PopCap's Overnight Success in Under 10 Years

[Omega]

Hello! Though I have frequented Dexterity forums a lot, here is my first post :)

I am sick of hearing about the 'overnight success' of PopCap games. They are always used for the standard 'overnight success' reference, and not just in game developer forums. Here is the scoop!

There was a guy named C:\. He did the art for a multiplayer game called ARC (Attack, Retrieve, Capture.) It was on TEN.NET (Total Entertainment Network), a Windows desktop software client which also hosted Duke Nukem and Mike's (Retro64 on this board) game called Warheads (I forgot the actual name.)

In late 1998, C:\ made his own multiplayer game, called UniBall. He also did the art for it, unsurprisingly. That same year, TEN.NET shut down its doors.

By 1999, ARC found a new 'host' - WON.NET. Won.net was yet another Windows desktop software client of games to connect to, or was trying to be. They hosted the serverlists for Half-Life 1 and CounterStrike.

Then about a year later, unsurprisingly, Sierra bought WON.NET. And why not? Half-Life was already using WON.NET for serverlists and Sierra was the publisher of Half-Life. So now, ARC was hosted on Sierra's Client.

So, guess who started PopCap? A producer or marketer from TEN.NET, a producer/marketer from Sierra, somebody else involved with ARC, and C:\, who did ARC art and art for his own game (UniBall), as well as the coding for it.

I guess those guys saw 3 or 4 desktop clients flop (and also Heat.net, Sony Station, etc.), and thought it would be better to use the HTML and web sites for marketing, and simple Java games.

It was a LONG ride for those guys, with all of those failures. Those failures:
1. taught lessons
2. brought those guys together
3. made them find a better way to have both free games and paid games

So, as you can see, those people pursued their passion--games--for many, many years. Even though some of the stuff they worked on failed, they became aware of each other, and made contacts with each other. Without those failures, they wouldn't have found each other.

The other thing to learn from this is that the people would not have found a solution had they not failed. In a way, that is not failure. Somebody using their brain, and working hard, but failing, isn't failure. If you use sound construction techniques but a tornado tears down your new buildings on opening day every time, you haven't failed. It's just simply a matter of time until you finally get that sunny day with your latest building, and people can walk inside, and love it, and give you contracts/hugs/praise/money/respect. As long as you use sound techniques, you succeeded. If you go all in on AA in Texas Holdem, but lose to a 72, you didn't fail. You played it perfectly. Just the outcome was bad. But use sound judgement the next time and law of averages will let those hardworking people who work hard and do research, come out ahead in the long run.

Mike's game was on TEN.NET, so you can ask him. Before, complex games were the cool thing. Now, especially with trojans being a hot topic, everybody realized that people want to view java applets of games and not have to worry about viruses, and then be pitched a full version game for $19.95.

The other thing that took over was probably CounterStrike, which led players of all of those other complex multiplayer games to at least try it out.

ARC and UniBall exist, you can search for them. Those games have all three or four PopCap founders' fingerprints all over them. Mike sold Warheads to somebody else, and now his work can be found on Retro64.

If somebody wants, I can rewrite this in article for whoever's web site, with perfect grammer and catchy writing.

[Pkeod]

You have a very good point. Though that is just the media talking! They see PopCap as the first try...

[Omega]

I have read many posts on Dexterity's former forums--including one today on this forum--that inspired me to write this article because they considered PopCap to be some exception to a rule. PopCap worked hard, and failed, like anyone else. That is inspirational.

[Dan MacDonald]

I know Cyrus is looking for editorials on gametunnel.com

[Mike Boeh]

Jason Kapalka, one of the founders of Popcap, was my contact at TEN, he worked with me to get WarHeads up there... It's a small world.

I think Pogo (who took over TEN) was a huge influence on them as well, as it taught them all about casual games.

[svero]

I'm just curious but... where was popcap referred to as an over-night success? I've seen them listed as successful many times, but I don't recall reading any posts or articles that suggested it was done quickly.

[luggage]

I can see where you're coming from but people look at PopCap's success from when PopCap started not from the people who started it's experience began. If PopCap was sold up, lock stock and barrel to another group, PopCap would still be classed an overnight success even though the same people who's experience you described are no longer there.

[EpicBoy]

I'm just curious but... where was popcap referred to as an over-night success?
I'm also curious about this. I've often cited them as a company that knows what they're doing and such, but have never called them an "over night success".

Do you have a link to where someone actually said this?

[princec]

You're trying to be too literal with the argument here folks, which smacks of pedantry. Indeed if you google for popcap "overnight success" you don't get a match.

The success referred to is actually due to a smash hit game, not the company itself. They were miserably doing shit for quite some time as Popcap, and like the rest of us, probably expected to crawl slowly along to profitability until they could just about keep a roof over their heads and feed their children. Then sheer luck had them happen upon something that sold so fast they could barely get the bandwidth to upload it to you. That's what he's on about here. It's the fluke of the massive hit syndrome. Just like id software before them, floundering in obscurity for years then suddenly coming up with the goods to set themselves up for life.

Cas :)

[Anthony Flack]

That's textbook overnight success by my reckoning, then.

I've always understood it to mean success that comes on really suddenly. Not success that comes as soon as you try your hand at something for the first time (does that EVER happen?)

[EpicBoy]

Well, he specifically said:

I am sick of hearing about the 'overnight success' of PopCap games.

I'm just asking where he's been hearing it because, as you said, Google comes up with nothing. I don't think it's being pedantic to ask someone to back up what they say.

[Coyote]

Well, I remember hearing a rock star in the 80's, when asked about his overnight success, speak on how many long years and hard work went into being an overnight success.

Sounds like you may be preaching to the choir here a little bit, but it's good to hear about how they started.

[Yossarian]

That's what he's on about here. It's the fluke of the massive hit syndrome.

I think that is under-valuing what was probably a whole lot of hard work and groundwork that went into all of those projects you mentioned. Isn't finding that one big market hit what makes pretty much *all* companies (gaming or not)? Kodak makes a camera, IBM makes a typewriter, Microsoft steals and repackages DOS....

There is some luck involved, but you don't end up in the right place at the right time by doing nothing. You put yourself in that position and then take advantage of it when the market swings or develops your way. id may have been floundering, but they set themselves up for breaking ground with Doom, and then they were smart enough to capitalize on that hit and turn themselves into a powerhouse. Popcap seems to be no different, a little vision, a lot of work, and when the market discovered the draw to java puzzle games, they were there already and with the groundwork and product to launch a craze.

[princec]

When someone writes something 'in quotes' in English it means that the meaning may not be direct but implied by the words. Hence it would indeed be pendantry to take his post literally on that sense, and I believe he is quite correct in his factual briefing.

As for "hard work" and "luck" - dammit, they sure were lucky, and they put in no more or less work than anyone else has here. What separates them is that a) they were genuinely lucky finding that game concept and coding it up and b) they were genuinely lucky at finding it when they did. They did, after all, slog away for ages as Popcap with bugger all sales with similar sorts of stuff. Do you really think they woke up one morning and thought, hey this game with some jewels and stuff is going to sell a million copies in six months? Nope.

Luck is massively important. But the harder you work the luckier you get. The more attempts you make, the chances you have at being lucky. That's the difference.

Cas :)

[EpicBoy]

I'll stop after this post but for the record : I'm not finding fault with what he's saying (I'm sure it's all factual and accurate), I'm finding fault with WHY he's saying it. I don't see who his post is directed at. I don't remember anyone claiming this or that about PopCap ... I think he just wanted an excuse to post a diatribe and look important.

This opening...

I am sick of hearing about the 'overnight success' of PopCap games. They are always used for the standard 'overnight success' reference, and not just in game developer forums. Here is the scoop!

...looks to me like he's fabricating an issue and then getting up on his soapbox to speak about it.

Just my 2 cents.

[princec]

Well, why not :P? Hehe.

Cas :)

[Anthony Flack]

Well, certainly I haven't ever heard anyone going on about their overnight success before.

[Diragor]

I don't believe in luck. What is an indie game developer trying to do? Make money selling games. How do you do that? You have to 1) make a good game, 2) get the game in front of as money people as possible and 3) convince them to buy it (give me a little leeway if you disagree with exactly how I've put this). So if you end up making a million dollars from one of your games, whether it's your first or your tenth, whether it takes a year or ten years, is it luck? No, it's because you did what you knew you needed to do and you just kept doing it to the best of your ability until it worked. It's not luck, it's determination and work.

I've been hearing B.S. about luck and fate my whole life and I don't buy it. If PopCap or any other successful indies are just lucky then why does anybody in here bother? Might as well buy a lottery ticket and save yourself some work if it's all about luck. You make your own luck. If you're in a business where it's all about who you know, then you should get out and meet everybody you can. If it's about being in the right place at the right time, you'd better figure out where the right place is and put yourself there. The right time will come along if you stay long enough.

[EpicBoy]

Luck is a part of the equation, that really can't be denied. Did PopCap know exactly what they were doing with Bejewelled or did they just create their next game and hope for the best like most indies do? Was it researched and scientifically engineered to be the success that it was?

I think luck plays a larger factor than you give it credit for.

Not that PopCap aren't skilled. They definitely are and I am jealous of their brilliance on an almost daily basis. :) Every indie should install PopCap games and look at the process from start to finish (from downloading to starting to actually play). It's totally streamlined and there's not a single chink in the armor.

[Diragor]

Sure there's some element of chance in most things, but it's not like PopCap is an accident. That whole streamlined process you just described yourself as having "not a single chink in the armor", don't you think that's a huge part of it? I think that when you add up all of the factors that go into making and selling a game; design, code, art, music, the purchase process, fostering of fan community, refund policy, newsletters, cross-promotion and affiliate programs, purchase incentives, etc... there's so much that has to be intentionally done right that I refuse to believe that luck or chance plays a very large part in whether it's a success or not. I believe if something or someone fails there's always a reason, usually several reasons. Conversely, if something is ultra-successful it's because some or all of the parts I described above were done so well that the game added up to something greater than the sum of the parts. The factor of consumer demand for a particular product is out of your control and difficult to predict, so if you want to chalk that up to "luck" then I'd only disagree on semantics.

[arcadetown]

It's 2 degrees of separation from TEN or Pogo. Seems so many people at one point or another worked with them directly or knows someone who did.

Yeah the point about Sony's station.com and other client installable networks always made me scratch the head as to why Realarcade became so big. Guess there's always the exception to the rule where somebody comes along and does it right while the stars are aligned.

EDIT: p.s. I personally think Popcap are geniuses. Poeple always knock them for recycling old ideas but they do so much more. Look at Insaniquarium, they took something that really is not easy to figure out but do an awesome job of holding the user's hand to make it simple. So many people here should seriously take that to heart.

[Jim Buck]

Hmmm... Insaniquarium is only published by PopCap. Flying Bear Entertainment are the developers.. which leads me to a question about all this commentary on PopCap:

Sure they did develop many of their own games, but they now also publish other developers' games as well, so when people say PopCap is genius/etc (I'm not denying they are), do they refer to PopCap-developed games only? (As for Insaniquarium, I bought it the moment my time ran out. The game is awesome.)

[arcadetown]

Yeah, Insaniquarium is awesome. We tried to pick it up from Flying Bear as soon as we saw it online way over a year back but unfortunately they we're already talking with Popcap. Took em a long time, appears patience is still a virtue. Also, at first Insaniquarium didn't include all the niceities. With Popcap's guidance appears they turned something that's not so easy to learn into drop dead simple. That's what implied by genius. It's not the genius of coming up with the best ideas, it's of executing them very intelligently.

[Mark Sheeky]

Overnight success takes years to achieve.

[adhominem]

Hey, I'm right here! I can hear you...!

I did work with Mike on Warheads way back at TEN (as the producer on the TEN side). Sorry that whole TEN thing didn't work out so well, Mike...

To set the record straight, TEN wasn't acquired by pogo.com, but rather changed their name to pogo about the same time they decided to give up on the hardcore client and go for java games. I was at TEN/pogo for about 5 years, through both the hardcore and casual phases... I designed or produced about 17 of the java games there, most of which are still kicking around, I think.

The other founders of PopCap were John Vechey and Brian Fiete, who did ARC earlier before going to work for Sierra. Josh Langley, aka C:/, who did the art for ARC, came onboard a bit later (and is still at PopCap now). Bejeweled was actually our first game, but it wasn't obviously a huge hit at first... some companies were offered the chance to buy it outright for peanuts, but passed because they didn't think it was a very good game.

Our initial plan had been to make java games and then license them to the big sites like pogo and MSN, who would then make money off the games via advertising. However, we managed to time this strategy with the near-total collapse of the internet advertising market back in 2000. So, doing the downloadable Deluxe version of Bejeweled was more a desperate experiment than anything else... nobody really had any idea if people would be willing to pay money for this game that they could, after all, still play online for free. Even after it did begin to sell, it literally took us years to persuade some of our partners that downloadable games were the way of the future... they were worried they might cut into their advertising revenue...

These days we do co-publish a few select games, such as Insaniquarium and the games from Nuclide (Rocket Mania and Pixelus). But they aren't just shipped out the door like at Realarcade... we did a lot of work on Insaniquarium Deluxe, for example, to make it more accessible and easier to learn (not to mention all of the artwork).

I agree that many great games are born out of luck rather than any kind of "genius." So I feel that part of my job is to recognize when someone else has a really good idea, even if it's in an unusable or incomplete stage. And then we try our best to polish it and make it easy to learn and get into.

I'm not really aware of anyone having claimed we were "overnight successes", but I guess we do come up as an example fairly often when people are discussing the "sudden craze for casual games." As far as I'm concerned, I've been working on casual online games for at least 6 years now, so nothing has seemed very "overnight" to me, at least.

Oh, and if anyone's curious:

http://www.popcap.com/bejeweled2

[tolik]

Hey Jason, nice to see you onboard.
Your link doesn't work so I provide the correct one:

http://www.popcap.com/launchpage.php?theGame=bejeweled2

;)

[david_nixon]

Wow! I didn't know all that history about Popcap. You think you know someone...

I wanted to also point out that Popcap's success has had as much to do with them being a fantastic partner to work with as it has been with thier uncanny ability ship games that are accesssible, polished, fun, and salable.

--David Nixon
Director of Publishing
Oberon Media, Inc.

[EpicBoy]

Just wanted to point out that Bejewelled 2 is sickenly excellent.

Everyone who wants to make casual games should download it immediately and study it...

[Ratboy]

Roger that. Deadlines, Halo 2, and now THIS? :eek: