Bejeweled celebrates 10 years of addictive gaming

Next to Tetris, Bejeweled from Pop Cap is easily one of the most addictive game in history. So, it's no surprise that publisher PopCap is celebrating the gem-swapping games' --and its many iterations --10-year anniversary.

In honor of this milestone, PopCap says it will introduce an "all new way" to play Bejeweled Blitz this year, and in March, hold a 'Show Your Bejeweled Love' contest, where fans will profess their love via video or audio. PopCap will also have a hold a "community-wide competition" for Bejeweled Blitz, which will reward the best players of this one-minute version of the game on Facebook and iPhone. We were hoping they would pull an Oprah and give away real jewels to all of the fans. One can dream, amirite?

Bejeweled has also sold more than 50 million units, making it one of the top 10 best-selling games of all time, and continues to sell a copy of the game every 4.3 seconds.

Other fun factoids about the Bejeweled series:

- Bejeweled was originally called Diamond Mine
- Bejeweled has 350 million downloads
- Half a billion people have played a Bejeweled game since launch
- Dubbed 'Most Popular Puzzle Game Series of the Century' in Guinness World Records 2010 Video Games Edition

We're curious to see what other big changes will be coming to Bejeweled Blitz, especially since PopCap just rolled out coins and boosts for this version of the game a few weeks ago.