PopCap Games(TM) to Sponsor New Casual Game Award at Slamdance 2006 Gamemaker Awards Night Gala

PopCap Games(TM) to Sponsor New Casual Game Award at Slamdance 2006 Gamemaker Awards Night Gala

Leading Developer/Publisher of Casual Games to Select Top Casual Game From 70+ Entries

SEATTLE, Dec. 14 /PRNewswire/ -- PopCap Games(TM), the leading developer and publisher of casual games for Web, PC/Mac, mobile phones and other digital entertainment platforms, today announced that it has signed an agreement with the organizers of the Slamdance 2006 independent film festival, to be a primary sponsor of the event's Gamemaker Awards Night. At the same time, PopCap and the Slamdance Festival announced the addition of a new "Best Casual Game" award to the event's Guerilla Gamemaker Competition. Senior members of PopCap's game design and development teams will serve as judges for the new award category and will present the award to the developer whose submitted work best demonstrates the virtues of a successful casual game: simple, addictive, and fun. The grand prize winner will be considered for worldwide publication under the PopCap label. More information on Slamdance 2006, being held January 19 - 27, 2006 in Park City, Utah, can be found at www.slamdance.com. (PopCap's free casual game framework, which accelerates the development for any game, is available at http://developer.popcap.com/ .)

"The casual game market may be the most exciting and creative segment of the overall game industry right now, and since Slamdance is such a hotbed of creativity we're pleased to be helping the festival organizers expand the event further in this direction," said James Gwertzman, Director of Business Development at PopCap. "It was just a few years ago that PopCap was a three-person outfit working from an attic room, so the opportunity to acknowledge the company's roots and support the next wave of independent game developers is a very satisfying one. We're really looking forward to identifying and rewarding the top independently-developed casual games of the past year."

"As the leading developer and publisher of casual games, PopCap is the perfect choice to sponsor and judge the new casual games competition at Slamdance," said Sam Roberts, manager of the Slamdance Guerilla Gamemaker Competition. "PopCap's track record, focus on quality, and brain trust of in-house talent means they're extremely qualified to judge this new competition."

In addition to publishing their own internally-developed games, PopCap also publishes third-party games from independent casual game developers, such as the recently-launched Bonnie's Bookstore(TM) from New Crayon Games. PopCap's support of independent game developers also includes a framework, freely available at http://developer.popcap.com/ , which dramatically speeds up the development time for new games. This is the same framework that PopCap itself uses to produce its own award-winning games. "By allowing game developers to focus their efforts where it really counts, on making the game itself instead of having to start from scratch every time, we hope to unlock even more creativity and innovation in this exciting segment of the market," said Brian Fiete, co-founder and Chief Technical Officer of PopCap.

PopCap's senior game design and development staffers will spend a total of more than five weeks playing, evaluating and debating the merits of the games submitted for this year's competition, ultimately picking the one that they feel would best appeal to the casual game audience. Specifically, the judging of submissions will be based on three primary areas: simplicity, addictive core game-play, and overall fun. PopCap senior executives will also be on hand to present the grand prize to the winner of the competition as part of the Gamemaker Awards Night taking place at Slamdance on the evening of Tuesday, January 24, 2006.

The casual games sector -- comprising family-friendly puzzle, word, trivia and arcade-style games -- has experienced tremendous growth in recent years. More than 100 million consumers now play such games on a regular basis and according to industry research firms approximately 53 percent of those players are female and two thirds are over age 35. While the casual games sector has ballooned to projected revenues of more than $500 million in 2005, many of the most innovative games in the category are still created by small teams of developers working independently of large publishers.

About Slamdance

Started in 1995 by a group of upstart filmmakers, Slamdance Film Festival is a year-round organization dedicated to emerging artists and their vision. Slamdance has established a unique reputation for premiering independent films by first-time directors working with limited budgets. At the same time, the Festival has stayed true to its roots by being organized and programmed by active filmmakers. Slamdance films have been picked up for distribution, invited to festivals around the world, won Independent Spirit Awards, the Palme d'Or and an Academy Award, among many other accolades. Slamdance Film Festival alumni include "Batman Begins" and "Memento" director Christopher Nolan (festival award winner "Following"), the Emmy Award winning Russo Brothers ("Pieces"), and "Finding Neverland" and "Monster's Ball" director Marc Forster (festival audience award winner "Loungers"). The 2005 Slamdance opening night film "Mad Hot Ballroom" was acquired by Paramount Classics.

Slamdance has successfully established year-round ventures including the Screenplay Competition, Best Of Screenings in the U.S., Festival events in China and Poland, the Anarchy Online Film competition, the Dirty Dozen DVD Series (currently in its 7th volume), and short film productions dubbed $99 Specials. In 2004, Slamdance launched a teleplay competition in conjunction with fox21, the Guerilla Gamemaker Competition, and the Slamdance Media Group, a company comprised of distribution, development and talent-management units.

Now entering its second year, the Slamdance Guerilla Game Competition exists to recognize and reward the innovative and exciting work being done by independent game designers, programmers, and artists. The Competition features Grand Jury and Audience prizes. This year Slamdance has added the PopCap Casual Game award and two Student Awards to the competition. The 2006 Slamdance Film Festival is presented by Kodak and fox21.

About PopCap

PopCap Games (www.popcap.com) is the leading provider of casual games in the world. Based in Seattle, Washington, PopCap was founded in 2000 by three friends from the online games industry, and has grown tremendously in the past five years. PopCap's games have been downloaded more than 150 million times, and its flagship title Bejeweled(R) has sold more than 5 million units across all major platforms. PopCap games are available for Web, PC and Mac, videogame consoles, cell-phones, PDAs and other mobile devices, in-flight on leading airlines, and more.

NOTE: PopCap and PopCap Games are trademarks, and Bejeweled is a registered trademark, of PopCap Games, Inc. New Crayon and Bonnie's Bookstore are trademarks of New Crayon Games, LLC. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners, without intent to infringe.

Source: PopCap Games

CONTACT: Garth Chouteau of PopCap Games, +1-415-602-8147, or
garth@popcap.com; or Sam Roberts of Slamdance, +1-323-466-1786, or
sam@slamdance.com

Web site: http://www.popcap.com/

-------
Profile: intent