Bejeweled franchise downloaded 350 million times, sells 25 million units

by Alexander Sliwinski { Aug 19th 2008 at 1:30PM }

The crack refinement corporation disguising itself as a game company -- also known as PopCap Games -- has announced that the Bejeweled franchise has sold over 25 million units across all platforms. The definition of "all platforms" would consist of online, mobile, retail, "in-flight" and other channels.

PopCap also noted that the Bejeweled series has been downloaded 350 million times from the interwebs and makes up one third of the company's billion-plus downloads. The game has earned over $300 million in revenue through sales and "tens of millions" in online advertising. Jason Kapalka, co-founder of PopCap, says online distributors wanted no part of the game when it released eight years ago -- he vividly remembers buyers telling him, "It's not even a game."

Tags: bejeweled, bejewled-2, popcap, popcap-games

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

d0x360 @ Aug 19th 2008 1:38PM

My girlfriend started playing it on Xbox Live Arcade which got me into it too, then I graduated to Puzzle Quest which I own on XBLA and PSP and I just cant stop playing it.

Geist @ Aug 19th 2008 1:41PM

But casual games aren't allowed to be fun hurf durf.

DBuck_Eye @ Aug 19th 2008 1:41PM

I gotta say, of the puzzle games that I have played, Bejeweled seems to have the least strategy involved. Maybe it's just way over my puny Earthling head, but I feel like it's all about luck and having your combos thrown at you instead of being planned out by you.

Chris Are @ Aug 19th 2008 1:52PM

I'm sure there's some Bejeweled nerd who would argue that theory. :-)

darkeyez @ Aug 19th 2008 1:55PM

Dude, that's how I feel. I have it on my cell phone, and I just can't get too into it. I can't figure out the appeal.

But one day I'm gonna look up just what the strategy is supposed to be and then maybe it'll intrigue a bit more.

Shaq-Fu @ Aug 19th 2008 2:02PM

Your totally overlooking all the metaphorical references.

See, the jewels represent your life, and eliminating a row of jewels represent to an event happening in your life. And the jewels that replace them are how that event affected what happens to you in the future.

Ben! @ Aug 19th 2008 2:20PM

You're absolutely right. I downloaded it on my cell phone for some reason, and realized that the original game mode is completely luck based, since the game decides what jewels drop and if it doesn't drop any combos for you, you get an automatic "Game Over." That's why I prefer Action Mode, since it gives you a whole new set of jewels when there aren't any combos available, and it's more about the speed at which you can find combos (as you move up levels, you have less and less time to find combos).