PopCap Games is an American video game company founded in 2000 by Jason Kapalka, John Vechey, and Brian Fiete. They originally developed games marketed for a casual audience. The success of their first game, Bejeweled, helped establish PopCap as a pioneer in the casual games industry. They were also one of the first game developers to utilize the practice of freely downloading games over the internet that could later be purchased digitally to experience the full game, although they did provide physical releases as an alternative.
PopCap has created over 70 different titles along with several franchises, including Zuma (2003), Peggle (2007), and Plants vs. Zombies (2009). The company was acquired by Electronic Arts on July 12, 2011 and have since solely focused on developing titles in the Plants vs. Zombies series.
Sexy Action Cool
2000
Designer:
Jason Kapalka
Typography:
Godzilla Faktos
Launched:
2000
The company was initially founded as a venture into the erotic poker industry. The name "Sexy Action Cool" was a reference to a poster for the film Desperado and would later become an inside joke among Kapalka.
Their logo was only used on their website and their first title, "Foxy Poker".
Sexy Action Cool ultimately failed for not being "sleazy enough" according to Kapalka, so the company switched industries and renamed to "PopCap Games".
PopCap's first logo, which was seen during the website's first year of operation and their first business cards, featured the words "Pop" and "Cap" colored red in a script-like font and stacked on top of each other over a 3-dimensional yellow bottle cap. The words "GAMES" was displayed to the right in orange text.
2001–2003
Designer:
Jason Kapalka
Typography:
Deftone Stylus
Launched:
May 30, 2001
This logo was first used when PopCap began re-developing their browser-based Java games into downloadable Windows games, first seen in Bejeweled on May 30, 2001, and last appeared on Typer Shark Deluxe in 2003. This was essentially a simplified version of their original logo, with the bottle cap being replaced by a flat yellow circle with a red outline. The "GAMES" was also changed to be displayed in red text.
2003–2007
Designer:
Unknown
Typography:
Deftone Stylus
Launched:
August 15, 2003
In 2003, the logo was metallicized, its background was changed from yellow to light blue, and the word "GAMES" was moved to the circle. The circle in this logo was also used in the 2007 logo from July 2007 to January 12, 2021. It was first used in Rocket Mania Deluxe and last used in Venice Deluxe in regular use, and saw it’s final appearance in the PlayStation 3 & PlayStation Network versions of Heavy Weapon: Atomic Tank in 2009.
2007–2016
Designer:
Mark Simonson
Typography:
Custom
Launched:
July 2007
In July 2007, the longest-lived logo of the company was introduced where the "PopCap" wordmark or text was modified. The cursive line of an "O" connecting to the second "P" is between them instead of within the "O", above portion of the first "P" is straight, letters are now rounded and the word "GAMES" was removed from the logo, leaving the "PopCap" text behind. From July 2007 to January 2016, it used a metallicized round circle with a light blue background from the 2003–2007 logo.
First being seen in the updated versions of some games (Zuma Deluxe, Feeding Frenzy Deluxe, etc.) on PC, it was subsequently used in the PlayStation 2 ports of PopCap Hits (both Volume 1 in 2007 and Volume 2 in 2008) and was last used in the primary sense on Android & iOS ports of several games (Bejeweled 2, Chuzzle, Peggle, etc.) in 2011. From 2011 onward, this was mainly used as a secondary logo.
2011–present
Designer:
Mark Simonson
Typography:
Custom
Launched:
April 2011
In April 2011, PopCap adopted a new logo, featuring simply the red wordmark in a horizontal position.
