Although PopCap has two strong performing titles - Bejeweled Blitz and Zuma Blitz - that have been regular fixtures in Facebook's top games chart since their respective launches, the purchase of ZipZapPlay is an expansion that's more strategic than may first appear. PopCap's two current Facebook games are somewhat of an anomaly, centred on short-session, real-time puzzle-based gaming, as opposed to the slower, continuous-session simulation and resource-management games that make up the bulk of activity for the top 40 games on the platform. Which is exactly where ZipZapPlay comes in useful for PopCap, given that its lead title, Baking Life, epitomises the aforementioned simulation genre. And so, this acquisition offers PopCap not just an increased userbase but the chance to gain new ground in a category within which it has little experience, yet is key to social network gaming.

Baking Life's userbase currently stands at just over 2m MAUs (monthly active users), after a peak of 6.5m MAUs in August of last year, a distinguished mid-tier performance for a studio with very few other titles under its belt. It's previous game, Happy Habitat, barely scraped the bottom end of the top 200 Facebook games at the outset of 2010, but provided the experience that helped drive Baking Life on to far superior uptake.

PopCap's revenues from social network gaming in 2010 are explored in a recent IHS Screen Digest report, available here.