Steam getting Pop Capped

SEATTLE, Washington – August 21, 2006 — Valve®, creators of the Steam broadband gaming platform, and PopCap Games®, the leading developer and publisher of casual games, today announced an agreement to deliver PopCap’s games via Steam.

PopCap’s titles such as Bejeweled and Zuma are benchmarks of the casual games industry; generating over 175 million downloads and three billion player minutes per month. Steam is the first full-featured broadband platform for the delivery and management of games and digital content, and has pioneered its broadband services to over 10 million customers, generating over six billion player minutes per month, with core titles such as Half-Life® 2 and Counter-StrikeTM.

“The addition of PopCap Games’ expansive library of leading casual games is an important step for the growth of Steam and direct distribution channels,” said Gabe Newell, co-founder and president of Valve. “The benefits of Steam will now be provided to a much wider group of games and game customers. PopCap games by themselves are larger by an order of magnitude than the next-gen consoles online gaming services.”

“We know that our games appeal to all gamers, and not just some narrow ‘puzzle game’ niche,” said Bryan Fiete, PopCap’s co-founder and Chief Technology Officer. “This is a great opportunity to put our content in front of a large and passionate audience. We’re thrilled to be the first casual game publisher to distribute our games via this new channel; we’re all Steam users here in the studio, and it’s going to be very cool to see our own titles up alongside such awesome content as Half-Life 2.”

Initially, 17 of PopCap’s products will be made available via Steam on August 30, 2006. Keeping with PopCap tradition, each PopCap game offered via Steam will be available for a free trial period as well as for purchase. And PopCap collection packages will also be offered.