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Gaming the System Success in game development and knowing when to quit landed PopCap $22.5 million.

By Gwen Moran

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Gaming the System

John Vechey has more than 240 employees, and sometimes he has to crush their souls. The affable co-founder of PopCap Gamesisn't heartless, it's just that for PopCap to be the "Pixar of the gaming world"--continuing to produce multiplatform hits such as the blockbuster Bejeweled, which has sold more than 25 million copies--you have to cancel a lot of projects that don't measure up, even if staffers have been devoted to them for a long time.

"We canceled a title that was in development for three years," Vechey says. "It all goes back to 'Is it fun?' Every game has got to be a great game. If it's not, we'd rather cancel it.

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