Yummy Interactive, announces its partnership with PopCap Games,  PopCap, developer and publisher of worldwide blockbusters such as Bejeweled and Peggle has selected GameShield, Yummy Interactive’s comprehensive Digital Rights Management software suite, to protect and manage the licensing of its games for distribution throughout Asia and Oceania.

“PopCap was looking for an extremely flexible, secure and cost-effective DRM solution for its expansion into the lucrative Asian market, and we are proud that they chose GameShield,” says Nick Mellios, CEO of Yummy Interactive. “PopCap is a world leader in the casual games industry. It is very important to us that they are able to protect their IP throughout Asia, while having the flexibility they need to deploy their games efficiently with their global partners.”

“To distribute our games in Asia, we needed to provide our partners with a fully localized turn-key DRM solution,” says James Gwertzman, Vice President for Asia/Pacific for PopCap Games. “Being PopCap, however, with our obsessive focus on quality, we also needed to have complete control over the user experience. We evaluated many different DRM vendors, and picked Yummy because they offered the best combination of flexibility, price, and security. It was a great decision – they have really worked hard to meet our needs, even adding some new features for us at the 11^th hour. Our first set of GameShield-wrapped games went live in Asia in early July without a hitch.”

Founded in Seattle in 2000, PopCap has a worldwide staff of over 200 people and offices in Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, Vancouver, B.C., Dublin and most recently, Shanghai. PopCap games have been downloaded more than 1 billion times by consumers worldwide and flagship title, Bejeweled, has sold more than 10 million units across all platforms.

Substantively customizable, GameShield offers an extensive Software Developers Toolkit of product licensing, management and protection features for game producers. IronWrap – GameShield’s wrapper technology - offers an array of anti-piracy protection tools, as well as built-in support for a variety of license models which include try-before-you-buy, full purchase, rental and other popular delivery methods.

GameShield also offers a “brandable” user interface that can be presented to end-users in a variety of ways, and supports multiple languages. Publishers can choose from GameShield’s HTML or Win32 templates or customize their own design.

“We developed GameShield to not only be engaging and simple-to-use for our customers, but also for their customers,” explains Mellios. “GameShield will ensure that the trial-to-purchase experience for PopCap’s customers is easy, and hassle free.”