins. Boosts don't necessarily guarantee a good game. Players have the option to accumulate coins for free, simply by playing the game and taking part in the Daily Spin. But this can be a slow and frustrating process. When a player has spent a solid week saving coins to purchase boosts, and still has an awful game, it must be intensely frustrating. I had to reach a conscious decision to purchase coins, and it was not easy. The draw of the game and the need for coins to play the way I wanted to play fuelled my decision. I justify my coin buying as my daily latte money. I don't have a Starbucks nearby, so I can afford a few bucks a day on Bejeweled Blitz’.
But it was the introduction of the Cat’s Eye Gem towards the end of 2010 that really captured Cindy’s attention.
‘When the Cat's Eye gem was introduced, it suddenly became possible to hit really high scores, based on the random destruction of 14 gems after the Last Hurrah ended. I didn't get my first million point game until after the Cat's Eye gem arrived. Now I don't want to play a game without it, because if I enjoy a particularly high scoring game, I’d want that extra ‘oomph’ at the end’.
There’s just one problem. Unlike boosts, which can be purchased after each game, the Cat’s Eye Gem appears at random. Boosts are also considerably cheaper, ranging between 3,000 and 7,500 coins, compared to the 25,000 coins needed to purchase the Cat’s Eye Gem. The infrequent and random availability of this rare gem is yet another reason blitzers feel the need to purchase coins. When a player is finally presented with a chance to buy a Cat’s Eye Gem, but is unable due to lack of coins, the opportunity is lost. The disgruntled blitzer has to endure a lengthy and uncertain wait before another randomly generated Cat’s Eye appears. The compulsion to acquire and accumulate coins can become a time consuming diversion for many, bordering on the obsessive.
After each Daily Spin players are given the option to share their coins. If they choose to do so, a post is automatically generated on their Facebook wall. Up to ten friends can claim these ‘gifts’ and enjoy free coins, but they are only available for 72 hours, so it’s a case of first come first serve. ‘I know people who haunt their Facebook home page each night at midnight to grab the Daily Spin gifts that are posted by their friends’, says Cindy. ‘There’s even a dedicated application that scans the Facebook community in order to sniff out any unclaimed gift coins. I've seen many posts from people who were angry and exasperated because they’d been too late to claim their free coins’.
The cynical will no doubt condemn BB as nothing more than an addictive gambling simulator intent on exploiting the player and filling PopCaps coffers. And they may well have a point. But there’s also a genuinely wonderful game here, a minute-long masterpiece. The millions of daily blitzers are no fluke. The playful, competitive banter between friends is part of the appeal. And with anything competitive there’s bound to be casualties, those who’ll use everything in their power to win, even if it means blowing the weekly grocery money on a few million coins. In light of BB’s huge commercial and fiscal success it was perhaps inevitable that accusations of greed and manipulation would rear their frothy-mouthed heads. However, the willingness and transparency with which PopCap Games operates when fielding enquiries about BB’s continued growth seems to come from a good place, a fact that Heather Hanzen is keen to promote.
‘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’.
Whichever side of the fence you sit, there is one indisputable fact: BB is the most fun you’ll have in sixty seconds.
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