Most of you will know PopCap from games like Plants Vs Zombies or Bejeweled has decided to tighten its belt reorganize their business and invest in new types of games on different platforms. We are not 100% sure what that means, but we are guessing it is a reference to Windows 8/RT and Android. PopCap Co-Founder John Vechey claims that the move was all PopCap’s idea and that EA did not ask them to cut back. It was an unusual statement to make although we have no reason to doubt it at this time.
Vechey also mentioned that the popularity of free-to-play games is impacting the mobile gaming market making it harder to sell games with a fixed cost. This is a trend that is also impacting the desktop gaming market, but we have a feeling that it is a passing fad. Many people will get into the free-to-play games, but quickly lose interest once they see the staggering costs mount from all of the small purchases needed to continue playing. We do not necessarily buy the claims that free to play games are the big impact to their market. It is honestly more likely that EA wants PopCap to refocus on Android and Windows 8/RT for the future as many of their mobile games are strictly for the iPhone which locks them out of a large percentage of sales considering Android’s much larger install base and market share.
PopCap also faces significant competition in the form of Zynga (which is why EA is suing them for infringement) which means they have to do something to maintain relevance in the mobile market. There is also the rather unsettling fact that some larger game developers are heading into the mobile market as the power of GPUs inside these devices increases we fully expect to see much higher resolution and performance games in the mobile world very soon. This will open up the mobile space to more than casual gaming meaning that the traditional “simple” games like Plants and Zombies will be less attractive to the user base. Of course all of this reorganization could be moot if EA really does go up for sale. At that point whoever buys them could simply absorb PopCap and be done with it.
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