PopCap's new venture is not about profitability

PopCap has branched into more experimental projects, launching a new label, 4^th & Battery, to allow small teams to get creative. 

The label already has one title attached, called Unpleasant Horse, the new direction is a big new opportunity for PopCap, which has traditionally stuck to high quality, but distinctly casual games.

4^th & Battery might well feature mature content (Unpleasant Horse being one), and will release games across PC and Facebook to iOS devices.

Unpleasant Horse will be available for download for free – suggesting that 4^th & Battery is not built around profitability. Comments released via press release from PopCap reinforce this:

“The PopCap brand has become closely associated with ultra-high quality, polish and attention to detail — which is a great thing. But our standard game development process is therefore long and involved, and doesn’t really accommodate all of the creativity pumping through our collective veins. 4^th & Battery gives us a way to quickly try really strange or marginal ideas, and to give our designers a safe area to hone their chops,” executive vice president of Studios and PopCap, Ed Allard, said.

So the label with be an opportunity for creativity, vision, and a useful training tool for PopCap developers into the future. It’s a great idea.