Bejeweled – Most Popular Puzzle Game of the Century

You may or may not know that 2010 marks the 10th anniversary of the Bejeweled game series! Bejeweled is THE original “match-3” game and the most mimicked game of all time with over 200 knock-off versions – it is the only video game in history to be available on PCs, mobile phones, video game consoles, iPods, social networks, airplane seatbacks and scratch-off lottery tickets! Bejeweled has now sold more than 50 million units, making it one of the top ten best-selling video games of all time — and PopCap continues to sell a copy of Bejeweled every 4.3 seconds.

Here’s some interesting facts regarding Bejeweled’s success over the last 10 years;

• Recently named “The Most Popular Puzzle Game Series of the Century” by the Guinness World Records 2010 Video Games Edition

• The Bejeweled franchise boasts:
  • Over 50 million units sold sales across all platforms – making it one of the ten best-selling video games of all time
  • At 5 million units per year, Bejeweled is selling at the same pace as Tetris – the best-selling video game ever
  • A copy of Bejeweled is sold somewhere in the world every 4.3 seconds
  • Bejeweled 2 is the best-selling game ever for iPhone – more than one in ten iPhone owners have purchased the game
  • Bejeweled 2 is the only video game scientifically proven to reduce stress – by an average of 47% across all test subjects

• Bejeweled has been played by more than 500 million people around the world, and has consumed 7 billion leisure time hours since 2000. That equals:
  • 798,000 years
  • 70 people playing Bejeweled nonstop since the end of the last Ice Age [9400 B.C.]
  • The man-hours needed to build 1,150 Empire State Buildings
  • How long it would take a person to walk to the moon and back 43,959 times
• Bejeweled Blitz, the 1-minute social adaptation of the game found on Facebook, is a record-setter in its own right and is the #1 social game of all time:
  • 400 million hours of leisure time consumed since its launch a year ago
  • 100 million games of Bejeweled Blitz are played each day
  • More than 25 million players in the first year
  • More than 3 trillion gems matched/destroyed since launch – and more than half a billion gems matched/destroyed each hour

“Bejeweled has obviously succeeded beyond our wildest dreams,” said Jason Kapalka, co-creator of the game and co-founder and chief creative officer at PopCap. “When Brian Fiete, John Vechey and I built the game ten years ago, we had no grand aspirations for it or PopCap, we were trying to survive as a company during the depths of the dot-com collapse. Little did we know we’d still be selling copies of Bejeweled a decade later!”

Originally launched in the spring of 2000 as “Diamond Mine,” ten years and more than 350 million downloads later Bejeweled has won dozens of awards, has been localized for audiences around the world and has been adapted for more than a dozen different platforms from iPhone to Xbox and even airline seatbacks. The game has actually accelerated in popularity and now sells at a rate of one copy every 4.3 seconds somewhere in the world, and has just been named The Most Popular Puzzle Game Series of the Century by the Guinness World Records 2010 Video Games Edition. PopCap and its distribution partners have recently confirmed that more than 50 million units of Bejeweled, Bejeweled 2 and Bejeweled Twist have been sold, but the game’s reach extends an order of magnitude further. Between free-to-play online versions across the internet, trial downloads, pre-installs and demo disks, an estimated half billion people have played Bejeweled in one form or another since its introduction.

Over the course of this calendar year, PopCap will introduce new installments in the Bejeweled franchise – including an all-new way to play Bejeweled Blitz, the 1-minute social adaptation of the game – as well as conducting numerous contests and promotions open to consumers of all stripes. A competition to identify and reward the very best Bejeweled Blitz players – the first such competition held around a social game – will commence later this spring. The “Show Your Bejeweled Love” contest kicking off next month will encourage fans of the game to celebrate their affinity for the original match-3 puzzler in various audio and video forms.

I personally love Bejeweled, it’s such a fun way to spend free time and is available to play from almost anywhere! Here’s to another 10 succesful years of Bejeweled!

PopCap games have kindly provided NXT Gamer with the fantastic prize of a years supply of PopCap games! Click here for details on how to win!