PopCap Games had great success with Bejeweled Blitz, so it should come as no surprise that PopCap has taken their next biggest franchise social with Zuma Web Connect. Zuma Web Connect is a social version of Zuma that will only be available on PopCap.com.

“Zuma Web Connect is our latest product to blend social features such as rankings and medals into our games,” said John Vechey, PopCap co-founder and all-around gaming wizard. “While Bejeweled, Peggle and more recently Plants vs. Zombies get most of the attention, Zuma has quietly been an ongoing hit for us on all sorts of devices and in almost every corner of the world. Zuma is enormously popular in Germany and Asia, for example, and is one of the highest-rated iPod games of all time.”

PopCap’s web site must get many many visitors a day, but will Zuma Web Connect be as popular as Bejeweled Blitz that is available for all Facebook users to play and challenge their friends? Guess we will have to wait and see if the game stays exclusive to PopCap’s web site or moves over to Facebook as well. Even though the game is only available on PopCap’s site, players are able to login to Facebook to see their friends scores on the game and to win medals. Seems they have kept the traffic on their site, but used Facebook connect features to extend the social angle of the game.

Press Release Follows:

SEATTLE, Washington – July 13, 2009 — PopCap Games, the leading developer and publisher of casual games, today announced the beta launch of Zuma® Web Connect, a “social” version of its massively popular action puzzle game Zuma. Available only on PopCap.com, Zuma Web Connect combines the familiar fun of Zuma with the power of Facebook’s social interaction, challenging players to score as many points as possible to earn medals and outscore their friends. Bejeweled Blitz, a 1-minute social version of PopCap’s flagship franchise on Facebook, reached 5 million monthly users during a six month beta phase completed last month. Zuma is PopCap’s second most popular title after Bejeweled, with more than 17 million units sold across a dozen platforms and devices since it debuted in 2003. Zuma Web Connect is available now exclusively at http://fb.popcap.com/online-games/zuma/index.php.

“Zuma Web Connect is our latest product to blend social features such as rankings and medals into our games,” said John Vechey, PopCap co-founder and all-around gaming wizard. “While Bejeweled, Peggle and more recently Plants vs. Zombies get most of the attention, Zuma has quietly been an ongoing hit for us on all sorts of devices and in almost every corner of the world. Zuma is enormously popular in Germany and Asia, for example, and is one of the highest-rated iPod games of all time.”

Since launching in late 2003, Zuma has garnered dozens of awards along with praise from industry icons including Tetris creator Alexei Pajitnov and Bill Gates. Over 225 million copies of Zuma have been downloaded from the Web, accounting for nearly a quarter of the 1 billion-plus downloads of all PopCap® titles. More than 17 million copies have been sold across all platforms, amounting to $200 million in consumer spending over the history of the game. Further, consumers have played almost 4 billion hours of Zuma since it debuted five and a half years ago.