You Could Buy a Piece of PopCap in 2011

Greg Tito

PR for Dungeons & Dragons
Sep 29, 2005
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You Could Buy a Piece of PopCap in 2011



The business minds at casual game giant PopCap are considering an initial public offering which could net millions of dollars.

The Seattle-based casual game developer has long been looking at offering the public a chance to buy a part of the company. As a privately-held company, PopCap currently gets to call its own shots, but if it decides to hold an IPO (initial public offering,) every shareholder will have a say in its "bidness" and demand ever-increasing profits. The tradeoff is that IPOs typically generate a money-bin amount of cash that the company can use to grow very quickly. Google famously made $1.67 billion in its IPO in 2004, while Zynga was recently valued at $5.51 billion if and when it were to go public. How much PopCap would be worth if it were to sell its shares to the public is still to be determined, but the fact that the company currently generates over $100 million in revenue per year sure makes it attractive to people with money to burn on the stock market. That huge pile of cash would then allow PopCap to penetrate its tendrils of Bejeweled, Plants vs. Zombies and Peggle into the souls of every person on this planet.

"We'll look at [an IPO] for the second half of next year," Dave Roberts, CEO of PopCap Games said in an interview with Forbes magazine.

He would only push the button on an IPO if the circumstances were just right. "There are no investors pushing for it, so we will really only look at it if the markets align," he continued.

An IPO would certainly give PopCap an influx of cash which it could then use to open up new studios or acquire existing outfits to make even more games. News of an IPO coupled with the announcement that PopCap is growing into the Asian market with a meta-game over its casual game library [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/105262-PopCap-to-Add-RPG-Meta-game-to-Bejeweled-in-Japan] might indicate that the developer/publisher has designs on growing even bigger.

Apparently, power level over 9,000 [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_284/8424-The-Jewel-in-PopCaps-Crown] million!

Source: Forbes [http://blogs.forbes.com/oliverchiang/2010/12/29/10-years-of-popcap-games-beyond-bejeweled/?boxes=Homepagechannels]

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therandombear

Elite Member
Sep 28, 2009
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Alpha Maeko said:
ITS OVER NINE-

Sorry, can't do it.
Good thing you didn't.

IT'S OVER NINE-THOUSAND!

I do not want Popcap to be "public", imagine: "Oh ye, we got a fantastic idea for new plants vs zombies!" "Sorry we can't do that, it didn't earn as much as we wanted it to earn, so we scrapping it, got to think about the board members/share holders."

Noes D:
 

Onyx Oblivion

Borderlands Addict. Again.
Sep 9, 2008
17,032
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I'd buy some shares.

I can't see them going down. They're doing fantastic work, and with the rise of casual gaming via Facebook, they're playing it smart with Facebook titles like Bejeweled Blitz.
 

Pumpkinmancer

The Pumpkin is our salvation!
Sep 20, 2010
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I'll buy as many as I can If they do this. It's the closest thing you'd get to (leagally) investing in addictive street drugs.
 

Eclectic Dreck

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Sep 3, 2008
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Togusa09 said:
Damn, I'm tempted. So long as the indie market doesn't bust, it'd be a good return.
I think that once a company becomes a publicly traded firm it no longer qualifies as "indie" given that the firm is no longer solely responsible for making the decisions affecting their endeavors.
 

Togusa09

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Apr 4, 2010
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Eclectic Dreck said:
Togusa09 said:
Damn, I'm tempted. So long as the indie market doesn't bust, it'd be a good return.
I think that once a company becomes a publicly traded firm it no longer qualifies as "indie" given that the firm is no longer solely responsible for making the decisions affecting their endeavors.
True. My mistake in wording, I should have said "casual". I'm not quite sure how indie popcap can be classed as even now.
 

Eclectic Dreck

New member
Sep 3, 2008
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Togusa09 said:
Eclectic Dreck said:
Togusa09 said:
Damn, I'm tempted. So long as the indie market doesn't bust, it'd be a good return.
I think that once a company becomes a publicly traded firm it no longer qualifies as "indie" given that the firm is no longer solely responsible for making the decisions affecting their endeavors.
True. My mistake in wording, I should have said "casual". I'm not quite sure how indie popcap can be classed as even now.
I think that once a company becomes a public property it could no longer be considered independent. Trying to classify a companies independent status based upon some arbitrary budget will never result in a useful classification system.
 

Togusa09

New member
Apr 4, 2010
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Eclectic Dreck said:
Togusa09 said:
Eclectic Dreck said:
Togusa09 said:
Damn, I'm tempted. So long as the indie market doesn't bust, it'd be a good return.
I think that once a company becomes a publicly traded firm it no longer qualifies as "indie" given that the firm is no longer solely responsible for making the decisions affecting their endeavors.
True. My mistake in wording, I should have said "casual". I'm not quite sure how indie popcap can be classed as even now.
I think that once a company becomes a public property it could no longer be considered independent. Trying to classify a companies independent status based upon some arbitrary budget will never result in a useful classification system.
A nice idea in theory, but a little broken. VALVe is privately owned, and so I believe are Crytek. Are they really in the same boat as small operations like Frictional and Mojang? Valve has already brought Turtle Rock. I also think that Zenimax is a private company, does that make bethesda and id games indie?

You need some way to distinguish between large, financially companies with hundreds of staff, and small ones with delicate budgets and a handful of staff. Indie is generally the word used, and whether they're publicly traded is hardly a reliable indication of status.
 

Eclectic Dreck

New member
Sep 3, 2008
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Togusa09 said:
Eclectic Dreck said:
Togusa09 said:
Eclectic Dreck said:
Togusa09 said:
Damn, I'm tempted. So long as the indie market doesn't bust, it'd be a good return.
I think that once a company becomes a publicly traded firm it no longer qualifies as "indie" given that the firm is no longer solely responsible for making the decisions affecting their endeavors.
True. My mistake in wording, I should have said "casual". I'm not quite sure how indie popcap can be classed as even now.
I think that once a company becomes a public property it could no longer be considered independent. Trying to classify a companies independent status based upon some arbitrary budget will never result in a useful classification system.
A nice idea in theory, but a little broken. VALVe is privately owned, and so I believe are Crytek. Are they really in the same boat as small operations like Frictional and Mojang? Valve has already brought Turtle Rock. I also think that Zenimax is a private company, does that make bethesda and id games indie?

You need some way to distinguish between large, financially companies with hundreds of staff, and small ones with delicate budgets and a handful of staff. Indie is generally the word used, and whether they're publicly traded is hardly a reliable indication of status.
Yes the classification System is a little bit skewed but at least it offers a concrete classification rather than something entirely arbitrary.
 

HellspawnCandy

New member
Oct 29, 2009
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I'm not sure why I like this company so much, they definitely know what they're doing and their games are so fun. PvZ for lyfe.