peggle posts

With five days to go before the BIG DAY, the Steam PC game download holiday sales event has now gone live. This is the third annual event and it's usually the biggest sale of the year for Valve's download service as nearly all the game in its library have at least some kind of price cut from now until January 2. In addition there are publisher game bundles and indie game packs that save you even more money. Mac gamers are not excluded; over 125 Mac titles are on sale as well.

There are simply too many deals to go over in this one news post but we will mention the price cuts that are in place from now until 1 pm Eastern time on Tuesday. That includes the launch of the promised Oddboxx bundle of the four Oddworld games, including two that are new to the PC platform.

F1 2010 - $19.99
Super Meat Boy - $3.75
Titan Quest Gold Edition - $4.99
Battlefield Bad Company 2 - $6.79
The Oddboxx - $12.49
Deus Ex/Deus Ex Invisible War - $2.49
Peggle/Peggle Nights - $6.99
Lego Batman - $4.99
F.E.A.R/F.E.A.R. 2 - $9.99
Fallout 3 Game of the Year Edition - $20.09
All Prince of Persia games - 75 percent off
Portal - $3.74 or $2.25 if you own Half-Life 2

It's been a huge week for Mac gamers with the launch of the Mac steam client. However, Mac gamers also have a pretty nice sale going on at casual game publisher PopCap Games. While it's not mentioned on their main web site nor on their Twitter and Facebook pages, the publisher has a big sale bundle promotion for Mac versions of several of their games.

You can purchase and download 13 Mac ports of PopCap Games, including Plants Vs Zombies, Bejeweled 2, Peggle, Zuma and more for a mere $49.95. There's no word on when this promotion will actually end so if you are a Mac user you should jump on this quickly

[Via Joystiq]

This free-to-play version of Peggle includes 10 levels with World of Warcraft themed backgrounds drawn by Blizzard artists. Players can compete against each other or the computer in Duel mode. Combined with the World of Warcraft Peggle Add-On, players can have their WoW/Peggle combo both on and offline.

Download Peggle: World of Warcraft Edition (13 MB)
Download World of Warcraft Peggle Add-on (8 MB)

You may remember a few months ago that Popcap Games released a free add-on to World of Warcraft, allowing folks who play Blizzard's best selling MMO to play their casual game Peggle while still inside World of Warcraft (there's also another free add-on that let;s you do the same thing with Bejeweled). Well, in an unexpected move, Popcap has now released a stand alone free World of Warcraft version of Peggle.

The PC only release (sorry Mac users) has 10 levels, each with a Blizzard-created World of Warcraft background and support for a Duel mode with a friend or a computer AI opponent. PopCap did something similar with an Orange Box themed Peggle game that can be downloaded for free via Steam some time ago.

These two official add-ons from PopCap Games installs themed versions of Bejeweled and Peggle into World of Warcraft. Simply extract the files into your WoW Interface/Addons folder. After installation, players can type /bejeweled or /peggle into the chat menu to access the games.
Download the World of Warcraft Bejeweled Add-on (2 MB)
Download the World of Warcraft Peggle Add-on (8 MB)

PopCap Games surprised many when they announced that they were offering World of Warcraft players a way to play their addictive puzzle game Bejeweled 2 in Blizzard's hit MMO. Today Popcap Games struck again as they have doubled their casual game addition plans for World of Warcraft.

Yep, you guessed it. Peggle is now also available to download and play for free for any World of Warcraft player. Now you can take time from your raid to fire balls to complete the game's puzzles. Playing the game can even affect your World of Warcraft character. You can grab both casual game mods over at PopCap's web site. Meanwhile our sister site WoWInsider has their own impressions of the Peggle add-on. Their verdict? "We can't recommend a download enough."

If you have yet to experience the addictive fun that makes the Peggle series worth trying out, the Steam service has just made it easier to get into "Peggle-mania" (we just made that up so don't go stealing it . . .come to think of it we don't have that power to keep it from being used somewhere else . . .never mind)

Anyway for this weekend only you can get both the original game (Peggle Deluxe) and the more recent sequel Peggle Nights in a bundle for $9.98 via Steam. That's a 50 percent savings from its normal Steam price. It's a small price to pay to fire balls to bounce and hit points to complete the puzzle. That's "Peggle-mania" for you.

Last week Amazon.com launched their new casual game download service where you can choose and download hundreds of games for just $9.99 each. You would think that would be a good thing but many casual game publishers are not happy with this new lower price point.

VentureBeat reports that PopCap Games, one of the most successful casual game publishers (Bejeweled, Peggle and others) won't offer their games for the new Amazon.com service. Neither will iWin.com who found Amazon.com's pricing structure "completely unacceptable" for the service's launch, according to their production director Andy Hieke. For their part, Amazon.com's Ernie Ramirez states the lower price point was justified, saying, "It's our goal to bring a lot of new people to the space."

In this currently tough economic situation some companies are dying while a few are thriving. One of them is PopCap Games, the casual PC game developer and publisher. Today the company announced that in 2008 revenues from selling their games at retail stores jumped a massive 85.3 percent. That was enough to put the company on the list of the top 20 highest earning game publishers (Specific revenue numbers were not revealed).

Popcap has, of course, sold many of its casual games like Peggle (seen above) and Bejeweled via online download but they have had recent success with publishing games in stores, particularly their recent Bejeweled Twist puzzle game.Popcap currently has 15 of their games on store shelves compared to 10 in 2007.

It's been a busy week for the stock market, most of it bad. Thankfully the folks at Valve know that everyone appreciates a sale and this weekend's game on sale via Steam is the original Peggle title from Popcap. The casual arcade game is normally $9.99 but you can grab it for just $4.99 this weekend. The sequel, Peggle Nights, will be released on Steam on Oct. 15

That's not all that's gone on at Steam, however. The download service just added a number of older Ubisoft games to its line-up, including both expansion packs for Heroes of Might and Magic V, The Settlers: Rise of an Empire Gold Edition, The Sum of All Fears and Brain Spa. All of these games are 10 percent off their normal prices on Steam until Oct. 17. You can also pre-order Far Cry 2 via Steam and get $5 off its normal price until its release on Oct. 22.

You want more? How about that World of Goo, the award winning indepdent puzzle/construction game from the two man dev team called 2D Boy, will make its worldwide debut via Steam Oct. 13? Pre-orders for the game are being taken for $19.99 and the Steam version will contain achievements via Steamworks. Finally, pre-orders are being taken for Egosoft's X3: Terran Conflict, the space trading-combat game. The release has now been confirmed for Oct. 17.