News
PopCap Games And Taito Launch Pop Tower
Thursday 19th May in the year of our Lord 2011 - PopCap Games, worldwide leader in casual and social games, and TAITO Corporation (TAITO®), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd today launch Pop Tower™ on GREE, Inc., Japan’s largest social network with 25 million users.
PopCap has already sold more than 1 million units of its single player mobile games in Japan, but Pop Tower firmly marks PopCap’s arrival into the mobile social gaming space. Pop Tower launches with a custom-built social adaptation of PopCap’s flagship global game brand Bejeweled® - with Chuzzle® and Zuma® due to follow shortly. The Pop Tower editions of PopCap classics feature all-new game modes and social elements that allow Japanese users to interact with friends. The service is tied together with an all-new metagame with RPG elements that sees players rescue PopCap’s beloved game characters to restore beauty to the land.
This new game service is the first product released under the supervision of PopCap’s Tokyo office, and is representative of PopCap’s vibrant global strategy, which has generated major announcements in APAC in the past 12 months. These include a strategic partnership with one of China’s largest social networking sites, Renren, as well as an agreement with NCsoft, leading provider of online games, to bring PopCap's first online multiplayer game service, PopCap® World, to Korea.
A veteran of the game business from the earliest days of the arcade industry, TAITO has made a seamless transition to the mobile, connected world of today. TAITO was one of the first major game companies to enter the burgeoning mobile social game market, releasing more than a half dozen successful titles to date. James Gwertzman, PopCap's Vice President for Asia/Pacific, said:
Many of us grew up playing Taito games, so we’re especially delighted to partner with Taito to launch Pop Tower. The results of the collaboration are everything we expect from a PopCap game – it’s innovative, creative, and a bit quirky too. Pop Tower is undoubtedly one of the most exciting projects we’ve worked on to date, and I’m particularly proud that our Japanese team managed to bring it to market on schedule despite the devastating effects of the recent earthquake.
PopCap – along with flagship franchise Bejeweled - is widely regarded as a founding father of the casual games industry. Over the past 10 years, the company has solidified its reputation as a games pioneer by innovating new game genres. PopCap is one of the few game developers/publishers that has successfully adapted itself to an ever-increasing variety of new gaming platforms and technologies.
Mr. Akihito Shoji, TAITO's Senior Vice President of Content, said:
"I'm thrilled and excited to see Pop Tower go live. Pop Tower represents an elegant fusion of PopCap's world-renowned titles and TAITO's refined and market-proven social gaming know-how, and I believe the service will fully live up its promise, delivering a fresh and appealing experience to users throughout Japan."