This (right) is Jason Kapalka in the early 2000s. This is the greatest video game story ever told. The archive includes images of the founders from when they were unknown teenage game nerds, forgotten black-and-white versions of Bejeweled for the Palm Pilot, and a picture of Snackers the cat, who makes Easter egg a appearances in most versions of the game.

We asked PopCap to give us all the earliest photos they had from the birth of Bejeweled. Ten years later, their company was bought by Electronic Arts in a deal worth $1.3 billion. That's how influential and powerful the Bejeweled format is.īejeweled's creators - Jason Kapalka, Brian Fiete and John Vechey - once offered to sell the franchise to Microsoft for just $50,000. The success of Candy Crush is leading King toward an IPO. Most recently, Bejeweled was copied by for Candy Crush Saga, which in turn has triggered millions more downloads. It has been played by more than 500 million people around the world, and consumed an estimated 10 billion hours of play since 2000, according to PopCap, its maker.Ībout 100 million units of Bejeweled have been sold in one form or another, throughout its history, according to PopCap founder Jason Kapalka.Īnd Bejeweled has spawned a vast array of copycat games, all based on the 'match-three' genre that Bejeweled pioneered. īejeweled has been called the 'Gone With The Wind' of games. Here's the complete history of what the creaators of Bejeweled went through before Candy Crush came along.īefore Candy Crush Saga, there was Bejeweled. That honor probably belongs to a Russian computer game from the early 1990s called Shariki, or 'the balls.' It is currently ranked 124th in Apple's App Store among free games - above Starbucks and LinkedIn, and thousands of other apps.īut even Bejeweled isn't the original match-three game. In fact, Bejeweled is still huge in mobile gaming. Most people remember that before Candy Crush, Bejeweled was the dominant casual mobile game phenomenon. Candy Crush Saga has been so successful that it has allowed its maker, King to file for an IPO.īut everyone know that the basic underlying game inside Candy Crush is not original to King.

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