peggle posts

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.

Somewhere between Popcap's rise to power and Spore's retail release I've found myself both enjoying and being annoyed by the rise of casual gaming. The word "casual" is at best prescribed to games like Peggle or flash-based web games of higher quality. At worst, it's a buzzword, a fallacy and often a crutch. It's because of this that whenever a developer says their game is targeted at more casual audiences, my internal alarms go off in a big way.

If you are a fan of casual PC games then you know Peggle, the addictive action-puzzle game from Popcap Games. The title combines a colorful art style with gameplay that has you trying to get rid of pegs in each level via firing balls and hoping your shot combined with gravity and bounce-backs from other special ricochet pegs. The game was released in early 2007 and has since been downloaded 20 million times. Peggle got an extra boost thanks to Valve, who included a special version of the game, Peggle Extreme, with every version of their game collection The Orange Box in the fall of 2007, complete with art and sounds from the games in the collection.

Now Popcap has finally released the long awaited next game in the series, Peggle Nights. This new game contains, among other things, 60 new Adventure levels and 60 new Challenge mode levels along with new power-ups, trophies and more. The full version of the game costs $19.99 but a free demo is available. The game will be available for sale on other sites, including Valve's Steam, next month. There's no word on if there will be a special Left 4 Dead version of Peggle Nights released.

Download the Peggle Nights demo from Big Download right now

In an age where PC gaming is shifting away from the hardcore to the casual, PopCap finds itself perched at the peak of a very high mountain. Easily accessible titles such as Bejeweled, Peggle, and Heavy Weapons have made the company synonymous with simplistic-yet-addictive casual experiences -- but why? Why PopCap as opposed to the seemingly infinite number of other casual games developers?

Co-founder John Vechey, CEO David Roberts and PR director Garth Chouteau sit down with Gamasutra to discuss a number of interesting topics, spanning the console downloadable market versus that of the PC, the company's structure, and its thoughts behind its many successful business strategies.

As gamers, unless you're a Minesweeper junkie with an epic Peggle jones and no further aspirations, you're going to have to have a dedicated video card in your rig to get any kind of decent graphic performance.

Wait, what?

The short answer for why that's the case is: "Math is hard; let's go shopping." However, it's not us saying that, it's the CPU.

I know what you're thinking. "BI, the central processing unit... all it does is math!" Or perhaps, "You cheap bastard, you still owe me five bucks for your share of the beer last week." You're right, of course (about the CPU, anyway...). In terms of raw computational horsepower, a modern processor is a potent customer. However, of necessity, it's also a generalist.

In order to obtain truly prodigious performance, we need to bring in a specialist. That specialist is your video card. Think of it like this -- an Olympic decathlon competitor is in phenomenally good shape, and a world-class performer in ten different events, but in any single one of those, their lunch will be summarily eaten by someone who makes that their sole pursuit.