The Fabulous Facebook App from PopCap Games, which has just made it out of Beta, has quickly become quite the phenomenon. As a pressure cooking, one-minute version of the original incredibly popular Bejeweled, Bejeweled Blitz has created a highly competitive (at least on my team) social community unto itself in just the 6 short months since it’s December ‘08 debut.

“One-minute Bejeweled was initially an in-house joke,” said Jason Kapalka, PopCap’s chief creative officer, “because who’d think anyone would play a ‘casual’ game with such a frenzied time limit? But it turned out the one-minute timer actually made the game more accessible, as a bite-size entertainment for people busy doing other things on Facebook.”

John Vechey, PopCap’s head of online and social projects, added, “The social nature of the game felt like the missing link. Playing Bejeweled on your own was always fun, but playing with and against family and friends takes it to another level.”

“Social gaming is a catalyst for growth in the games market and in social network services,” said Billy Pidgeon, video games analyst at Game Changer Research. “Giving consumers more communal and connected ways to enjoy video game content with their ever-growing online networks drives awareness and usage of the game in question while also making the gameplay experience itself richer and more compelling. Accessible and entertaining games on social networks are in effect massively multiplayer experiences that appeal to everyone.”

I am proud to say that I certainly am one of the 2 million players that compete daily. It’s been sweet to see how the game has evolved, adopting new features as we kept on playing. Now, in an effort to make it more social and competitive, they have added stats, which show each player’s medal collections, a timeline of high scores from each weekly tournament, and they even show both players’ scores on the graph, so everyone can see how they match up to their team-mates. It really is a very accessible way to play, one minute is nothing, right (until there are suddenly 48 – or 75 – of them strung together)? I can’t get enough. In fact, I think I’ll go send some smack talk now…

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