No longer must you be the schmuck on the block aiding kids in their quest for cavities. PopCap and the American Dental Association (ADA) have teamed up to provide access to millions of free Plants vs. Zombies codes to hand out in lieu of candy. That’s right: you can spread dental hygiene awareness without being the jerk who hands out toothbrushes. 

With PopCap’s entrance into the wide world of Plants vs Zombies merchandise, we speculated that it was only a matter of time before the casual gaming giant finally announced a sequel to its blockbuster tower defense title. PopCap’s John Vechey has joked that we’d be seeing the new sequel “sometime in the next decade”, but it looks like the official release will be on the earlier end of that spectrum: late Spring, 2013.

I’m going to say three words right now, and depending on your familiarity I should instantly be able to place you into one of two groups.  Are you ready?  Talking Tom Cat.  If this means nothing to you, congratulations: you’re living the carefree life of a childless adult.  For the rest of us though, apps like Talking Tom Cat have pretty much become routine in the life of any parent sporting a smartphone – and PopCap is looking to jump into that kid-friendly app world with the release of PvZ Presents: Talking Zombatar.

Remember when Plants vs Zombies' Crazy Dave released a hip-hop video on YouTube? Well now you can buy the track with proceeds from the sale going towards charity.

Like catchy indie rock tunes? How about mobile gaming? Then you’re going to love “Why Don’t We Do Something?,” the latest music video from Hey Geronimo.

There is no question that the phenomenon that is Angry Birds is backed by impressive numbers. The game has been downloaded over 350 million times and Rovio sells an average of 1 million t-shirts and plush toys, respectively (Techcrunch). An amusement park in China has created a real-life Angry Birds game.

And in an entertaining piece in The Atlantic, senior editor Alexis Madrigal proved he does not have an economic bone in his body by estimating that Angry Birds costs the US economy $1.5 billion a year based on what may possibly be the worse analysis I have ever read in my life.

One would think PopCap’s Plants vs. Zombies should have Angry Birds-envy, if not for the fact that Plants vs. Zombies now has its very own hip hop video.

In news that should surprise no one, but is nonetheless exciting, rumors are swirling that Popcap will be bringing two more of its popular franchises to Facebook: Plants vs Zombies and Peggle.

Techcrunch is reported a rumor that someone is close to buying PopCap Games for $1 billion. That’s right, I said it - $1 billion … dollars!

Techcrunch speculates on who the buyer may be. Rumors were that Zynga was looking very closely at PopCap but got scared off by the big price tag. There is always Electronic Arts, but with their own valuation of $5 billion, $1 billion sounds awfully high. Other good candidates are companies from Asia, especially since this has been an area of huge investment for PopCap in the past few years.

Popcap has done a brilliant job of adapting popular franchises like Bejeweled and Zuma to the Facebook format, and now the developer has announced that Plants vs Zombies will also making the social jump. Only instead of Facebook, the game will be debuting on the Chinese social network Renren.

Game developers are technologists. When we produce a game, we think first of the platform the game should run on, as we feel it's the most important aspect when designing a game.

I'm going to argue the contrary: for any casual game to be successful today, it needs to be designed to work on multiple platforms.

When you tell any casual gamer that the game their friends are talking about can be played on their office PC, but not on their iPad, they'll just simply ask "why?" If they can watch streaming movies on their TVs, computers, and even iPads, why can't they play Angry Birds online on their work PC's?