GDC Online: PopCap Interview

John Vechey helped start PopCap Games in Seattle back in 2000. The maker of Plants Vs. Zombies was purchased by mega-publisher Electronic Arts in July for some $750 million. He'll be delivering a keynote at GDC Online, and we caught up with him in advance to ask a few questions…

GameSpy: Why do gamers love PopCap games?

    John: You know, when we first started, Bejewelled was kind of ragged on, because people were like, 'it's not even a game'. And we were like, 'Ah, it's pretty fun. People are playing it.' And from our side of things, we're gamers—we're making things for ourselves.

    Why do people who love good stories love Pixar? Well, because they're telling good stories. That's probably why gamers love our games and non-gamers love our games, because we're making them so that anyone can find that fun we find in it.


GameSpy: They do seem to appeal universally.

    "...there was this game that we worked on for a couple years, that was like PopCap meets NetHack."
    John: I think it's because we first focus on making games for us. And then we spend a huge amount of effort to make that fun accessible for everyone. A game that can't meet both those demands equally…we cancel. So we'll have games that we worked on for a couple years – there was this game that we worked on for a couple years, that was like PopCap meets NetHack. And it's a super-fun game for us, but we could never get everything to gel in a way where a person who doesn't play games can really get the fun out of it.


Who'd have thought such a simple concept could grow so big?
GameSpy: Should we expect larger productions from PopCap?

    John: We're always trying to do different things. Increase our production value, Bejewelled 3, which we released last year had huge production value. We did full high-def mode, multiple game modes, it was gigantic. Now, as we become more and more social – first as a platform, that scope goes down again, but only for us to increase it more and more. I don't think we'll be getting into—we're not doing Battlefield 4.



"You know, we've had a lot of interest from Hollywood."
GameSpy: Another company, Rovio, has the ambition to go transmedia. Are we going to see PopCap doing Bejewelled plushies and Plants vs. Zombies feature films?

    John: You know, we've had a lot of interest from Hollywood. We've just hired someone to explore merchandising for us. So I definitely think we're going to do more of it. "Transmedia," I think is like metrics-driven-game-design: it's like, 'okay, cool in theory, but it's not really how the world works.' So yeah, are we going to try to give our customers cool plushies if they want them? Yes. Is that our new company strategy? No, we're a game company. I think that's where we're a little different than Rovio, even, I think Rovio would admit this as well, Rovio is the Angry Birds company. Their whole focus – and they're doing an amazing job of it – is to be the Angry Birds company. And one of the best ways to do that outside of platform expansion is to kind of accent the brand with all those other things. And they've done a great job of it. You know, we made a decision a long time ago to not be the Bejewelled company. To be PopCap. To be a greater games company. And it doesn't make any one strategy better or worse, but they're definitely different.


GameSpy: You were acquired by EA. Are they going to ruin you?
"So, is EA going to f%$k it up? I don't think so..."

    John: I don't think they're going to ruin us. I think it's ours to f$1k up, I mean honestly. One of the things we liked about EA is they've done a fair amount of acquisitions in the last decade, they've screwed up a couple of them, and they've gotten a lot of them right. And more recently, their track-record of getting them right has been increasing more and more. I myself feel, my co-founders, our CEO, the executives at PopCap are just as in-charge as they were before. So, is EA going to f%$k it up? I don't think so, because really, I think it's ours to screw up. And if it gets screwed up, it's really on us.


Digital crack the whole family can enjoy!
GameSpy: You're rich now. Is it true you still drive a Prius?

    John: I actually bought a Volt in February of this year. I don't think a Volt is hippie. I think a Prius gives you more hippie cred, Volt gives me like electric car cred. I never use the gas part of the Volt. I love my Prius, though. It's one of my favorite cars.


"...the challenge that PopCap is going to have is 'how do we handle 200 million people per day playing our games?'"
GameSpy: What are you most excited about?

    John: PopCap has been a very conservative company. We've never been great at scale. And so one of things that in the future I think we're really going to have to challenge ourselves with is scale – from both a users and technology standpoint, as well as a scale from consumer marketing. So in the next five years, I think you're going to see us transform, instead of a company that has 5 million play Bejewelled Blitz per day – that's a lot of people when you compare it to your neighborhood bookstore – but I think the challenge that PopCap is going to have is 'how do we handle 200 million people per day playing our games?' That's going to be our challenge over the next five years.


GameSpy: Did we leave anything out?

    John: A lot of people ask, 'how does it feel to not own your company anymore?' or 'how is it to be rich?' And it's always a complicated answer that I don't think people have a full appreciation for. I still feel like it's my company. Except now I fell more stress, because I feel like the rest of EA is my company, too. It's one of the great things about John Riccitiello that he did, he instilled that 'hey, there's a creative leadership at this company, and you guys are part of it. Not only do we not want to screw you up, but we also want you to be a part of EA, and to help influence the rest of EA.' So I now feel like this gigantic burden to like, not let Frank Gibeau down, or the BioWare guys, or DICE. I'm like, 'wow, we've got to make sure we're bringing it—cause they are.' You know, I see Battlefield 3, and I'm so giddy about it. And I want to make sure they feel just as giddy about our stuff.



Spy Guy says: It's so refreshing to speak to a developer who hasn't had the f-word media trained out of him. John's obviously a rather switched on dude – what do you think PopCap should focus on in this EA-stage of its life?