PopCap Planning Social Features, More Social Network Versions of Classics

Casual gaming master PopCap is hoping to integrate social features into all its games in the future, senior designer Dave Bishop explained during a talk at Develop 2010, as well as rolling out new social network games "based on PopCap's classic franchises."

Bishop gave the example of a future Peggle instalment showing players which 'Peggle masters' their friends are using, so they can question and taunt them appropriately.

Peggle and Facebook game Bejeweled Blitz.

New versions of unspecified PopCap franchises--a list also including Bookworm and Plants vs. Zombies--are planned for social networking sites, no doubt hoping to repeat the success of Bejeweled Blitz. According to Bishop, the Facebook title has ten million monthly users--a third of which play daily--and an average session time of 43 minutes. Blitz is supported by standalone PC and iPhone editions as well as microtransactions.

PopCap is due to reveal something Plants vs. Zombies-related on August 2. Initial speculation has pointed towards a sequel for the lawn defense game.