PopCap and Jason Kapalka
In the early 1990’s, Jason Kapalka was writing reviews of PC games for Computer Gaming World while he attended university. He was reviewing games such as TIE Fighter and Civilization 3, when one of the editors left the company to join a start up business, Total Entertainment Network, in San Francisco. The company focused on internet gaming before it morphed into Pogo.com, changing the mission statement from “hardcore” gaming to casual card and casino games. At one point Jason was working on a Duke Nukem tournament, then suddenly he was asked to design a web version of the game Bingo, “I hadn’t set out to do casual games, but once we were on that path, I felt it was very interesting to bring a higher level of care and craftsmanship to that genre”.
While Jason was programming Bingo in San Francisco, John Vechey and Brian Fiete were in Indiana making an online shooter called ARC. Jason heard of the game and thought it was “pretty cool”. Pogo flew John and Brian out to see if they could publish this new shooter, “they were I think nineteen years old at the time, just these two goofy kids from a trailer park or something” says Jason. Pogo never published ARC, but Jason loved what this duo were doing and, quite rashly, they all quit their…
