John Vechey of PopCap games explains how Bejewled happened:
I was in Indiana visiting family when I saw this simple solitaire game online — no animation or graphics, but I thought it was cool. So I sent an e-mail to Brian and Jason with an idea for a game, which Brian created the next day using different colored circles. Jason sent a bunch of gem graphics on Day Three, and by Day Four, Bejeweled — a really simple game where you match gems — was done.
We tried to sell it to Pogo, the online gaming site. Yahoo didn’t want it, either. We wound up making a flat-rate deal with Microsoft. It became phenomenally successful for MSN, with 60,000 users a day. But we were making only $1,500 a month.
Back then, in 2000, fans started asking for a downloadable version, because everyone was still using dial-up modems and didn’t want to tie up their phone lines. So we made one, with better graphics and sound — and charged for it. I had to convince Yahoo, MSN, and so on that people would play the free version on their sites and then download a better version for $20. And then we’d split the sale 50-50 with the host site. It was a new business model.
We launched in 2001 and made $35,000 the first month. The next month, we made $40,000. We were like, Holy crap! We’re finally making money, but it won’t last. So Brian and I hang out in Argentina and drink wine for four months. When Yahoo signed on, we moved back.
We didn’t know anything about business, so we hired consultants who said, “We’ll fix all your problems — just pay us $100,000 and give us 3 percent of your company.” That pissed us off — if you don’t play games, don’t give advice on how to make games. They did get us to hire a comptroller. Before that, my aunt was doing the bookkeeping.