News Of PopCap Games' Pending Sale As Engrossing As One Of Their Products

There's been a ton of speculation this week regarding the moves that the chronicidal geniuses at Popcap Games have been making lately, starting with the decision to not go public and deciding to sell the whole enterprise to the highest bidder instead. The current frontrunner? EA Games. The asking price? $1 billion dollars. That's nine (9) zeroes, for the record.

A lot of dithering is taking place in online media, worrying about what this means for the IPO market, or why EA Games is making this move. Frankly, our concern is about what this would mean for PopCap Games, and if it would disappear completely or if it would survive in the same way that Bungie lives on after being bought out by Microsoft.

It may seem a bit early, and overly alarmist, to be worrying about such things, but given the amount of time we have 'invested' in the products created by the Seattle-based company, you would hopefully understand (if not identify with). It started with just a couple of games of Bejeweled and grew from there to encompass each of the major titles they've come out with since then. We still shake our fist at the bastard who stole our laptop just when we were five levels away from the end of Plants vs. Zombies, and Bookworm Adventures is still a great way to kill a few hours (though it's still needed for the Mac).

If EA Games goes through with the purchase, we ask that they do as much as possible to keep the PopCap developers happy, and not mess with a good thing. The PopCap brand has come to mean fun, challenging games, possessing of a keen wit and a great sense of humor. In many ways, PopCap has become the Pixar of casual gaming and it would be a real true shame to lose that.