Plants vs Zombies 2 "is the biggest release ever for Popcap", says CEO

According to PopCap CEO Dave Roberts, free-to-play, iOS-exclusive sequel Plants vs Zombies 2 is PopCap's largest launch to date.

"It’s a big release. It is the biggest release for PopCap," the executive told GeekWire.

It's not clear if Roberts means the project used more resources to develop than any preceding release, or whether it's the most successful launch to date, but later comments suggest the latter is quite possible, depsite little promotion or fanfare.

"So far so good. The numbers are looking awesome, and the Apple promo hasn’t event kicked in yet," he said.

"The fact that we hit number one in the app store charts, based purely on - I mean there’s nothing, seriously. I don’t think anyone at EA has seen anything go up that fast to the top downloads.

"By 6AM this morning, it was already at number one. Literally, between 5AM and 6AM. My guess, by lunch today, we will have hit the same number of downloads that it took us five months to hit in the first version. It probably took us close to a year to hit that number on the PC.”

That's quite a validation for PopCap's decision to go free-to-play; the full interview through the link above contains some discussion of the business model.

Plants vs Zombies went global last week after enjoying a soft launch in Australia and New Zealand in early July.

Thanks, Joystiq.